Sesame Street Review

For those of you who may find yourself similarly unemployed and spending time at home with the kids…

Sesame Street is a fabulous show for the 18 month to 6 year old crowd. Some worthwhile notes:

The first ten minutes of Sesame Street aren’t interesting to kids or adults. 18 month olds, at least, only start paying attention when Cookie Monster shows up at 15 minutes into the action. He is followed by Ernie and Bert and the Count. There is another, short lull until the part 19 months olds love – Elmo’s world. Elmo gets a lot of screen time – the largest segment of any character. Elmo is fairly annoying to adults. Finally, Oscar makes an appearance near the end of the show.

Many Sesame Street characters are made with parents in mind, I am convinced. Personally, I find Cookie Monster and Oscar hilarious. Cookie Monster uses advanced language with a few grammatical errors. On the one hand, he says, “Me Love cookie!” On the other, he states, “Let’s be realistic. We all know that me will eat this cookie. Perhaps me should use my imagination.” He also eats random things which may or may not look like cookies (including flowers, teapots, etc). Furthermore, he is the only character with googly eyes – the kind that jiggle all around when he moves. Everyone else’s eyes are stationary. Also, his googly eyes are never synched. Simply a riot.

Oscar is entirely made for adults. No kid really appreciates a green monster in a trash can who tells kids to “scram” and “get lost”. I like Oscar because there are times when I feel like him and want our kids to scram. His sarcasm is unique among the critters, with the exception of occasional sarcasm by Bert.

Summary – Don’t turn on Sesame Street until 15 minutes in. Walk away during Elmo’s world, for your own sanity (you know it’s almost over when he says, “Now Elmo will ask a baby”). Catch Oscar at the end for a laugh. By the way, some of the old skits and cartoons (like for numbers and letters, and some songs (C is for Cookie, Rubber Ducky)) still show up, 25 years after I saw them as a kid. That is endearing in itself.

I still don’t like Grover.