Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 41

[Drtooth]

Huh. They list this episode with G as the sponsor, and the Superfoods episode with B.

Personally, I don't see why THIS episode didn't have the F for Float sponsor. It would have just made more sense.

 

[Oscarfan]

I think that would be overly redundant. Like in #4200, where they have an octopus in the Word of the Day bit, the Letter of the Day bit after that and the O cartoon after that. A lot of the Word of the Day choices seem too redundant to me. Like why spend an entire episode explaining what "float" means, then have a 1 and a half explanation of the word? In "Music Magic", they only say the word of the day (appetite) once in a song, hardly acknowledging the word.

 

[antsamthompson9]

The new episode was good. We got our second Big Bird episode and the first one not to feature Elmo in a street story. The float bit was cute. Abby's Flying Fairy School was funny. Leslie gave a hilarous preformance as an exercise instructor. I didn't see the Up and Down segment of EW, so it was nice to see something different. As for recasting Ernie, I'd be down for it if they can get someone who's not John Tartagila or Artie Esposito who can actally do a good impresion of Ernie. No offense to John or Artie. They're great preformers.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Wanna know the worst part? They actually have an alternate Ernie already. Sometimes he's busy with other commitments on Broadway. I wouldn't mind another Ernie recast, just until Steve is available. Or better yet, record Ernie and Bert segments on site in the off season. Maybe you could knock one or two out.

Yeah. I thought of Tartiagala. If he were available maybe he could do Ernie's puppaterring and have Steve loop in he voice. Something to think about.

Wow. What an episode. I'm not even going to talk about the reused footage... but at least it was a rerun of a NEW Abby.

Anyway, Big Bird and Snuffy in a street story? No Elmo? And Abby's screwy magics being integral to the plot? What's not to like there? And Gordon too. I will say this, the best part about science based episodes, they reference the fact Gordon's a science teacher. Not directly today, but it seemed like for the longest time in the series they didn't even mention what Gordon did. Now THIS was an episode.

Yeah. They've mentioned Gordon's career as a science teacher quite a few times within the past couple seasons so theres a big plus. It is nice to see a plot focusing on classic characters like Big Bird and Snuffy. Plus it was good that they got an Ernie and Bert sketch in the show. (A real one, I mean, not 'Great Adventures.') Sure it was Steve's Ernie, but that was when Frank was performing Bert. If they'd just go a few years back to the time we get to Henson's Ernie, that would be great.

 

[Mupp]

I have to add that I personally don't necessarily have anything against Abby.

She was iffy to me at first. I am a guy but I realize that its important for Sesame Street to have strong female characters.
After all, in the pilot episode there were only male puppeteers who did unflattering female voices.

That would definitely not fly today.

I just feel that she, as well as the other newer characters are overused.

I have to say, on the off-chance that I were ever offered to do a "word of the day" segment, I would say;
"Um, Elmo and Abby are nice and all, but are Big Bird, Grover, or Cookie Monster available today? I'd rather do the segment with one of them."

As far as I'm concerned, Adam Sandler and Tiki Barber were lucky, they had a unique experience in that they didn't have to do the segment with Elmo or Abby.

 

[Oscarfan]

Sandler was with Elmo in another insert, though ("Song About Elmo").

 

[Drtooth]

I have to add that I personally don't necessarily have anything against Abby.

She was iffy to me at first. I am a guy but I realize that its important for Sesame Street to have strong female characters.
After all, in the pilot episode there were only male puppeteers who did unflattering female voices.

That would definitely not fly today.

Abby is a great character when she's USED as a character. In fact, I like her much more than I do Elmo, but not quite as much as I like Zoe (Zoe of course had a longer period of me having to warm up to her... she was REALLY wonky when she first appeared). The way I see it, sure, you can have Mumford screw up with magic... but Abby offers a different angle on that. She's more of a kid trying to learn things and messing up due to being a novice. She either takes it in stride with an "Oh, I guess I need more practice" or she'll take it personally with a "How come this isn't working right?" And when her magic goes completely awry, or when someone asks something ill advised of her, then you get some nice tension and even chaos. Like today's episode. That's when Abby's at the top of her game. Unlike when she's paired up with Elmo and does nothing but conjure up something small.

I want to see some more plots (where she stars) featuring her magic being used wrong (we saw 2 this season, today and the Music Magic one- without her permission, BTW)... even though they have similar effects, the chaos is just too chaotic to be a routine plot line. And that's the angle I'm looking for. No guessing games.

 

[Oscarfan]

You make a good point. Episodes like "Music Magic" are actual stories, whereas episodes like "The Camouflage Challenge" are not. You're in luck; the last of the 26 new episodes is about Abby continuously messing up while helping Leela and Chris get ready for a party.

 

[ISNorden]

The gravity episode in review

The good points:

• The best balance of classic and new characters, Muppets and humans that I've seen in years. I loved watching Snuffy and Big Bird hit it off old-style, then turning to Gordon for the answer to a science question. Abby's latest wish-granting goes wrong again, but at least the results are less predictable; Snuffy realizes for himself that wishing for no gravity was foolish, and Abby undoes the spell correctly the first time. Whoever put this gem of a plot together deserves a promotion!

The bad points:

• Nothing else new in the entire episode...enough said.

Overall impression: When Sesame Workshop is forced to choose between new plots and new inserts, the results usually turn out hit-and-miss. Kids will eventually change the channel until it's time for "Elmo's World"...I'm sure the producers never intended it that way, but something should be done to keep the whole hour watchable.

 

[Drtooth]

Talking about repeated segments is almost as repeated as the segments... but I did notice something. We had the inclusion of "Jump" which at least fits into the main story. Now, if you're going to rerun stuff, do it from the 90's (don't see why the 80's is so dated, that's some of their most timeless work). Sure, we've seen them forever, but think about it this way... some of the stuff is almost (and this will show how old we ALL are) 20 years old. As opposed to stuff from the last couple of seasons. It's new to them, and it saves a lot of money without showing too much of the same stuff over and over.

Again, I'm seeing WS/HD as less and less of the problem, as we're seeing some things plucked, almost desperately from the Full Frame era (the 17 mural painting. Really, SW... you NEED to commission more segments for number values OVER 13). And if they need to fill that black space, again, BTL manages to fudge curtains and other graphic brickabrack to frame the segment.