Brandais was a much more engaging and charmingly funny character than I expected. Considering the character basically came out of no where, I did end up caring about him and the episode, rather than being annoyed that the show focused on a newcomer. I especially liked the car insurance gag.
I'm half and half so far on the People in your Neighborhood segment. It's clearly intended to replace the science based Murray tune ins from last year. But the best part of it was that it carried over to the sponsor announcement at the end. Those are getting slightly better, considering they were the same joke with a slightly varied background and redubbed numbers and letters.
In the Abby segment, I don't know whether to be disappointed they didn't make the reference to "We're gonna need a bigger boat" or to applaud them for having restraint. I'm loving that Blogg HATES Twinklethinking. And I, for one, do not miss Spot.
Airplane the Musical has to be the funniest one so far. The "Get me to the Church on Time" parody must have been the first direct parody of an actual song from a musical, rather than a vague "in the style of" original. Elmo getting exasperated by the annoying penguin bridezilla, her wanting pigs as bridesmaids (very nice stealth gag/parental bonus there). And they really got to the action this time. Elmo knew off the bat what the musical of the day should be. I hope this makes it to future installments.
OH! And the S cartoon was simply superb! They need a LOT more of that.
And too bad they didn't make any more Salty and Pierres... those were just too good.