Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 39

[Drtooth]

First off, I'd liek to help Count with the unidentified Sketches... the one you listed as country music L was actually a filmed insert where acrobats dance around, and from a letter L upwards. I forget the name of the troop that did this, but they were at the Acadamy Awards a while back. They basically do full body shadow puppets behind a silk screen. They did it in front of a screen this time.

The other animation, "unknown animation about 4" was a cel shaded CGI segment where a bunch of constructionmachines build a number 4 out of long white beams.

Hope this clears anything up.

I hated it. I really did. This season is gonna suck, I can see it now. I don't think I'll ever watch a new episode again. I don't know why they have to make all these changes. I actually was quite impressed with the selection of classic inserts last season, and the season before. But now, with going HD and all, this proves that they're really not going to use very many classic inserts. The oldest insert shown on today's episode was from 1995. Goodbye current Sesame Street!

I couldn't disagree more. I thought this was an epic opening of a very exciting season. I did have qualms about the lack of classic characters (of course, other than Telly and Murray, the main segment was comprised mainly of AM one shot characters and animals). But I think they really did something good. Not great. And I do think it needs more classic segments and such... but I felt that Ernie and Berts Adventures was amazing. I hope it doesn;'t replace the puppets, but I really love the direction they're going with.

And I really enjoyed Murray had a Little Lamb as well. Take more muppets out in the real world and have them interact with real people. I think that's the best thing SS has done in years. Take them out of the studio, and have them be real.

I didn't care too much for the Feist thing, as I've said earlier, I don't like that style of music.

And even the Elmo's world was pretty good. I'm so glad they started the season off with mostly new material (save for a letter segment, and the stopping traffic bit). And I think the Word on the Street with Jack Black and Elmo was one of the best ones. Most of the ones last year were pretty dull and lame. They need more with muppet interaction.

That said, I like the direction they're going in, though I really wish more classic characters could have been a part of it. But I think the problem is they're doing too much with a small 50 minute time slot. And the Murray and Adventures segments take up at least 5 minutes each... that's 10 right there.... added to the 10-15 with Elmo's World, you have over 25 minutes used up... add the 15 from the opening, you only got 10 minutes of show left. I think that they really should have lobbied for more episodes this season.

I will say, interresting choice for the letter and number segments. I miss the Cookie and Count versions, but then we would have got the same reused ones from season 33 over and over again.

And Leela is cute. I realy think she's gonna be a great human character... seems like she has a slight accent too. Either Indian or British (considering what part of the world used to controll it).

Though I do hope the rest of the season uses more classic characters and actors. They probably will too.

 

[D'Snowth]

Hello... Velcome to another season of reviews. Like last year, I'm just gonna post what happened throughout the episode in order, following Muppet Wiki's format. Any help with some of these would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, you put me out of a job last year Count as far as the Sesame Reviews are concerned!

Oh well, I can't review this year anyway.

 

[theprawncracker]

Having watched everything but Elmo's World... I had a lot of fun watching the premier.

Telly ROCKS! He deserves SO much more publicity and merchandising than he gets. I just love him, he's so funny... And MURRAY! "You even have your own theme music? That is the coolest thing ever." Hahaha! I LOVED Murray! I'd been on the fence about the little I'd seen of him in previous seasons--but I feel like he's REALLY gonna shine in this one and end up being one of my favorite characters on the Street. The Murray Has a Little Lamb segment was just wonderful ("Ooh! Newspapers! Are we gonna check our horoscopes?"). I also really liked him doing the Letter of the Day with Gordon--yes, I miss Cookie and Prairie... but it's good to have new segments.

Oh, and how can I forget to mention Leela and Chris? As soon as the episode started and Chris welcomed everyone to the Street I was grinning! He's just TOO cool! "I have... no idea!" I LOVE that! I hope it becomes his catch-phrase. And Leela seems great! She looks like a fantastic new addition to the Street! I thought it was kind of odd that we didn't get a real introduction to her, but I'm sure we will in the upcoming episode where she makes a video to send home. Though, as a stand alone introduction to her... this one was alright. She works at the laundromat, and she's fun. What more do you need to know?

I really, REALLY liked the Adventures of Ernie and Bert. It's so much fun. Though I DID already see that particular one as an extra on the "Count on Sports" DVD, it was still great to see it again.

And I LOVE the Feist parody, that's a ton of fun. Aside from that... I really have no other comments about this episode (though I DID like seeing Ernie and Bert in Elmo's World. That was fun.) Now I'm just waiting for EW to be over so I can see the ending. Oh, and having Baby Bear running around Elmo's World is a lot of fun.

GREAT premier! I'm very excited for the rest of Season 39!

 

[The Count]

Aw... No worries Snowthball... You can still review here along with the rest of us.
*Handshake/hug.

*Off to catch up on fanfics.

 

[Oscarfan]

EDIT: Okay, shortly after my blubbering, the show started working again. I only saw that part of the stroy at the Laundromat.

The Goods:
-From what I saw of the plot, it was pretty funny. Like Murray's line "See ya', see ya' Virgina Virgina" and Telly's anger at the music cues. I find it funny when characters acknowledge them. And there were some nice camera angles too.
-Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures was nicely done!
-Finnaly! A non-stroybook ending!
-Nice to see some non-Coookie and Count Letter/Number of the day bits, but I hope we still seem them in inserts
-Murray got himself a large role in the show, other than just talking children.
-Feist's number was pretty good

The Bads:
-Not enough inserts. There were only 10 or 11. Since the street stroy was around 17 min, E&B and Murray added 10, 15 min of Elmo's World, that's about 32 mins, not much left for inserts
-Murray Had a Little Lamb was cute in all (I liked them getting the green belt served in a hot dog bun), but it went on TOO long.
-Since I didn't see the whole episode, I'm not sure if they mention this, but is there a backstroy to the auto repair shop?
-That song after the street stroy was odd, mainly because you could bearly hear the singer.

All in all, I would need to see the whole episode for a good review, but what I saw was nice. 4/5.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

I really love this episode so much! I Loved Tell in it and Murray was a laugh riot! I actually liked the letter of the day segment, I think they need to use the human cast more often.

 

[wiley207]

Watching my recorded copy of the episode so far.

The new Word on the Street skit wasn't so bad. I can see they even shot a new Murray intro for this season to replace the old Season 38 Word on the Street intro!

The opening sequence (reused from Season 38) appeared to be in much higher quality.

The street scene is pretty good. I think starting the season with a Telly-centered street scene sounds like a better idea (than last season's Elmo-centered street story). And it was neat seeing Murray in a street story. I loved Murray's line, "Your own heroic music theme! That is the coolest thing ever!" And I admit that music started to get annoying a little, so I laughed when Telly started getting annoyed by that music cue! BTW, is it just me, or did it look like that boulder was animated with a WALDO-style device? It almost looked like puppetry! Or maybe that was done by the Henson Creature Shop CGI animators! Also, Leela doesn't seem so bad.

As far as the skits are concerned: remember how a majority of the skits shown last year's season premiere were late 1990s-early 2000s skits? But as the season progressed, we saw many more 1980s and 1990s skits (and one 1970s skit). Who knows? Maybe they'll do extensive restoration to the old skits so they can be shown in HD! Besides they'll probably look really good this way, like "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" did in ABC HD.

I thought the stop sign film was amusing (particuarly the line "Now everybody can go, cause we're gonna stop the film!") It reminded me of a 1990s-era skit that had similar fast-motion clips, but of pedestrians and shots of crosswalk signals, the kids saying "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" and lots of jazzy-style rock music in the soundtrack. WHEN is CTW/SesameWorkshop finally going to make a new segment about the new crosswalk signals without words?

The Letter and Number of the Day skits weren't so bad, mainly because they didn't reuse those "Cookie & Prairie" Letter skits and "The Count's Organ" Number skits this episode. Maybe we won't see them as much this season too!

I loved the new claymation Ernie and Bert skit! I'm so glad we finally get to see them here in the USA! Good thing they got Steve Whitmire and Eric Jacobson to voice Ernie and Bert for this.

Is it just me, or is the "trying to give a character overexposure" moving over to Murray Monster instead of Abby Cadabby?

The New Elmo's World segment... doing a segment about Drums was a very clever idea! I actually kinda liked it, but not as much as the one about the beach from last year. For some reason Mr. Noodle's movement looked a little choppy at some parts. But I still think the 2002-present Elmo's World formula seems better than the 1998-2001 formula, IMO. And it seemed like this part had more Muppets than any other parts of the show! Also, we finally get to see Snuffy in a new segment! (He wasn't in the last season, I think.) And doing the "ask a baby" thing in a real-world setting instead of against a bluescreen made it look much better. The highlight was the video email from Ernie and Bert! The hep bongo drums were pretty neat too! I figured they would do some kind of beatnik reference with them.

BTW, is it just me or does Elmo's fur look more matted down than in the late 1990s oe early 2000s?

Overall, not a bad season premiere. I am looking forward to this new season! But am I the only one who noticed that Abby Cadabby was NOT in this episode at all?

 

[D'Snowth]

So...

Is the show in widescreen now?

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Sunffy was in an episode last season and he was pretending to be Elmo's Pet dinosaur.

I actually didn't even Notice that Abby was not in this episode at all, heh!

Yes, the show is in widescreen now!

Yeah, I noticed the new "Sesame Workshop" sigh and I was really loving it until you know who had to show up on it...

 

[Oscarfan]

So...

Is the show in widescreen now?

Only the new stuff. Everything but the theme, STOP film, L cartoon, E&B adventures and EW was in widescreen.

BTW, is it just me or does Elmo's fur look more matted down than in the late 1990s oe early 2000s?

That's the puppet they've been using since 2003.