Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 40

[Rendal]

My thoughts on the season premire:

The good:
The Street story was excellent. Bob had more dialogue and screen time in this episode than the past 2-3 seasons combined. I didn't pick up the Mr. Looper hidden gem til I saw it here. I thought just having Barkley was the gem.

Murry's letter and number of the day were excellent as was the new Traction Jackson song.

Elmo's world was great with Kermit.

Murry's sponsored by close was also very cute.


The bad:

I don't like Abby's Flying School. It just doesn't fit. But it is a sign of the times. They are making these long form mini-shows for international syndication and they have to get some domestic use out of them as well. I'm hoping they at least rotate in Murry has a little Lamb so we don't see Abby's school all the time.

The long form mini-shows now crowd out the majority of the classic movies, and clips. I think Annie Evan's said in her blog that they have room for 1 random insert per show. That would be a parody a celebrity or a classic muppet sketch.

There is probably now TOO much Murry, but I understand why they are doing it. It is cheaper to use Joey, who is on full time staff than bring in different characters/muppeteers to make letter or number inserts. Although they did make the resuable letter and number inserts last year (Chris in the Laundrymat etc..)

I do have to remember this show belongs to my 2 1/2 year old and my 1 & 1/2 year old and not me. But they did get bored through the longer segments.

Cheers,
Craig A.

 

[The Count]

Okay... So now I'm waiting to see if SST airs on my cable provider's Channel 28, Discovery/Discovery Kids between 1 to 3 PM. At least that's what the rep on the phone said. And since my long-time PBS/PBS Kids channel isn't showing Sesame but all the other PBS Kids programming instead, I have no choice but to wait and watch Discovery.

*Wants to punch PBS affiliate in the nyuts.

 

[Oscarfan]

What was the new E&B sketch about?

 

[Drtooth]

What was the new E&B sketch about?

I can't tell it's new or not, and I just assume, but it's something about Bert admiring his bottlecap collection while Ernie and a group of 3 Dingers (including the green one and a baby) sing a dinging song. Bert tries to be unenthused about it, but then dances and sings to himself when he thinks Ernie left the room.

 

[Oscarfan]

Oh, that's from season 37. I was hoping it would turn up again!

 

[The Count]

Nothing yet...

For a laugh, compare Bert at the end of that Ding-Along song with Sam talking to Kermit at the end of Sam's Song.

 

[D'Snowth]

Are you guys SURE that David's still doing Cookie? Because I mean to tell you that in today's wonky new animated insert with Cookie, and his appearance on Dinner: Impossible, it didn't sound like him to me.

 

[MuppetManAZ]

Also does anyone find it odd that on Today's Abby's Fairy school, they were talking about Puppets, when the main characters an actual Muppet ?

Yeah, did you catch the end of the episode? All of the characters look at the camera, and Blogg says "I love puppets" with a wink and a grin. That cracked me up.

 

[D'Snowth]

Not to mention all the characters in general look like they were designed as Muppet characters, which I wouldn't mind seeing Muppet versions of Gone Again and Blogg associate with Abby on the street.

Incidentally, I know Rickey Boyd does the Abby's Flying Fairy School segments, but does do puppeteering on the show now as well?

 

[dwmckim]

Haven't watched today's episode yet, so these will all reflect my thoughts on the premiere...

First of all, those of you who missed today's episode (or parts of it), don't worry. Remember SST only does 26 episodes a season now and it won't be long before this episode is reran...and reran..and reran! You'll have a chance to catch it again easily soon enough (My station had some video problems during the street story so i didn't even bother saving the tape of it, i'll record it for my collection again when it's reran without the glitches).

I had a sinking feeling when i saw the photocopied page of a typical Sesame 40th season episode format in the curriculum chapter of the new book. I could tell then what many people are saying (and i also concur) that the current block format is askew and are going to somewhat lessen the impact/quality/enjoyability of the new episodes. They may be intending to put their all into the street scenes with all these Easter Eggs which are nice, but Easter Egg Gems in a small part of an overall episode does not an excellent episode make. Murray's acting as host will get real old real fast (after one episode i'm already even tired of it) and all the overabundance of cuts to Murray takes away time from other stuff. I can't even imagine how overburned on Murray an episode with Murray Has a Little Lamb is going to have. Abby's Flying Fairy School does have its moments but it's TOO LONG! As others have said it feels like another show altogether and that's because they keep trying to think of new segments that can be their own standalone shows for the international market...and the US original production ends up suffering for it because it's all thrown in on there.

I liked seeing Kermit too but since i knew that Elmo's World: Frogs was an unaired holdover from earlier, i can't honestly judge it as a 40th season piece.

I spent the last week watching some season 39 episodes that i hadn't gotten around to and reliving the last year a bit before going into the new one and i was actually a bit impressed - there were a lot of season 39 episodes that felt very classic in spite of the format with hilarious street stories and performances (I noticed that Kevin even seemed to perform Elmo in the Elmo Wants to Be Like Gordon episode more like "classic Elmo" when he was actually cute and funny) and still managed to get in classic bits like Grover and Mr. Johnson's two waiters bit or wig salesman sketch. I don't see that happening as much with the revised format.

I know SW defends all its format changes on "research" and in the end they have to consider what's best for the kids and what they like and holds their attention. But everytime i watch something like SST, i watch keeping in mind my current thoughts and what Child D.W. would be thinking - and Child D.W. wouldn't like it either - the length of the individual segments would be a HUGE turnoff and seeing only a few characters all the time is not near as fun or special than seeing a whole slew of my Sesame friends spread throughout the episode. The season 40 format makes Child D.W. grouchy and not in a good way.

I want to like these and support them; i really do. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised as the season goes on, but so far all signs are that season 40 will be a weak one. They may think they'll win over adult fans (or the older children...or even the more intelligent younger ones) with the Easter Eggs - but in the end, Easter Eggs don't much matter if the rest of Easter Dinner is burnt, spoiled, dry, or ruined.