Your Thoughts: The Street We Live On

[Infinity Sirius]

Who's David?

 

[Censored]

I'd also just like to observe that Gordon with a goatee means that for the very first time, the Gordon on the show resembles the Gordon that came with my Fisher-Price Play Family Sesame Street.

Well, Roscoe Orman's Gordon originally had a goatee when he started on the show and that's what the Fisher Price Little Person was based on. Now, once again, the Little Person is an accurate representation. I'm so glad you brought that up. Are you a toy collector? I am and I particularly love the Fisher Price Little People. I wonder if Roscoe Orman and Loretta Long realize that they have the honor of being two of the only three real people to have a vintage Fisher Price Little person modeled after them. (The third person is Will Lee as Mr. Hooper).

 

[John Steffens]

I haven't seen it yet, being taped at home.

maybe they are saving the better/best stuff for the Muppets 50th anniv. special??
Then again maybe not.

 

[drmusic_99]

Are you a toy collector? I am and I particularly love the Fisher Price Little People.

Hmm, looking at your avatar, who woulda guessed? Anyway, I'm not a collector per se, but I've checked into some of the F-P websites that are out there. I can tell you that set was easily my favorite toy -- I would use the figures to act out the show as it aired, especially the Bert and Ernie bits. My mother's saved that set and some of my other old toys. But I honestly don't remember Roscoe Orman ever having a goatee. My memory fails me, I guess.

EDIT: I should also point out how cheesed off I always was that there was no Bob (although a generic Little People dad could stand in in a pinch.)

 

[Convincing John]

Stands up and applauds

The previous anniversary specials have delivered what they promised: true retrospectives and commemmorations of the history of the show. This latest one was nothing more than a typical episode, with the occasional old clip thrown in whenever they felt all the old alumni would be feeling so alienated they'd switch off.........Oscar was right when he called him "the little red menace". And putting his creator in charge of the anniversary special was a monumentally stupid move, because it would mean that the whole thing would revolve around him, instead of all the other people who were and are involved with the show. Tacking on that final retrospective of clips, with no regard for the ACTUAL year in which a particular segment was created, was yet another half-***** attempt to placate the millions of us who grew up in the years before the little red menace took over the whole thing.

The 35th Anniversary special was typical of what's wrong with "Sesame Street"........The thing that bothers me the most is that they LIED to us. If you're going to promote something as a 35th Anniversary special, do NOT then deliver a standard episode, with a handful of old clips tossed in to try to appease the millions of us who grew up with the show.

As C-3PO would say "I heartily agree with you, sir." I loved the 20th Anniversary special with Bill Cosby. That was a special! When I watched the 35th special, I thought they had put in the wrong tape instead of the "special". I can't stand Elmo! Look, I'm sorry, but Sesame Street just isn't Sesame Street anymore...at least to me.

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but when I think of looking back over the years of Sesame Street, I think of skits that I, and that many of us, grew up with, which have been replaced by...(sigh) Elmo.

Look, Sesame Street to me is old Joe Raposo songs, Mr. Hooper serving birdseed milkshakes and the old tire swing with the old number posters on the green doors (where Gina's vet's office is now). I think of the old Fix-it Shop (what's this Mail-it Shop? Maria and Luis just don't look right without tools and toasters). I think of the yellow/black, well worn diamond pattern of Hooper's Store. I think of a street inhabited by all sorts of creatures and people living together, with none of them hogging the spotlight for themselves (unlike...)

Thousands of clips, old clips, run through my head when I think "Sesame Street". I miss the segments I loved as a kid, like the Painter (Paul Benedict), the Ballad of Casey McPhee, (Cookie Monster's train) and any Ernie and Bert sketch from the 70's or 80's. These were what we remembered as kids...and it's a shame that it's all been replaced by such a...well...watered down version with a single, screeching character that gives parents headaches, but remains "tickled", nonetheless.

I wish that there were some way that could return to the show (after all, and created Sesame Street). Which would you rather see: Rowlf tickling the ivories in the tire swing yard and singing an old Raposo classic that the kids could still enjoy and dance to...or would you rather see a poorly animated, scribbled background with Elmo screeching the same word over and over again to the tune of "Jingle Bells?"

How can we make things more tolerable for parents? Since Rowlf belongs to Disney now, we can't have him on SS. Let's see, how about each Elmo video, DVD or toy could come with a coupon for Advil or Tylenol with a groaning on the front?

Sigh...I'm glad they had Sesame Unpaved...for a while anyway...sigh. Until then, we're stuck alongside Bert, asking how we can leave Elmo's World. I know just how Bert feels.

Convincing John

 

[Baughdie Howes]

Who's David?

Who's David???

(Give me strength...)

(This is why we need more access to the early episodes of "Sesame Street"...)

"David" was a young, hip African-American man, who appeared on the show from 1969 to 1989. At first, he was Maria's love interest, and you can see them snuggling on the subway after the ice rink segment at the beginning of the "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street" special. This was before she fell in love with Luis, of course!

David was in a lot of the early film segments, as were the other human cast members. One of his recurring characters in these segments was "Same Sound Brown", who loved to rhyme. David worked in Mr. Hooper's store, and inherited the business after Mr. Hooper's death.

A few years later, David mysteriously disappeared from the show, and I can't recall the explanation that was given for his leaving Sesame Street. Come to think of it, I don't think they said anything at all.

However, I recall hearing rumours that in real life, Northern Calloway, who played the character, was battling a serious drug problem and died of an overdose. In fact, he was battling cancer, and he succumbed to it in 1990.

I suspect that he isn't mentioned in retrospectives because the show's producers felt it might frighten young children to learn that such a young person--someone the same age as their parents, really--could die. Or maybe they felt that they'd already dealt with the subject of death with Mr. Hooper, and that they either didn't feel the need to deal with it again, or that it would be too traumatic to raise the subject again.

David appears in some of the segments of the 25th and 30th anniversary specials, though, and tonight's 35th Anniversary special contains a brief glimpse of him, in the clips at the very end. The "1974" clip shows an African-American man and woman, singing at the checkerboard newspaper counter of Hooper's Store. The man is David, and the woman is Olivia. She was Gordon's sister, and she was brought onto the show to show children the kind of relationship that adult siblings have.

Northern Calloway did voice work too, and you can hear him in the English-language dub of the original French movie "La Cage Aux Folles". He does the voice of Jacob, the "Nubian Maid" to the film's central characters, Georges and Albin (the original version of the character later played by Hank Azaria in "The Birdcage"). It's a deliciously over-the-top performance, which is definitely not for the kiddies!

 

[maurakl]

What a let down!

I was thoroughly let down. It was such a disappointment. One good thing is that my children got to see some good Sesame Street when they were young and didn't have to grow up with this current style. Yuck! I too, am finding Elmo very annoying and I absolutely hate the computer animation junk with the Elmo's World and it appears much of Sesame Street. I am not as big a fan as most of you, but I sure do hope to get my hands on some DVD's of the older Sesame Street stuff, even Unpaved. This new style is just not right. The last few minutes were the only thing that made it even remotely worth the tape I put it on. The other part I liked was the old Ernie and Bert skit.

 

[duderguy]

One must wonder...in 20 years from now(if SS is still on the air)...If some kid from todays generation will be an adult and complaining about the 55th aniversary special not containing enough classic skits of what they will refer to as "the good ol' elmos world and journey to Ernie skits.

We miss what we grew up with-we know that to be "our sesmaee street." The current skits are what is known as sesamee street to a new generation of kids. As sad as it may seem this is what our street has become.

THE DUDE
Matt

 

[dwayne1115]

We pay for it

Well you know some of us really do help pay for SS to be on the air. There must be somthing we can do. I will agree that if that is the way the show really goes then i would be sadly bord with it. i did see some clips of older shows i wanted to see that i may have missed, want born yet or was to busy. The thing that worked the most was Big Bird and Oscar. you could get so much emothon out of both of them that it was very good and they could learn and handdel things better then are little red bunndle of agrafation elmo. Carol Spinny is a wonderfull person if you havent read his book i incourage you to, I truly belive that he could really help SS. Yes i really think Carol and Frank Oz and wonderfull and very preety Gabby could help the show heck im 21 and she was born a few years after me so i know she got to be getting close to probly 14 i thnk that if they wanted to they could really make it more famly oritnted. Thats what this counrty and world need. i know haveing Gabby would draw the teens into waching. and maybe bring Pepe to SS to. more viraity not just Elmo. cant we as people protest. i think Jim would be rolling over in his grave he he knew how out of hand elmo has goten.

 

[scarylarrywolf]

OK, that whole thing was really un-Sesame Streetish. Even the SS trivia game on the CTW site testifies that Elmo was never an original character, and as much as I love Kevin and admire his tallent, I hate the living daylights out of Elmo. (BTW, in my opinion is becoming the Elmo of the Muppet world, so I really don't like the idea of him coming to SS, but that's just me)

I remember at the end of the special when Elmo says, "Elmo has something he wants to tell everybody" desperately trying to influence the little red rascal from my position in front of the TV to say "Elmo's leaving Sesame Street." But it looks like the little dickens is sticking around...

Aside from the whole Elmo thing (which doesn't leave much, seeing as half the special was eaten up by the routine piddly segments of Elmo's World, such as the comptuer and drawer screwing around), I loved the old Bert and Ernie sketch. Hopefully that'll re-kindle some dying embers. Also, the whole retro TV thing at the end was great, but would have been SO MUCH BETTER if they'd shown the entire segments. Today's children are missing out on some classic entertainment.

So I've got an idea. How about we all send in crayon-scrawled letters to CTW, in child-like hand writing, stating that we wonder why we never saw any of those other puppet skits. They can't pass up innocent little questions like that, huh? Sound good?