Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Today's Post is Brought to You by the Letters F, E and A.

So Sesame Street is 40 years old.

Big deal.

Don't get me wrong. SS was a much-needed program when it appeared in 1969. But it became redundant in the 1990's, with the widespread use of cable TV and a host of alternative children's programming. But also, the new programs are designed for the attention-deficit kids of today. Try to watch Elmo and see if there's an unedited shot for more than 4 seconds. I may be showing my age, but I can get dizzy watching the new shows.

Compare that with this: 3 minutes of a 1 camera shot. And two of my favorite characters who have been banned by SS because they were deemed too "ethnic": Roosevelt Franklin and his Momma.

And when did everybody start seeing Snuffaluffagus anyway? He used to reside only in Big Bird's fevered imagination.

6 comments:

RussBuss said...

i love me some sesame street. the movies are even better. anybody see "big bird in china"? it was fucking brilliant!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371576/

Unknown said...

prdo

UKISOCIETY said...

Stop calling Grumps names, Deach!

Grumpy Coyote said...

I thnk the answer is Jim. Once he died the franchise sort of lost it's way.

The Snuffy thing is funny - they thought it was mean to imply that Big Bird was insane, so they lett Snuffy be real. Sucked the fun right out of the imaginary friend concept.

Aperently imaginary friends freak modern parents out.

TrinaD said...

It's ok, Uki, it looks like Roosevelt Franklin still has a job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kekb_f5NWg

Mugambismonkey said...

Too bad, I watched a lot of "Sesamstraße" when I was a kid, but "Roosevelt Franklin and his Momma" NEVER appeared on German TV! My favorite characters were Grover, Cooky Monster and Count von Count (the latter is an "any puppet" and was also used for other characters - I found out later). Btw. we only had a black & white TV when I was a kid, so I grew up thinking, all the puppets were in shades of gray. I was quite surprised when I found out that they were in fact colored. However somehow I never really liked their colors... until today!

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