Sesame Street: You CAN go home again

Finally coming out of the whole overwhelmed thing. Slowly starting to get the balance back. Kitchen should be usable again next week. Must... stop.. eating... microwave food....

OK so I was watching Sesame Street with Griffin who is now around 14 months old. He gets a little bit more TV than Bella did, mainly because well, I’m freaking exhausted, that’s why, and sometimes you just need 20 minutes of not chasing around a toddler who keeps wondering what the cat tastes like.

As I was watching Sesame Street I was amazed to see most of the old actors I grew up with still there, like Gordon, Susan, Bob and of course the same guy who does Big Bird and Oscar. They’ve been doing this for 40 years! That kind of job security is unheard of, especially in television. Although somehow I doubt the raises have been too significant. It is public television after all.

Sesame Street is a mix of old footage and new and I remembered some of the segments when I was a kid like the Ladybug Picnic and the western one where a guy marked everyone with an “X” until a boy asked him to stop and then he started doing “O”s. My favorite was the last line “The townspeople were satisfied, because they really weren’t very smart”

Sesame Street always catered to both the children and the parents watching, which has always been cool. You can really see the flash of genius between Jim Henson and Frank Oz doing skits with Ernie and Cookie Monster (The Cookie Bunny) and other sketches with Grover and that guy he always tortured in the restaurant. Some of them were loose, ad libbed and really pretty funny.

I was happy to see that tradition being upheld. Sure, Elmo is still really annoying, although less so once you have kids. Mainly because they sit still and watch him for a few minutes, making you actually grateful to him. Like making a deal with a high pitched furry red devil. Yes, master. Whatever you say, master.

There was one segment that really made me laugh and I actually rewound to watch it again. I tried to find it on YouTube but couldn’t and then I finally found it on the Sesame Street site. The band Squirrel Nut Zippers did a parody of their song Put a Lid on it and kept putting things on a guy’s head. I found the link. Here it is. I may even buy their album now.

http://www.sesamestreet.org/video_player?p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_id=videoPlayer_WAR_sesameportlets4369&p_p_uid=15b7e365-4143-11dd-a2c3-4d6bdc929d13

So it was cool to see there is one thing I grew up with that the spirit has remained the same. And I am happy to share it with my children. Here’s to another 40 years of Sesame Street.