Your Sesame Street Era

[MuppetDude]

Um, because Yoda sounds a little like Grover?

 

[Chris Von Count]

Noggin is no longer showing the older SS shows.

Man that sucks

 

[BillKal]

I probably watched SS from 1974-1984 or 85.

 

[Erine81981]

Watching it all my life as well expect for the 99-2002 probley. But I would say that I watch it all the way from 1983-1995 or so. Loved every bit of it. But yea I say I stoped around when they stopped showing during the days. I would get home from school and watch it around 5 to 6 and then it stopped showing around those times and only showed around 7 and 11 in the morning. And then the newer episodes started and I wanted to see what they were all about. So now I watch when I get a chance or record them so I can see any of the newer episodes that I missed of last year.

 

[furshur]

Man! I keep accidently changing the page on my computer when I'm typing a reply and I have to start over. Here goes.

I watched SS throughout the 70's, some 80's, and a bit in the 90's. I would definately call my era the 70's. I had the tv schedules memorized and watch every show I could. On each day every showing was the same episode, but I didn't care. In Jr. High I remember some girls making fun of me for wearing a Kermit the Frog watch. I just now figured out why, I didn't know it was geeky to like SS in JHS. When I was babysitting, I watched with those kids, when I had a daughter I watched it with her.

 

[Erine81981]

Man! I keep accidently changing the page on my computer when I'm typing a reply and I have to start over. Here goes.

I watched SS throughout the 70's, some 80's, and a bit in the 90's. I would definately call my era the 70's. I had the tv schedules memorized and watch every show I could. On each day every showing was the same episode, but I didn't care. In Jr. High I remember some girls making fun of me for wearing a Kermit the Frog watch. I just now figured out why, I didn't know it was geeky to like SS in JHS. When I was babysitting, I watched with those kids, when I had a daughter I watched it with her.

Just to ask. What is your avatar of? I just now looked and couldn't tell expect for Big Bird's foot. Could you share the picture please?

 

[furshur]

I know I should change it. It is a picture of Jon Stewart in Elmopaloza.
I'm a huge fan. Of Jon Stewart.http://jon.happyjoyfun.net/pics_ae/elmo.html

 

[Erine81981]

Oh I love that guy. He's funny. Thats one of my favorite secnes from Elmopaloza.

 

[splitenz]

My Sesame "Era"

I was born in 1972, and I am told that we always had Sesame on the TV, since we had access to public television even then (and not much else). I remember playing sick in kindergarten so that I could stay home, then waiting for my mom to go back to bed so I could sneak back downstairs and watch Sesame (very quietly). I wasn't very stealth, and I got caught.

I have been looking at the YouTube clips, and I recognize every one from the 70s and early 80s. I must have watched a lot of Sesame! I remember tuning in now and then during the 80s and 90s, depending on the age of my younger cousins, and I always got sucked right back in, regardless of my own age.

Now I have a three year-old, and we have watched Sesame daily since she was about 15 months old. We never miss it, and we have tons of official SS videos as well.

As for my era, it would have to be the early- to mid-70s, as that has the nostalgia factor for me. Not to mention, the show was targeted to an older audience (maybe 6 yr-olds?) and it just seemed smarter and more "street."

As a relatively new Mommy, I have recently been overtaken by this externally-imposed obsession with getting my girl into the "right preschool" for NEXT FALL (6 months away). There are fees, applications, AUDITIONS and all kinds of crazy hoops to jump through. I can truthfully say that I have invested more thought, effort and money into getting her into a preschool than I put into finding, applying to, and being accepted into, colleges as a teenager.

I asked my mom what she did all those years ago. She said that they didn't have any local preschools. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as we didn't have the money. But that was ok, beause we had Sesame Street.

 

[JLG]

Born in '82, so my memories of SS would start around '85 or '86. Honestly, though, my memories don't get specific until '89 or so---I seem to remember quite a few stories from that period. I was actively seeing it all the time up through '92 or so, and so was around to see the theme song change. I never did stop watching, really. I always kept tabs on it out of casual fondness, catching it when I could. At one point in eighth grade ('96-'97) I was watching it most days when I got home--again just out of casual interest. So I didn't really miss any major changes. My casual fondness turned to strong interest in '99 when I saw some '70s eps at the TV Museum in NYC---I had never realized until then just how the tone had changed over time, and what a fun show it was. And seeing the '70s eps was sort of surreal---here was basically the same show that I knew as a kid, but grittier, more wisecracky, and unabashedly dated. Like seeing a familiar world through a slightly distorted lens. I'd found out at age 6 that SS had started in 1969 and had wanted to see what it was like then, but hadn't gotten the chance to find out before. I catch it when I can, now, (which isn't often) just to keep on top of it.

So I would count myself in the "middle period". Kids born after about 1995 or so would only remember the newer formats and Elmo's World, but kids in the 80s and early '90s were still seeing a lot of 15 and 20-year-old recycled films. I'm not going to knock the new format on its own terms. It is what it is, and it probably does teach kids better than the old one, but I still think it's too bad that just when the earliest SS viewers are getting to the point when they're having kids in large numbers, they're deprived of the experience of watching it with their kids and reexperiencing familiar memories. That would have been nice....