Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 37

[UFOfirefly]

Does anyone know how many more new episodes are going to air this season, and when will they air?
Thanks

 

[The Count]

There are twelve new episodes left, completing the usual run of twenty-six per season. The next two will air today, 9/13/2006 and tomorrow 9/14/2006.
As for the rest, we have to stay alert as to when they'll air.

Hope this helps.

 

[The Count]

Nope, not really. But if you saw the bit after the song "Thirteen, My Favorite Number", the one with the marching instrumental music, I'd like to know more about that one particular segment.

 

[The Count]

*Thoughts on today's...

Episode 4123: Lemonade Machine.
Got the "You Never Know Who You'll Meet on Sesame Street!" bit again.
Guess it was just 4122 then.

Since Gina's now an established vet, looks as if Miles is the one taking up the role of helping out as a part-time assistant at Hooper's Store. He's extremely
busy in this episode with the lemonade rush. So much so, that Baby Bear gets inspired to make an automatic lemonade pouring machine for Miles. Telly
and Elmo rush out of the store with Baby Bear, who draws up the plans for his invention. They have to build the thing, which goes a little something like
this...

Points for setting the explanation song to the tune of "Them Bones".
The tricycle's connected to the kite strings.
The kite strings pulls on the feather wheel.
The feather wheel makes the mouse sneeze.
The air from the mouse's sneeze pushes the sailboat.
The sailboat knocks over the golf ball.
The golf ball rolls down the slide, and pushes on the lever pouring the lemonade into the glass.

Also, points go to SS for making this invention remind of the Mousetrap game, and similar elaborate invention plans from classic cartoons like Looney Tunes
and the sort.
All three friends run off to get what they need, running into each other at first. Telly brings in Marissa the Mouse, voiced by Fran, a somewhat smart
mouse. The invention doesn't work at first because the golf ball's too light to push the lever. Baby Bear gets depressed at his failure.
Marissa then reminds him of how other great inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham-Bell and her Uncle Harry persevered with their greatest inventions.

So they go find other bigger balls to use for the last part of the scheme. Elmo brings a ball that's bigger but not heavy enough, Telly has a bowling ball
that's too big and heavy, and Baby Bear has a baseball that's bigger but just right.

The machine works, pouring a perfect glass of lemonade after they brought Miles out to witness their triumph. Marissa and Elmo then leave, taking away
some of the invention's key components. Miles is touched by Baby Bear's thoughtfulness, saying that the lemonade crowd's gone, replaced by the pancake
lovers.
This leads the street story to fade out as Baby Bear and Telly talk about what they'll need for an automatic pancake flipping machine.

Highlights.
1 Classic Song: "It's A Long Hard Road".
2 Animation: The Cookie Continumator. Never seen this one before, reminded me of the ones with Dr. Annie Eyeball.
3 Letter of the Day: U, repeat. This is the one where Cookie sends the cookie into space atop a rocket ship, only to have little cookie come back to daddy!
Sounded like Frank voicing Cookie Monster though.
4 Song: "U", or "My Friend, U".
5 Song: "I Eat The Colors Of The Rainbow".
Nitpicks...
a. Purple isn't a color of the rainbow, the proper color is "violet".
b. They forgot about "indigo", which after thinking about it would have to be represented by huckleberries.
6 Specials of the Day game show. Or as it should be called, Jeoparody!, oh no, they already used that on Pinky and The Brain.
It was an OK segment with Alex Trebek and Telly, and some food Muppets... But it would've gone over better with Guy Smiley instead. Especially since it
felt like some of the old game show segments he used to host.
7 Classic Song: "Everybody Eats". The most popular restaurant in all of Hensonville.
Yaey! Made me feel great to hear the classic sung by Joe Raposo. Rully miss his voice and song stylings, it reminds me of Richard.
8 Talk Spot: Joey Monster and Kesha (SP)? pretending to scramble eggs.
9 Song: "Bert's Blanket".
10 Come On and Play, bleh.
11 Global Grover: Poland Scarecrow, repeat.
12 Number of the Day: 12. Another new segment with my namesake and some kids. This time, he was counting how many times a girl named Jessica banged on
her drum.
13 The bit where we see a bunch of foam 12's swinging by on these metal playground spokes as the background voiceover just says "12!".
14 Elmo's World: Sky, repeat.
15 Trash Gordon: Planet Conga Line, New!
Funny how he defeated the conga liners by switching the planet's radio's station.

An OK episode. Only tomorrow's left for this week.

 

[Drtooth]

Highlights.
1 Weird operatic segment, mostly background non-lyric vocals.
Didn't understand what it was.

It was an animation of a plate gathering different fruits to use as parts of her face. Green grapes for hair (I think), olives or blue berries for eyes, a large strawberry for a nose, and I'm guessing a pepper ring for a mouth. The plae was singing, and calling out to cherries to be her earings. one gets stuck on the top of a bowl of fruit (which the fruits were on), and three other cherries make a "Human" ladder to rescue it.

As for the weird bit that you discribed as "kids counting to thirteen," it was a segment in which a guy in a lab coat (best way I can describe it) keeps popping out of different places (the first one he pops out of a lake), holding the number they count. I can't remember all the bits he came out of, but the skit was a stop motion, live action hybrid.... they used special camera techniques to make it look like time lapse, and some parts he isn't walking but appears to be gliding.

As for the "march" bit, it's a Mardi Gras inspired bit where African looking masks (3-d) are animated on 2-D hand drawn bodies, holding 3-D numbers. I can't describe all of them, but that'll give you a general idea.


Now, I gotta admit, I liked Tuesday's episode... a great call back to the classic Prarie Dawn plays from the old school episodes. I also found it strange that Rosita's English Translation was litteral. i.e. not altered to rhyme. It was alright, but Telly stole the episode as usual. The Jack Be Nimble bit was pretty good too. I didn't catch the "skin" Elmo's world all the way through the first time, but the end where the Chamelion cartoon figure asks Elmo if he knows "Rainbow Connection" was absolutely Priceless.

Todays was pretty good, but the Mouse got annoying pretty fast.

I liked the refference to the Rube Goldberg devices. The bit about the Mouse sneezing reminds me of a Dr. Slump comic chapter where he makes a rube Goldberg device out of various animals to get a Pig to sneeze so he can peak at a woman's undergarments.

I also quite enjoyed the Jeopardy segment (I don't wanna correct, but the Pinky and the Brain bit was called "Gyp-Parody"... but I have that one on tape and seen it a thousand times, so it just sticks out in my mind.).

Nathan Lane's Sing is always wonderful, but they use it here as a Sesame Street promo, so I see it a lot.

The Trash Gordon once again proved to be worth waiting for Elmo's Segment to be over. BTW... one of the monsters in the Conga Line was Google (that's the Pink one from Monster clubhouse, right?) And another one was Narf, but with a big hair style and quite different voice and performer.

 

[UFOfirefly]

this season's epidodes

Thanks Count! That definately helped! I guess they tape episodes all at once and then spread them out after the first bunch have aired.

 

[The Count]

Yeah... Looks like that's how they're airing episodes now.

And thanks for the corrections Drtooth.
Yes, I believe Google was the pink one, Phoebe was the sort of light lavender one.
Looking forward to tomorrow.

 

[BEAR]

I just caught the Healthy Foods Pageant episode today and I thought it was great!!
Prairie Dawn was in this episode A LOT! Not only was she in the street story with her new pageant, but she also did the Letter of the Day segment AND the Nursury Rhyme News! I was thrilled to see her featured so much in one episode.
The Healthy Food Pageant was one of the best things I have seen so far from SS this season. Its been too long since we've seen a new play from Prairie. It also looks like she got a haircut. Her hair was shorter than it's been. Very stylish, Prairie! Also good to see so many of the human cast there together. Luis, Gordon and Gina were sitting in the audience with Big Bird and some kids, while Miles and Gabby were helping "backstage". Big Bird is the best audience member ever! I really loved watching him get so excited and enthusiastic about the play. I also was reminded how Luis refers to Big Bird as "Bird" sometimes. Snuffy's not the only one who does that. Also, I must say that Zoe looked pretty darn cute in her potato costume. I loved how after she pretended to fall down and called herself a "mashed potato", Big Bird started cracking up so hard at the joke. "That was the best healthy food pageant I've ever seen!!"

 

[Big Bird Fan]

Wow, lots of Prairie Dawn yesterday! That should appease some fans. It's nice to see her doing more than the letter of the day.

A good street story, though I didn't like the focus on Elmo near the end. Things would have been fine if he didn't get focused on. First of all it was great to see Prairie Dawn do a pageant again, even if she has some trouble playing the song. (What was with that anyway? i don't remember her ever having difficulty playing it before.) Rosita doing her song in English and Spanish was a nice touch. Most of the time she just mixes Spanish words into what she's saying. You could tell her part was originally written in Spanish, and they had to fudge some words to make it work in English. I was impressed by that. Usually it's English first and then try to figure a way to say it in Spanish.

What in the world was that weird opera food thing after the street story? That was just bizzar...

Sing! is my absolute favorite Sesame Street song. Loved hearing it again. It never seems to get sung much.

At first I wondered why they couldn't rerun an old Kermit newsflash when they had Prairie Dawn interview Jack Be Nimble until they got to the breakfast part. I didn't mind this, because unlike the healthy foods and exercising segments that some don't agree with, breakfast is something we should all have everyday, but a lot of times we're too busy to do. (This was a new segment to me.)

And of course I loved Ernie's how things grow song. I miss Jim's Ernie...

This new number of the day was really boring. Can a girl swing on a tire swing 13 times? Why yes she can!

In Elmo's World, I'm still surprised they were allowed to reference "Rainbow Connection". At least Disney doesn't a problem with that...

I really liked the new Trash Gordon. It was a nice change of pace from the usual figure a way out of a mess. Plus it was nice and relaxing, made me feel like I was still on vacation for a minute.

 

[BEAR]

In Elmo's World, I'm still surprised they were allowed to reference "Rainbow Connection". At least Disney doesn't a problem with that...

"The Rainbow Connection" is not Disney's song, so there would be no problem with them.