Your Sesame Street Era

[letterman]

Like Fuzzygobo, I was born in '68, and I'm from NJ (go figger). Anyways, thanks to my older brother, I was probably watching Sesame Street all the way back in 1969. SS is part of my earliest memories.

I'm not sure when my SS viewing waned...probably in the late 70's.

 

[pkcckp]

Re:

1971-83 rules!!

 

[redBoobergurl]

Wow, I guess I missed this thread somehow! Anyway, I was born in 1981 and probably started watching Sesame Street in 1983. I watched all the way through the 80's until about 1990. Then I was pretty busy with stuff at school so I didn't see the first couple of years of the 1990's. I started watching again alot in the summers of 1993-96 when I babysat my cousins. Now I'm lucky when I get to see an episode, but I do my best to catch a couple of each new season to see what's changed and whatnot. I still think it was better in the 80's though.

 

[Crazy31088]

1988-1991, and 1996-1998. I was born in 1988, and watched regularly until I first saw Placido Flamingo. I ran screaming from the room. That settled it for me. I refused to watch it after that because every time I tuned in, eventually he came on (my typical bad luck)....I have no idea if this is just a colored memory, but it did seem that every time I watched in 1990 or 1991, he came on. That was scary, and I would have no more of it. (However, I did not grow up entirely without SS in my early days-I had a couple of tapes that I knew were OK, including the Put Down the Duckie sketch, "Bedtime Stories and Songs", "Sing Yourself Silly", the tape of big Bird at the hospital, and some episode from 1990 or so with Andrea Martin).

Flash forward to 1996. I was a weird kid with mental illness who spent all his time watching TV. Somehow, I don't remember how, I got hooked on watching (and taping!) Sesame Street every day. That's how it was all through 3rd and 4th grades. Unfortunately, I did not forsee this phase, so I'd already (by this point) erased the recorded (not pre-recorded) tapes I'd watched in toddlerhood, which I kicked myself for doing (I still do). Thus why I've always been looking for that mysterious Andrea Martin episode. However, it was around this time that I found my tape with the partial episodes from 1989 that I've mentioned before, that satisfied me for a while.

Anyway, I bought the Put Down the Duckie VHS in Nov. 1996, not knowing that Placido Flamingo was on it. Once I found out, I got over that fear and watched it every day from then on, until 1998. And let me tell you, I thought those episodes were pretty cool, especially the ones with flashbacks, like 3611, where Leo Birdelli wants to buy Mr. Hooper's picture, and a later one where Big Bird, Gabi, and Maria organize photos, which leads to flashbacks of Maria and Luis's wedding, and Gabi's birth (I taped this one back in the day, but taped over it...I'm still looking for it). Though I liked the newer episodes, what I really wanted to see was the older ones (thus my obsession with the aforementioned two episodes).

But the show seemed to change beyond recognition at about this point, and I was starting middle school, so I finally stopped watching. But I was still interested in older episodes, which is why I was so psyched when we finally got Noggin in early 2002. I taped all the Unpaved episodes I could before they finally took them off the air (and somehow, I lost one of those tapes...UGH! I have bad luck with videotapes).

Sorry for being long winded.

 

[dvakman]

I was born in 1976, and probably started watching the series in late 1977, although I doubt that I'd be able to remember any episodes before 1979.

I stopped watching regularly around 1983, so you might say I was one of the last of the purely "Hooper era" viewers. I remember wondering why he was appearing so infrequently in that last year or so. I continued to catch a show every once in a while through the 1980s because my younger sister was watching it, although it wasn't the same for me with no Hooper, an unfit David, the Kevin Clash version of Elmo and unfamiliar characters like Gina and Uncle Wally. They still continued to play a lot of the great old clips through the 80s, though...

Fast forward to 2002, when I finally get access to the Noggin channel and am able to view the old episodes again (for a while). I immediately became a collector and continue to trade to this day, although I mostly concentrate on the episodes from 1969-1983. I don't really watch the current show at all.

 

[Larcen Tyler]

I was watching in the early 80s, and I'd briefly sneak looks at it during the early 90s in hopes of seeing the Dance School short, which I actually managed to do once, and another time I saw bits of it.

Unfortunately, there's no way I'll be able to see the movement group thing that I'm looking for.

 

[cookiemark]

Born in 1968, the early years were the BOMB!!

 

[BooberFraggless]

I guess I should make a correction to my original post. As I said I watched the show religiously from 1984-1994. I didn't watch the show at all from 1994-1998, with a few exceptions. When Slimey's Spaceship took off for the moon I got into the show again, and started taping the shows while I was at school and watching them when I got home. I even go to see a few pre Slimey Moon shows from the same season, like the one when Big Bird wants to change his name. The next year Hooper's Store Changed Color, and Alan took over and Mr. Hanford was gone, and Elmo's World started taking up 15 minutes of the show, but I still continued to tape the episodes every day, because they still were airing a few classic clips. The next year they began getting rid of a lot of the classic stuff, and the old stuff they did show was now updated. I still taped the shows, but started to loose interest in them big time. Not too long after the 2000 Season debut, we got Noggin, and I got to watch all these old shows, and some that were before I was even born. So naturally, I stopped watching, and taping the PBS shows because at this point they seemed worthless to me. Once the new Format Started in 2002, it really was upsetting for a classic fan. Now I only watch about 5 shows or so every year, even though SS Unpaved is gone. So I guess you could say I had a broken era 1984-1994 and 1998-2000

 

[jeffkjoe]

Born in 1968, the early years were the BOMB!!

I agree!

The SESAME STREET early years were probably the best time to watch the show, because things were still fresh and the show was still focusing on the whole "inner-city" thing.

Nowadays, everything is so sterile and watered-down. Not that it's BAD, it's just not as good as it used to be.

 

[dvakman]

Great point, Jeff. The modern day SS set is sterile and the bright color scheme makes it look exactly like what it really is: the backdrop for a kid's show. Back in the 70s, the look was grittier and they had city sound effects in the background to enhance the effect. That Unpaved opener from 1973 or so that shows the busy day in Sesame Street with David catching a balloon, street vendors, tons of kids running around, and NOISE everywhere... now THAT was Sesame Street.