Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 40

He did indeed!

This episode was much, much better. I really like the episodes that focus on Oscar and Slimey. Nice little gag with Carrie Underworm. And I like how Oscar was up to his old gag of spreading grouchiness by having Slimey practice on the kitchen countertops at Hooper's. Elmo seemed to be just there for the sake of being just there... really should have been Telly. And Big Bird makes a nice cameo at the end. The fact that he's reduced to cameo disappoints me.

And Look how much fun the show can be if you have a NEW Abby Flying Fairy School. It doesn't matter how sharp the writing is, it gets old 3 times. But a nice little twist on Jack and the Beanstalk. I really do like how most of these are Fairy Tale themed.

And and Ernie and Bert Great Adventures segment too. Not that I don't like the Murray segments, but I've seen them all twice last year. Really.. I said it before and I'll say it again... we need to see more of that next time. They have so many E&B segments they can run and only so many Abbys and Murrays.

These Sesame English reused skits kinda get me down. Sure, it's cute to see a Hello Kitty-ized Cookie Monster and Elmo... but it's hardly the same thing as the actual puppets. At least they're not reusing more season 32 letter and number segments.

Also liked the Find the Habitat thing as well... of course, I can't say enough bad things about that terrible Zoe puppet, so I'll end right here.

Yeah. I see what you mean. It's too bad there haven't really been any street stories with BB this season aside from the premiere ep. I see what you mean about Telly though. He and Oscar used to have quite a bond. Telly can be friends with both Baby Bear and Oscar. They really need to bring back the chemistry those two characters used to have.

Yikes! Brendan Fraser is NOT again gracefully!

How cool to see Bip - i guess his "Mahna Mahna" was a confirmation that he is basically the SST version of the character (since Bip had never actually said it before)

It seems like Zoe, Abby, and Rosita have been paired as a trio quite a bit this season (two years after season 38's "Because We're Friends"). I wonder if we should expect to see the three as a regular trio... Of course, it is a bit odd that Zoe's hardly been on the street this year.

I sort of feel like the race should have been more crowded... While it was cool to have Bip wathcing the race, it would have been cool to see more "Old School" characters in the audience... Biff, Sully, Herry, Dr. Nobel Price, Don Music...

Telly sadly hasn't been on many episodes either. Funny thing is, his puppeteer has performed a character in virtually every episode this season. Telly would have been a much more appropriate character to be rooting for him and worrying he'd lose than Elmo, who came off as just being their for merchandising purposes. Elmo has been in every street story except for 3, the one with the bees, the one with Mary mary quite Contrary, and the one with the bears hibernating.

For that matter, where's Baby Bear? He's usually in every episode. Was this some sort of availability thing with David Rudman and the other Muppets?

Honestly, if anyone has been keeping track, HOW many street scenes has Elmo been in already this season? It seems too many, since he already owns 15 minutes of his own show, but that is one of the oldest rants already. Please, give other characters a chance to shine. It's not The Elmo & Abby Cadabby Show,(and if you're lucky on a RARE occassion boys and girls!) featuring the other Sesame Street Muppet Characters! Yippeee!


I seriously hate complaining about Elmo's overdominance on the show, since I really like the character, but it's TOO MUCH of him. Maybe it's a sign I'm just getting too old for this show, lol.

But really, I want this generation of kids to grow up with the same (or at least somewhat) quality of fun I got out of it as a kid, not this monster of a show they're showing these days. Bring back the SS Muppets first of all... not all this CGI stuff. That's my whole concern is that, slowly for surely, that soon SS will just be full of all CGI, and completely forget what made them successful in the first place.

I don't wanna start trouble but I'm afraid this is just how it's gonna be.

It's best to to enjoy what exists on YT, the SS website and the DVD's, and those who are parents and feel the same way can show their kids all I mentioned.

Like most of the adults watching this season, I agree that Season 40 has been hit-and-miss so far...mostly "miss". Don't get me wrong; the street stories have been more entertaining than usual this season, and not just because of the hidden gems. It's good to see the older characters, human and Muppet, get their chance to shine...and to talk to kids the way they used to do it, naturally with no hint of lecturing or dumbing down. I guess an anniversary made some of the cast think more closely about their delivery (Bob and Gordon especially come to mind).

As good as the street stories generally are...the rest of a typical Season 40 episode is too predictable, with more filler time than actual lesson material. The new "programming block" style is partly to blame; it's been ages since I was 3 or 4, but I'm betting that a lot of those test-audience kids got bored with Murray's coming-up-next announcements and his opposite game at the end. You know Sesame Street is wasting time when only one letter or number clip appears in 45 minutes. *shrug*

"Abby's Flying Fairy School" has given me mixed reactions so far. On one hand, a regular segment about problem-solving (even unrealistic problems; these are fairies after all) makes educational sense. The chemistry between characters (especially Blogg and Gonnigan) feels right for Sesame Street, too. But giving AFFS a theme song as long as the one for the main show? Come on, guys...even "Elmo's World" doesn't get that much theme time, and Elmo is the star of today's Sesame Street (like it or not). Most of you have already mentioned the rerun problem; I hope the Workshop will fix that soon, as they once did with "Elmo's World".

I was going to stop watching after the celebrity word of the day, and I really should have.

Very good story today. NO ELMO in sight, and we get a great Telly and Baby Bear story. Characters that can actually emote and don't come off 1 dimensional. Nice little story about confidence and losing it. And this is the episode with Biff and Sully. I wish more of these hidden gems were old character cameos, and less something written in the background of the background you can only see in high def and if you have a DVR and can pause it.

Good celebrity Word on the Street, though not half as funny as his segment singing to Elmo... but hey, at least no one's mom wrote one letter of complaint (there's a thread on that).

But really, the filler segments were weak. WEAK! I'm not mentioning the rebroadcast Abby and Murray (I like those, even after multiple reruns... just not so soon after). Boring segment about kids jumping over a J (at least it wasn't Hello Cookie again... but I'd almost prefer it), lame stop motion photo animation of violins, bunch of people dancing to the number 8 (actually that was pretty catchy)... that dumb "Jump Up" song. The Ernie and Bert segment was alright... I'm actually starting to prefer the claymation over the more recent skits. I just wish they had one new non-clay segment.

I'm gonna do a post season wrap up when they finally run out of new episodes... but you pretty much stated a couple of my problems. I love Murray's word on the street and letter and number intros... but I think the opposites game is filler and nothing more (and we're seeing the same ones over and over) and I really don't like how he closes the show... only because they just redub his lines over and over. It's like a recording that breaks down and replaces one line awkwardly. If he did something interresting and different each time, I'd rather see that... or I'd rather see it tie in to the street story. Plus telling kids what comes up next just doesn't sit well with me. It's like watching a series of disconnected shows.

As for Abby, the only complaint I have is that we're seeing reruns and three runs. I think as far as theme songs go, it should be ALL the themes to all the segments that need to go. 3 segments with 1 minute long intros? You can show an additional 3 minute segment (or 3 1 minute segments) in that time. Other than that, the only thing I'd cut out of Abby is the Spot segment. But I reiterate... Abby (along with Ernie and Bert) is what all the other segments SHOULD be like. I mean, Journey to Ernie was sort of fun after they changed the format from that dreadful first season appearance... but Monster Clubhouse, Heroguy, Elmo's World, and the horrible and thankfully dead Time to Play segments come off as repetitive and bland. Heroguy had some potential, and I like Baby Bear... but it falls flat. Here we actually have a story. Not just saying to kids "HEY! This is this and that is that, and birthday cakes don't take showers."

I say, I would LOVE for them to replace Elmo's World with something similar to Abby starring Elmo... only with Puppets.

Since we've seen a majority of the episodes, i'd have to say that though certainly not without its moments, as a season the current one has been more a disappointment than a winner - and when one considers that this is their 40th season which should have been a little more special, it really has been missing the mark. Things like the gems (which i hope turns into a tradition beyond season 40) and Kermit's EW cameo are cool but they don't carry an episode - the team has focused too much on certain small areas to make season 40 special but lost total focus on the overall big picture.

My main thought when watching an episode or a sequence of episodes shouldn't end up being "are you guys really sure you know what you're doing?" Yet that's exactly what's tended to become my mantra! For a show that's been called the most researched show in history and includes creative problem solving among its cirriculum, it sure has massively failed to grasp some pretty simple concepts as to how to put on a good show that will engage the viewers and how to still shine despite the budget cuts.

I do have to at least throw in amongst the discussion of season 40 that i thought it was massively cool that they just threw in the random surprise just for the heck of it of having the opening theme end differently in at least one episode by having Grover fly into the lamppost without knocking it down but rather getting up dizzily and leaning against it knocking it over that way. Just a really cool fun way to catch the viewer off guard and make them smile/laugh during a moment in the show they're not expecting to see anything different in.

Well put. I mean, a Lot of it, as I said was budgetary... reusing segments, lack of characters, smaller cast, smaller number of puppets in a scene or sequence, one new Elmo's World (so far), and basically a lot of filler to eke out as much spare time that would have been filled with more carefully placed or newer segments. But a lot of it was choice. They chose to put one episode of Abby in every episode, and they chose to hold back on some of the episodes so they can make them last (provided they did make 26 segments)... they chose to do a block segment that's hit or miss no matter who's the star...

All and all, it really feels like a kid's Christmas or Birthday in a recession that the kid's parents almost forgot. You're really excited, then you find out you got so little, and most of it just seems like cheap junk bought at the last minute that the kid really doesn't want... and he doesn't even get the stuff he asked for.

So far, here's things I'd like to see different if I didn't state them enough already as it is:

• Keep Murray hosting the Letter and Number and Word segments. Get rid of the fillers telling what's next and the opposite games.
• Make the choice between showing an episode of each segment every day or making x amount of episodes last more than one season. Something they managed to get wrong last year too.
• The theme songs for various segments are catchy, but they also take up a lot of time.
• You CAN keep some of the format, but mix it up and make it more spontaneous. They tried to go back to the spontaneity of the pre-32 seasons 2 years ago, and they were moving in that direction... now they lost it.
• Take a little more care in picking out segments for filling out the rest of the hour. A lot of stuff seemed thrown in and pointless (today's stop motion violin sketch for example).
• If you can trim down the Murray segments from last season, I don't see why they can't trim Elmo's World down a little without ruining it. A couple seconds here and there, and you lose 2 or 3 minutes without much effort.
• Better scripts for celebrity word of the day. Some were great, some seemed like they were on a baby show waving high to their babies at home.
• Shorter, better letter and number segments. The Sesame Street English segments are cute, but go on longer than they have to by at least 30 seconds.
• And, this is per my own taste... NO KAREN AQUA ANIMATIONS! NONE! NEVER! IX-NAY! I hate to be mean to an animator, but her work on the show is repetitive and sloppy in most cases.

One thing i meant to include in my last post but ended up leaving it out before hitting send...

Given that they only have 26 episodes a season, one would think a LOT more thought and care would go into individual episodes since they aren't having to "crank those puppies out" like they once had to. I mean even though SST is still shown daily, the number of episodes is now down to what's typical for a weekly series. Yet, the episodes feel more rushed and glossed over than ever.

Remember what i said about the main thought in my head watching this season's episodes have been "Do these guys really know what they're doing?" I have a feeling the people who really were attentive and responsible for the overall flow and care of the episodes were among those laid off.

Heh... I wouldn't doubt it for a second if that's the case. It Does feel like the series came off shorthanded, and it feels like (in case it really isn't the case) they shot everything in a shorter amount of time so they don't have to pay studio fees or anything like that. And it really feels like they didn't spend all that long to put the episodes together... but frankly, last season felt that way too. And even the writing feels short handed... the Elmo Camping with Chris episode especially feels like "Okay, we've got 2 more minutes left to write a script or no one's getting paid. We gotta shoot something out quick." It seemed like a lost oppertunity to do a BETTER story with the same subject.

And something tells me they didn't even focus test the block format as well as they could if any...

Honestly, I'm sticking completely to my last minute recession Christmas comment. We got 2 nice books and a nice DVD set... but the only attempt of making this season special is hiding stuff in the background, in cases, inside jokes that get blocked and don't really seem worth it. Was there anything in the camping episode? Even the season 35 opener attempted to make it a special. The only thing special is Big Bird considers leaving and the number of the day was 40? Not even an old skit shoved in anywhere?

I'm not one to say "Where are the old segments" since we have them all over Youtube and DVD in some cases. But it would have been nice to give a nod to the 40th anniversary without adding anything to the budget with some good older segments instead of stuff we saw as late as last year and as early as earlier this decade.

I see what you mean, but I thought today's was fairly good. It's nice to see Grover still does that, "Hey, ? bab-eeeeeee!" bit.

Hey, Everybody Be Yo'Self was on today's episode. So that means we got to see Kermit twice this season.

I really did like this episode with the weird writer slobby guy with the caps with stuff on it from 30 Rock. Nice, od littl story we had today. Too bad there were only about 3 Muppet characters in there... that thing with the letter R went on a bit too long for my taste, and it almost felt like they ran out of stuff to do, and threw it in last minute. But still, a very good episode. And even though I kinda saw the coming, I thought it was very amusing.

The word of the day was alright too, if you like Jimmy Fallon. At least he wasn't talking down to kids and got the spirit of the show.

A lot of stuff I like to see, a New Abby where they go to Colonial Trolliumsburg, where we get to see a real powerful bit about Blogg, and find out more about his origins... nice gags about Simon and Garfunkle. And a really good Ernie and Bert great Adventure too. I still think the newer letter and number segments this season are weak, but that's been like that for a while now, so I can't really complain.

Yeah... the one little thing I wish was that in the Elmo's World segment he actually interacted with some SS characters or something. But I'm not looking a gift frog in the mouth. But 2 appearances by Kermit in one season.. Man is that a sad thing to be happy about.

Has Marco (Gina's son) made appearances this season?

I watch Sesame Street every now and then when I'm not at school or work. It's wierd, because it has changed quite a bit from what I remember growing up. But it hasn't changed as much as I had expected it to. There is a bunch of stuff that I recognize. They still use clips that I recognize from older episodes and the avant garde aspect of many of the clips is still present.

Okay - this is something that has REALLY bothered me about this season that i keep forgetting to mention...

This really cuts to the core about how it seems like some of the most important people that really understood what makes the show work were among those laid off and how overall the show seems very rushed and sloppily put together.

No matter what - the children come first right? And while appealing to kids of all races, backgrounds, and social class, Sesame from the beginning was meant to give lower income children a headstart.

So, if one of the biggest parts of the curriculum is learning letters and numbers as well as the initial building blocks of reading, why did everyone involved with Sesame Street seemingly forget that just because the show switched to hi-def/widescreen last year, that that doesn't mean that every single household WATCHING the show on the other end of the screen doesn't have these newer fancy (expensive) television sets...especially during a major recession? A large portion of children watching don't have widescreen tv's and various PBS stations don't maintain the widescreen format, instead switching to a fullscreen presentation (my local PBS sometimes switches to fullscreen and sometimes doesn't).

So if you have an educational show built on getting kids to recognize letters, numbers and words that show up on the screen, they should be FRAMING all those as if a viewer is still watching in fullscreen - as i've seen countless words cropped off - what good is it to teach how the letter "R" starts the word "Rodent" if all you see on the screen is "odent"? The lower income families that can't afford the latest fadgets are getting left behind...which should NEVER be the case when it comes to Sesame Street. They're losing touch with the realities of how their audience is seeing the show to the point where it interferes with a child's ability to learn from it and that just flat out makes me furious.

On a lighter note, saw Jimmy Fallon's second Sesame appearance this season with his word of the day bit - man, this guy is just the BEST when it comes to working with the Muppets whether it's the Classic Muppets or the Sesame gang! Kind of fitting that Jimmy took the place of John Denver when the Muppets recreated the 12 Days number on his show as Fallon really should be to the Muppets what John was...a frequent collaborator that would come to have his name associated strongly with them.