Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 41

[Phillip]

Just a reminder that Sesame Street's 41st season officially begins Monday on PBS stations across the country. Check your local channels for times in your area.

After you see the new episodes, post here and let us know what you think. When you're the first to post about a new episode please include a description of the street scene or an episode number so that we know which episode you are talking about.

Find out about the new season here...
http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2010/080910.shtml

 

[Oscarfan]

Just so everyone knows, the block format is still in place, with the same intros and letter/number of the day bits.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, the plot was good (though it is interesting how two ladybugs appear on Elmo's chest, almost where his nipples should be).

Murray is once again hosting the block schedule format... Sigh... But we did get a good segment out of it: Old MacMurray Had an O. Somehow I have a feeling this won't be shown again, unless the block format segments get repeated.

I don't know if today's "Abby's Flying Fairy School" is a new segment or not, but it is great. It involves the characters doing a tooth fairy challenge, and we get a CGI character resembling the Orange Gold Anything Muppet.

 

[Drtooth]

Just so everyone knows, the block format is still in place, with the same intros and letter/number of the day bits.

The very exact same. Sigh... why did I think SW would at least have the money to film new ones? Still, there's NO POINT in keeping the near far guessing game. It's just 20 seconds of wasted time.

But I do have a couple questions... why do I feel ickier about a bank being a sponsor than McDonalds? And what was the point of Elmo getting introduced in the opening scene?

I really like how the first segment was filmed. There was just so much cinematic quality in the Camefloge song. Too bad the episode deteriorated into a "Find the ______" again. They do that once a season, and it's getting REALLY old. At least Rosita's there. But really, again with the deserted street? Only one other monster in a short 2 second scene? What happened to the first episode of the season having a large bunch of extras and other characters waving from a window? I hate this low budget stuff.

Speaking of low budget. Really... the SAME Murray block segments from last season that's been rerun relentlessly already? Not going to win any ratings by reusing all that much footage. Murray or NO Murray, I hope the block format bites the big one and disappears next season.

Not a huge Amy Pohler fan, but at least she knows how to make a funny and interesting word of the day segment. We're going to get a LOT of celebs talking down to kids again, aren't we. "Boy I sure do love saying _________! Say it with me!" That's talking down. Amy sure had fun and felt like she genuinely wanted to be there. I didn't even mind that it was longer than the last ones were. Actually... it kind of helped it.

At least we finally got a new Abby segment. A really fun one at that. I just hope we don't have to sit through it 3 more times this season of NEW episodes.

O was pure genius. I wish I didn't see it online, and ruined the surprise. But that was a nice, thorough parody, mocking everything from her Tom Cruise interview and her car giveaway. Simply brilliant, especially for a letter segment cartoon. Something that was sorely lacking until now. As for the Closer? I don't think you need to watch the show to laugh at that one. It had me cracking up all over.

But the real highlight of this season? Super Grover 2.0. how can you NOT love this? It's got the same wonderful comedic feel of the classic Super Grover segments. Why, hitting an iceberg with a golf club repeatedly? That's just like running around hopping up and down saying Wubba Wubba to get a computer to start. And the classic Super Grover obliviousness just shined through. I'm so disappointed there are so little of them made for this season.

And really... REALLY... can you do something about Elmo's World? I know you're stuck and can't get rid of it if you tried... but at least film some new ones. Sure, the skin ties in nicely for camouflage... but it's been seen so many times since it was made. Either make new ones or retire the segment completely.

 

[The Count]

Episode 4213: The Camouflage Challenge.

Cold Opening: What's the Word on the Street?
Challenge.

Sponsors: O, 6.
Airdate: September 27, 2010.
Street Story:
Camouflage Carla challenges Chris, Elmo, and Rosita to find six camouflaged things on the street in six minutes.
The gang finds a grasshopper in the leaves, a butterfly in the flowers, a lizard in the leaves, and two ladybugs in Elmo's fur.
Carla must've been in the Busby-burkley production of Chama-chama-chama-chamaleon.
The Camouflage Club has a tough initiation... But you know they have the best parties. Too bad noone knows where they meet or what they do.
The signal got blacked out for a while.
Celebrity Moment: Elmo challenges Amy to pat her head and rub her tummy. No song though.
Letter of the Day: Old MacMurray had an orange and an octopus, which he calls outrageous.
Animation: The O Show.
Must keeeeeeel Opa! ! !
Good thing her show will be keeled this season.
Abby's Flying Fairy School: Teeth for Tooth Fairy Class.
Cute premise... Yet why does this remind me of when Eric Carpmen dressed up in a bad J-Lo dress to start stealing teeth for a Sony Playstation?
Lifting spell... Apparently they don't know about wingardia leviosa.
World Tooth Banks' Automated Teeth Machines, funny. But I bet it still isn't really made for blind fairies or mages to use. I mean, what good is having the A and B on the A and B buttons in Braille to push when prompted by the screen when I can't read what's on the screen in the first place? ! ?
Animation/Song: The Alphabet Song, weird bit... I prefered Alphabet Town.
Number of the Day: Murray and the kids count to 6.
Sketch: People handclapping and stomping as they get added to make six people in the group.
Would've prefered to get Count TV instead, seemed pretty dull.
Super Grover 2.0 with VO narration: Ice Block Party.
Grover tries to help a group of penguins get rid of the ice block that's blocking their dance floor.
"It is time to unleash the power of technology!"
As usual, the penguins solve their own problem by moving the block out on wheels while Grover does his best with a metal golf club. Heh, reminds me of Scrooge McDuck using his cane as that as a weapon in the Ducktales video game.
Too bad his Super Grover-mobile is now stuck in neutral. Let that be a lesson to you, penguins will jack off your car's wheels.
Muppets: Murray teaches about near and far.
Muppets: The Closer.
Elmo's World: Skin.
Though it's an old one, I enjoyed the video email from Ernie involving Bert in the explanation of using the skin on your hands to feel things and tell what they are.
Closing: Murray just rewinds back to remember the day's sponsors? What happened to having some connection to the episode like a voiceover announcing them, or the clever endings like Trash Gordon and Abby reading Real People Stories to Marco?

Overall an okay episode. The street story was a bit short, then again because of the brief signal loss I'm not sure what I missed. It's definitely a work in progress and I hope the people in charge can tell this moving forward.
Would get rid of the interstitials with Murray.
Would bring in Count TV, you made twenty-six segments, presumably because there are twenty-six episodes in a season of Sesame Street nowadays, so air the segment that you wisely had enough made of for each individual episode unlike what's happened recently with endless repeats of repeats while the season's still fresh.
Guess I'll keep watching what good points I find throughout the rest of the season.

 

[Convincing John]

This is probably a dumb question, but were they going to continue with the "hidden gems" into this season?

I loved Super Grover! it was the best part of the episode!

Also coming up there will be "Twin Day" with a cameo appearnace by Martin P. Robinson, his wife and their kids. It's on his blog. Check it out here, here, here and here.

Convincing John

 

[Drtooth]

Oh yeah. I have to say I'm quite disappointed that they made so much of the stuff go directly to Europe... but then again, i wonder if any Count TV stuff was even done by the time the show was in post production. Really also want to see Munchin' Impossible and Elmo's Backyard get in there too next season.

The Murray interstitial bug me for BEING reused most of all. I still say they should junk the idea, but keep segments with Murray (and Ovejita) out in the real world interviewing people. Jim would have loved seeing that.

And I'm glad someone else wasn't impressed by the alphabet segment. I'm not a fan of that kind of music or that kind of looking band (you know... the look of 20 something girls that knit... shudder shudder). I got a Marzipan from Homestarrunner vibe from the girls... and honestly, the sketch was made worse by the visuals. Near the end of the segment, they had all these kids running around and one in a wheelchair. Now... I think it's great when they add diversity in stuff... but you have to be careful. Somehow, when all the other kids were running around flapping their arms and stuff, the one in the wheelchair made me fell... sad. It looked sad. Even without it, phooey on this alphabet.

 

[The Count]

Mmm... I'm honestly leaning towards the camp of replacing Elmo's World with Elmo's Backyard if EW can't be removed permanently. What was so bad about having a couple of episodes without it anyway? The Fairy Tales Emergency episode was one I liked from Season 39 because of that, and it felt like the good old days of SST.
Another ideas I'd propose since it seems Sesame is developing these stand-alone segments for their characters is:
1 Make just enough so we can rotate the segments that aren't needed for every single episode.
If you make twenty-six Count TV segments, that's obviously done to have one each in each episode of the season.
If you make only thirteen new Murray Has A Little Lamb, that's obviously made to be aired every other episode, not every single and get them repeated while the current season is still on air.
The rotating segments idea would be: Murray and Ovejita, and AFFS on Monday, then Super Grover 2.0 and Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures on Tuesday, and so on.
2 For some reason I find the international packages of Sesame Street are doing it better than the US version. Rather than keep segmenting the main show, truncating the street story to a fifteen-minute or less fast at the very beginning to make room for the blockhead format, spin the segments with the host interstitial outside the main show itself. From what I heard, Sesamgade in Denmark is just AFFS, Elmo's World/Backyard, Global Grover/Super Grover 2.0, and Bert & Ernie's Great Adventures patched together to test whether there'd be interest in a true Danish co-production instead of the straight-up dub of the main show they previously had.

Just something to think about going forward into next year's filming for Season 42.

 

[zns]

Here is what I look forward in seeing for this season:

-Anything with Big Bird (he's my absolute favorite on the show )
-Super Grover 2.0
-Count TV
-The episode where Bert tries to find a rare pigeon
-Ironing Monster

So far it sounds like everything is pretty good for this year.

 

[Drtooth]

Count TV was never going to be a part of Season 41. Painfully obvious, as they kept the same block format and the same introductions.

Maybe it will be part of Season 42 if we're lucky. Just not now. In fact, the press release ONLY stated SG 2.0 was to be in the next season, and all the other segments were for international air. We've had some of these creep their way onto the US version, just not all of them and not all at once.