Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 37

[DTWolf]

The Jelmo Show

Yay Sesame Street!!
- for integrating the letter of the day with the street segment (as they did with the honeymoon H episode). All too often the "letter of the day" is totally detached from everything else in the show and has no meaning.
- for writing the J words on the screen, and for showing how changing Elmo to Jelmo means a different letter is capitalized. They don't say a word about it, but just the sight will help kids learn capitalization somewhere down the road.
- for finding a more interesting way to teach a Spanish word/phrase of the day. The Baby Bear and Rosita contrast is so much more entertaining than yet another monotonous Rosita "That's the Spanish word of the day!" segment.
- for yet another new and different Count Number of the Day segment. They didn't stop at inventing a new format for this season, they are giving us several different ways the Count can introduce the number. Double Yay for this.
- for Sesame Street Dinner Theatre. "Man of La Muncha" was good, and this skit series has real potential. I hope this and the Hamlet parody aren't the only two.

Boo Sesame Street!!
- for focusing on Elmo AGAIN in the street segment and giving him STILL MORE screen time. Come on, people! He doesn't deserve his own twenty-minute "world" AND a monopoly on the street scenes!
- for ever making, and worse for airing again, that hideous Aaron Neville butchering of "Don't Want to Live on the Moon." (I'm still furious that they put this version on the Songs From the Street CD collection and not the beautiful, wonderful original.)

Nnn. . . Sesame Street ["Nnn" being the noise of ambivalence]
- for airing the animated lion version of "Dance Myself to Sleep" instead of the original Ernie version. The lion version isn't as good, and the original is brilliant and spectacular . . . but the lion version isn't awful. I don't hate it, unlike many other remakes. For a remake of a wonderful song that shouldn't be remade, this is all right. And it gets points in my book for taking the risk of adding "sexy-legged" sheep; contemporary Sesame Street tends to be far too sanitized and unwilling to employ the irreverence so characteristic of Jim Henson.

 

[Big Bird Fan]

The fact that Spanish and Sign Language Word of the Day haven't been used so far.

The Spanish Word of the Day was used in the second episode of this season. It was a repeat of Teacher Grover saying the word escuela.

 

[Big Bird Fan]

Today's episode would've been fine if it stared anyone besides Elmo (Or should I say Jelmo). He already had an episode on Monday, let's use another character for a change.

I really wish they'd use the Bert and Ernie version of "Dance myself to sleep". I just don't like that animated version as much. But at least we got "I don't want to live on the moon" today. (Yeah, it wasn't the original version, but I still liked it well enough.)

Glad to see Spanish word of the day again. I has missed that. It was nice to see them change it up a little, which is more than I can say for letter of the day...even number of the day has been changing it up this season.

They overdid the healthy stuff today, but I did enjoy Man of La Muncha.

Let's hope Friday's episode is lite on Elmo.

 

[The Count]

*Running in... Sorry I'm late guys, lots of posts to catch up on.
Big Bird Fan, sorry... Just that today's was the first Spanish Word segment I've seen, missed out on 4110 cause of a blackout that morning.
Forgot, they used the ballet alphabet in 4116.

Episode 4117: Elmo's J-Day.
Where to begin? Elmo pops up and greets Alan, he says his name is Jelmo today because the letter J is the letter of the day. He then jumps off on his way to find more stuff that starts with the letter J.
Alan: Looks like this will be an interesting day... Or should I say, "J".
Oh, you get a double misdemeanor for that veiner.
*Points to whoever gets the MST3K reference here.

Elmo jumps off to the Fix-It-Shop and finds María fixing a toaster. Elmo's disappointed that toaster doesn't start with J and asks if she has anything that does. Toaster, radio, roller skates, nope no J stuff.
Good that there was more than just the toaster, that'll help make the Fix-It-Shop grow in its usefulness again.

This AM comes in and wants to have his juicer fixed.
Juice Lovers Club Member: Is this a Fix-It-Shop? Good, I've been looking for one, you just don't find them any more.
Yes... That's why we're happy it's back.

So what's wrong with the juicer? It won't make juice, and the man has to get to the Juice Lovers' Club meeting.
María picks an apple and puts into the juicer, pressing the button or pulling the lever, and she gets jitterbug music instead.
Of course, the juicer and jitterbug music, not to mention the Jitterbug that shows up later, make Jelmo extremely happy.

He jumps off to the Birdkeeter meeting where Mary Scot and her lamb are special guests for their nursery rhyme reading.
Jelmo says that it can't be Mary and her little lamb because it doesn't start with J.
Mary changes her name to Jenny for just the segment mind you, and then the lamb leaves in a humph when she tries to replace it with "jam" in the rhyme.
Of course, a jar of jam then shows up and says it was stuck in a traffic jam. The rhyme comes across quite well, ending in a jiggle dance.

Jelmo is seen jumping, tired now...
Alan: Why don't you rest for a while Jelmo?
It doesn't start with J, does it?
Alan: Then why don't you "Just" rest?
Good thinking there shopkeep.

Mary Scot was voiced by Fran, not as deep as her original Scottish accent should be though.
And then the Juice Lovers' Club guy, Jitterbug, and Mary's lamb are all seen dancing when the guy says he doesn't want the juicer fixed.

Highlights:
1 Animated remake of "Dance Myself To Sleep".
Sexy-legged sheep? Were they female? Please, tell me more.
2 Spanish Word: This was a new variation... Luis was narrating how Baby Bear and Rosita say good night and buenas noches.
The sketch ends with both saying "Buenas Noches" before falling asleep.
This was clever reinventing of the Spanish Word segment. Not to mention it gave me some wrm fuzzies from our days at the dorms.
*Hi Bry.
3 Film segment with I guess some Latin kids saying "Buenas Noches" to their parents.
*Small soft cry, made me think of my childhood.
4 Letter of the Day: J, repeat where Cookie's trying to get the jumping J cookie. So he jumps along until it's tired and stops.
5 Jumpin' J Animals dance. I like this one, but sadly, it's all we ever get when there's so many more J segments we could get.
6 Sesame Street Dinner Theater: The Man of La Muncha.
Good News/Bad News thoughts on this sketch.
Bad News: They didn't use the parody to it's full potential.
More on that at the end of this post.
Good News: The song!! The Incredible Meal! Oh man, I was so blown away by how vonderfully well they did this.
Best new song to me at least! Parodies don't always have to go for making fun, sometimes it can be just for musical purposes like past SS hits suggest.
7 Super Wendy segment... Not that thrilled about the segment overall... Eh, goes in the same non-plus folder with Traction Jackson.
8 "Don't Want To Live On The Moon", agreed the Aaron Neville version turned me off once I heard it. Someone wanna turn off the Aaron Neville monkey megaphone? Thanks.
But at least was a great song airing again, and at least it was still Jim's Ernie singing.
9 Poem: "Night" recited by a young girl. This I liked, speaks to my nocturnal preferences...
10 Global Grover: Jordan, repeat of the banana leaf baskets. Still funny to see him slip and fall on the peels.
11 Segment with Bernie Broccoli and Anthony, a kid about his favorite vegetable.
Sorry kid, but you must be a robot... *Tiny Toons reference there.
12 The Count... Oh! New segment again! Vonderful!
We got Jerry's soft announcer voice, as the Count was putting his ball out of a sandtrap at the Transylvania Open golf tournament.
He was on the ninth green, and natch, took him nine strokes.
Count: I love this game.
Yes... But he has a terrible handicap. That's why he'll never be par for the corpse!
*Cryptkeeper cackling!
13 Number 9 Rap, where they tell us about nine things that 9 can do... Now I'm done rapping, how about you?
14 Segment with these people, unsure if they were animated or live actors, at what sounded like a subway area just each counting up to 9.
15 Elmo's World: Jumping, repeat from last year.
16 Trash Gordon: Planet Screechy Violins.
This was funny and good, especially when he pulled out the baton to make the grouches play their violins as well as they could instead. And if you noticed, they were playing a violin/classical version of the SS theme. Good, we don't get that that often these days.

Lowpoints:
1 Fruit Dance!!! Need we say more?
2 This is the second straight year an episode has been sponsored by J and 9, but at least we got a new TG segment instead of a repeat of the Muddy Muddons.
3 Man of La Muncha: They didn't use it to its parodical full potential.
It should've gone the full 9-yards (ah ha!) and parodied the characters straight from the greatest literary masterpiece of the Spanish language, "El Noble Hidalgo, Don Quixote De La Mancha".
These are just some ideas that came to my mind for how they could've done it...

Don Crilliote: Crillio meaning "of one's own country", though it's used more generally among Puerto Ricans.
AM with lavender grayish round head, more gray than lavender, think of Pops or Dr. Nobel Price.
Open or sleepy eyes, round light orange nose, white tufts over his round ears and mustache.
Dressed in a flat-pressed white shirt, darkened dress pants and fine loafer bread shoes. He would have ringlets of flaky fritter batter around the cuffs of his shirt's sleeves, a golden bread bowl helmet, and some Spanish accents to his wardrobe.
Squatchmo Manzana: Big-bellied male AM, more sort of elder boyish.
Brown curly hair, wide eyes, round red nose.
Dark red puffy shirt so it covers his big belly, couple of green leaves around the collar, light leather brown sash across the shirt, dark jeans and roughened barklike shoes.
Rosetanante: This would be Don Crilliote's legendary white horse, with popcorn strings in its mane of hair. White horse Muppet with saddle, ornate pink rose designs on the saddle, and popcorn strings throughout its own hair.
Based on "rosetas de maíz", the true though outdated Spanish word for "popcorn", since they look like little rose blooms made from corn-kernel pods.
DulciLeche: Don Crilliote's living muse/damsel. Pretty Spanish Muppet, maybe Sophia Loren like.
A tall AM light pink-skinned woman, dark brown hair reaching down to her shoulders in two strands, black eyelashes, cute little pointed light pinkish nose, female body, and dressed in liquid cream white dress with a rustic brown caramel bodice, long skirt, and caramel brown shoes.

But the song was great, and I truly commend Sesame Street on this one. You can contact me to talk about the story of Don Quixote, or...
*Gordon Voiceover: If you want to know more about the story of Don Quixote or his author, Miguel Cervantes de Lepanto, remember to visit your local library. Thank you.
Truly one of the better episodes for the sketches and songs. See you guys on Friday.

 

[DTF]

Today's episode would've been fine if it stared anyone besides Elmo (Or should I say Jelmo). He already had an episode on Monday, let's use another character for a change.

I really wish they'd use the Bert and Ernie version of "Dance myself to sleep". I just don't like that animated version as much. But at least we got "I don't want to live on the moon" today. (Yeah, it wasn't the original version, but I still liked it well enough.)

Agreed, they could have brought back my favorite comedy team (well, SS comedy team) and used the other SS Muppet who would have been good for this and changing the capital letter - Ernie. Just picture...
Bert (raising eyebrows as only he could): "You want me to call you Jernie today?"
Ernie: That's right, Bert. (Words shown to change on screen as Ernie says them.) Today I'm not Ernie, I'm Jernie. And instead of Bert, you can be Jert.
Bert: I don't want to be Jert, i want to be Bert.
Ernie (As big Bird walks in w/the Birdketeers): I bet Big Bird won't mind. Hey, Big Bird, what do you say I call you Jig Bird today. (Explains about letter of the day, Birdketeers dance a jig.)

And so on as Bert continues to go around the street with Ernie, being driven crazy by him.

The way Elmo handled it was the way a typical 3YO would. He doe sact his age, at least. But, like others have said with other things, this one had so much potential. At least it taught a concept you don't see much anymore.

 

[DTWolf]

1 Animated remake of "Dance Myself To Sleep".
Sexy-legged sheep? Were they female? Please, tell me more.

The sheep were ordinary-looking animated sheep from head to hips, but their legs were bare and rather curvaceous. Only by the legs would you know they were female. They stood upright--only two feet on the ground--and danced in a semi-Rockettes style.

 

[BEAR]

* Not to mention it gave me some wrm fuzzies from our days at the dorms.
*Hi Bry.

Indeed, Ed...Indeed! Well, I look forward to the dorms to reopen so we could have more Sesame/Muppet fun!

 

[The Count]

Will come back and review later. But this was a good episode.
Some stuff for fellow SS fans to look out for.
This is the Ask Oscar episode.
What's The Name Of That Song?
Halthy Foods remake from last year.
More later.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Okay. I've only seen the street story in today's ep, since I was busy with some things this afternoon. Though I do want to comment on that. I must say that Sesame Workshop deserves praise for bringing back "Ask Oscar." They did update it a bit with the Oinker Sister's new theme song and Oscar's hat and everything. Still, it was good that they remembered that. And once again, they incorporated the Letter of the Day in the street story. They've been doing that a lot this season. Again, that does make the Cookie Monster letter of the day bits unneccessary, unless they come up with some new ones. What I wonder is, where did Telly get his new found confidence? What happened to his worrywart personality? That's kind of strange. I also wonder if they had "I Love Lucy" in mind when they used the name Little Ricky? Could be just a coincedence. I don't know. I watched Lucy before "Sesame Street," so I guess I had that in my mind. Lol.

 

[The Count]

And here's the end of another week for Season 37... My thoughts...
Episode 4118: Ask Oscar Returns.
Yes, you read that episode title fright!

The "You'll never know who you'll meet on Sesame Street!" segment was funny... Gordon got flustered because of all of the glimpses at Telly's plans to get Oscar to answer the day's question... Reminded me of Kermit's flustering at times.
So the episode opens with the Ask Oscar intro, Telly laughing and fully confident of his role on the show.
Does me good to see Telly happy like that.

The question, which included a splainin'-ation, was sent in by Little Ricki from Hunkadunga, CT.
He wanted to know what those little round things on the other side of his jacket were. Oscar refused to answer.
Telly: But the show's called Ask Oscar!
Oscar: Yeah, but it doesn't say anything about Oscar Answers.
Yes, the fine grouch legal mind at work.

So Telly employs some alternate resolution methods to solve the problem.
*Sorry for the legal studies references.
María's looking after Baby Natasha for the afternoon. Baby Natasha? Hmm, haven't seen her in a while.
Telly stops María before she can answer, prompting her to say that if she can't answer the question herself, what does Telly want her to do about it?
Well, he enlists María to talk to Oscar about things that start with the letter B, owing that Natasha is a "baby" and she's wearing "booties" and a "bonnet" as Oscar himself answers.
Of course, he knows Telly's behind this and tells him he won't answer the question.

Next up, Plan B with Alan's intervention.
The man now in charge of Hooper's Store comes up with a rousse, mentioning he was going to throw some trash away and thought of giving it to Oscar. So, what's in that trash? Well, let's play One of These Things and find out. There's an apple, banana, and sandwich... Along with those little round things on the other side of a jacket.
Points to SS... They remembered Oscar's love for trash and had someone come to give him some. Also, Alan sang the classic refrain rully well.
Oscar still knows it's Telly, so he doesn't answer.

Plan C... Baby Bear to the rescue? He dresses Telly up like those little round things, claiming his friend suffered a concussion and now has amnesia. He doesn't remember who he is or what he does.
Telly: No, wait! I remember what I do...
Oscar replied in his normal demeanor that he still wouldn't answer the question.

Telly's frustrated and employs Plan D, the bad cop method, angrily accusing Oscar of not knowing what those little round things are when he's been saying he does know. Oscar whispers to the camera theose things are called buttons, a horn in the background goes off and Telly comes back in triumphant he got Oscar to answer the day's question.

Extra thoughts:
1 Oscar played good cop to Telly's bad cop throughout this street story. I know, what world are we living in? The grouch assumed a sort of nicey-nice rube when María and Alan were trying to trick him, letting his rough routine show in telling Telly off.
2 There were some characters that came in and sang a new Ask Oscar theme song, liked it because it gave it an air of bigtime TV production to the sketch/street story.
3 Thing is... If they had used this Ask Oscar theme at the beginning and ending of the street story, it'd been fine. But having them pop up and Telly go into the full intro each time he got someone to help him was repetetive overkill in my view.

Enough of that.
Highlights.
1 Vintage Animated Song: "I'm Curious".
From the same stock as "Beginning, Middle, and End" and others of that class from the early-mid 1990's.
2 Letter of the Day: B, new! The game show returns.
This is extremely funny... The only thing that'd make it perfectly complete is if they get Matt Vogel to actually take over Guy Smiley and have him there with Cookie Monster and Prairie Dawn, instead of just an energetic voiceover. The way, enthusiasm, mannerism, adlibbing... It's all Guy Smiley, and yet he's not there!
Also... What sent this over the top of the funny meter for me... Cookie's last B-item?
Bubbles, from Prairie in her bathtub taking a bath.
Oh man... So hilarious! And just the kind of slight mature humor it needs.
*Kathy, this is what I said you have to talk to Cookie Monster about.
3 Alpha Boy: B. Didn't rully watch it.
Anybody know who plays that kid? If so, please LMK.
4 Song: "If There's One Letter I'd Wish To B".
Fiddler On the Roof parody, good to see it again, well done.
5 Jane Tuesday: B for Blueberry.
You know... Rather like the Jane Tuesday short segments. Remind me of the ones with Suzy Sunshine and her partner from back in the day.
6 Song: "Healthy Food", remake from last year.
Not rap, more like smooth reggae. Who's that guy that sang with Cookie Monster?
7 Some sort of tapdancing sketch to music reminiscent of "Putting On The Ritz".
Don't rully know what it was.
8 Classic Talk Spot: Healthy Foods with Grover and Maya.
9 OK, this is the true gem in this episode...
Bert and Ernie sketch... In their bedroom... Steve's Ernie and Frank's Bert... Singing "What's The Name Of That Song?"!!
Oh man! That had me so happy, couldn't and still can't get it out of my head.
La-de-da-de-dum...
10 Healthy Food Spot: Milk, sung by Alan.
Yep... He sure does have a nice clear singing voice.
11 Come On and Play. Good/Bad Points here.
This time they did a version of One of These Things, good points for that.
But they just ended the segment singing the song without explaining which three were the same and which one was different. That's a bit confusing for the blind person watching the show. The only one that should be reserved this One of These Things right is the one with the pair of shoes that kept walking until finding its second matching pair. Though maybe that one wouldn't work quite so well either. Bad points for today's Come On and Play.
12 Global Grover: London Cricket Match, funny to see Grover keep getting flustered with the Cricket and when he was called "governor".
Grover: I've never even held office.
13 Number of the Day: 3, Animated Song: Three's My Favorite Number by this guy voiced by Marty Robinson. Kinda liked it.
14 Whistling mechanical can machine while kids counted 1-2-3, not sure what this one was either.
15 Film Segment: Just a kid noting the three fishes.
16 Elmo's World: Games, repeat.
17 Trash Gordon: Planet of The Terrible Triangles, repeat.

All in all, a good episode.
So... When's the next new one air?