Your Thoughts: The Street We Live On

i like it

that sounds good but i think its our kids that can make the differect they need to hate elmo. hate him so bad they cant stand it. we really need to do somthing about that little red frury hhuhuhuhuhuu i cant satnd him. the show would be great wiith out him i am so anti elmo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sad, But True...

My Girlfriend and I had the same reactions that most of you had. the 20th anniverary was special. This was C-R-A-P!

I disliked Elmo for awhile, I moved on and forgot why... Until Now. "Little red menace" was allowed to take over and therfore destroy the whole show (save for the 5min clips at the end)!!!

We both felt that if Sesame Workshop wanted to suck up (literally) so much time up with Elmo, why not just give him his own spin-off??!!?!

Isn't That a brilliant idea????? Why not have Elmo's world be a half hour block of 2- 15 minute sessions?

That way if you want to subject your kids to Elmo you can, AND you can have them watch SS which wouldn't be as Elmo centered.

During the special, I truly felt lied to by PBS' press release. Since SS is on public broadcasting I' am writing to them how disapointed I was in thier "35 anniversary special", I strongly encouarge others to do the same.

It's this kind of garbage that gives The Muppets and their fans a bad name. The street we live on indeed.... make that USED to live on...

It was still good....

The special was still good, despite the little red menace jacking the show.
I grew up watching Sesame Street, as we all did, and I felt a little betrayed by the way he took over the show. He's cute and all, but practically a whole hour?! No way.

The time machine scenes were very touching...to see at least a glimpse of the scenes I grew up with....Luis and Maria's wedding, Big Bird learning of Mr. Hooper's ( remember he called him Mr. Pooper?) death, and so on.....and the clips from each year of the show (regardless of chronological accuracy) touched me. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried. Of course, most of it has to do with the fact that I recently learned I'm going to be a daddy for the first time, and watching this special made me realize I have a LOT to do as a parent, and that whole afraid thing.....but I am glad that Sesame Street will be around for my child, and I did tape the special for later viewing by said
child.

All in all, the special was very touching, and seeing scenes like Big Bird's nest being destroyed, and seeing Lily Tomlin sign "Sing"...they all brought back happy memories of my childhood.

Perhaps one day, CTW will see it fit to somehow bring back older episodes, and perhaps one day a medium will exist for us to view those, "Electric Company", "321 Contact", and even other stuff like "Newton's Apple". <sigh>

And hopefully, the producers will see the need to tackle the issue of a best friend moving away....hence, Elmo goes bye-bye. He's cute, but enough is enough!

I, too, was thoroughly disappointed in this "special"- if you can truly call it that. Is sesame workshop afraid of to steer away from Elmo? That's what the special felt like. I would have loved an hour long- or more- of nothing but old clips- they wouldn't even have to have anything else, just clips. The clip montage at the end was far and away my favorite part. Every time they started to go somewhere cool, the going back in time had such potential!- they came quickly back to elmo's world. I was very disappointed!

Heck.Elmo takes up so much of sesame street,they could give him his own show!Elmo dominated the special,so why not give him his own show!it would be after sesame street so there would be more vintage muppet skits.

I was mad about that they talked all about the time machine in the press release but then it was only in for 2 minutes at the end. It just seemed like watching the show at 8PM. At least in the 25th Anniversy specials I felt like I knew that it was the anniversery, great clips, etc. Here how The Street We Live On SHOULD have gone:
Cookie Monster is looking through the Sesame Workshop libary of shows for a hammer for a Letter Of The Day bit then notices all the old Sesame episodes and watches portions of them in a clip show format looking through stuff like Mr. Hooper's Death, The Adults First Seeing Snuffy, etc. In the end, he locks Elmo in their and forces him to watch Elmo's World over and over and over and see how he likes it.

When I read about the special, it said that Elmo spends the hour discovering Sesame Streets past. It sounded like a really good idea. I knew it would be an hour of Elmo's World, but I expected their to be a lot of old clips from the begining to the present. Instead, it's the regular style of Elmo's World with some tiny snippits at the end.

Question. Did we need the "How does Cookie Monster eat a cookie?" segment that went on forever? No. Did we need the "Grover, Big Bird, Maria, and Elmo's Friends channel" with the poorly drawn and written cartoon? No. We didn't even need the JTE segement, though I understand why that was in there. But the JTE segment sucked. What were kids suppose to learn? There was no problem solving from what I remember. Just nursary rhmes and some counting. And frankly, I don't think kids know those rhymes anymore.

Global Grover was actually quite good and interesting. Eric did a fine job with Grover as always, but Grover looks like crap now. What happened to him? He went all plushy and fake looking. Grover doesn't look like that at all.

I have a chair was ruined! It's nice to have the song, but why did it need CGI like that? The original is far more relateable to kids. It seemed to be updated just for the sake of updating it.

What the heck was with that B&E segment? Those celeberty caeos sucked. Seth Green? Larry King? Dr. Phil? Why? It seemed unplanned and out of place. Just odd. I know Whoopie likes to work with the muppets, so I see why she was in there and at least she did something some what entertaing, and I remember that lady with the card board wings so that was nice, but most of the others were crap.

When they finally did the segments from the past, they didn't do them right. The Mr. Hooper segment was far too short and no one learned anything. I was hoping to see something longer because I don't really remember Hooper at all, but he got nothing. Grover just says that it's Mr. Hooper and that he owned the store. That's all. Nothing about what his friendship with Big Bird, nothing about the years he spent on the show, nothing about what happened to him. NADA! They should have shwon the FULL clip of Big Bird dealing with Hooper's death instead of the little clip at the end saying he's not coming back. If i didn't know better I' think he just went on vacation. It was handled poorly. And the other clips weren't anything too special at all. We saw Maria and Luis's wedding (kind of) which was ok I guess. We saw Gabby being born and Miles as a baby, but nothing indepth or special there either. So much more could have been done. At the very least show the clip of Kermit and Rowlf thinking up Sesame Street. I'm sure JHC hcould have given them permission back when the "special" was filmed.

We know they were allowed to have Kermit on there because we saw him at the very end. Why not more of him? One not ONE full KErmit segment. How about Muppet News or "On My Pond" or something? Why not have Kermit show up in Elmo's World and introduce some early stuff? I know Kermit is owned by JHC, but I would bet that permission would have been given

I was sadly dissappointed. There was a lot of potential to make a great special for kids to watch with their parents and it just didn't work. It was a celebration of Elmo for 45 minutes with some celebration of the past near the very end. If JHC still owned Sesame Street, I think something better would have been made. I KNOW that if Jim Henson were alive it would have been done right.

Well, I agree with just about everyone else. I wasted an hour of my time. And an hour of my father's time.

I watched this at my parents' house and subjected my dad to an hour of Elmo's World. I am actually slightly embarassed. I would not have been ashamed to watch a retrospective special at 25 years of age, but I am still red in the face for watching an entire hour of Elmo's World.

How do we get Sesame to tone it down with the Elmo?!?

Well, I haven't watched it yet. I was hoping to watch it with my family when I'm home during Easter break, but from what I read so far, I guess it's not too much to look forward too. I know what you mean though. I really liked the 20th anniversary special with Bill Cosby where they showed clips of the Mr. Hooper death episode and the adoption of Miles. I guess the reason the special was the way it was because they didn't want to do the same thing over again.

35 and Still Going...

The 35th anniversary show was good, though have to admit it could have been better.

The Elmo is segment is WAY TOO LONG. The character is great, but an adult can only take about ten minutes of that before it's a turn-off, or tune-out. Similarly, kids will too...

And it prevents all the other characters (human and puppet alike) from having depth. They come off as two-dimensional and lacking depth. But I know (forgive my not mentioning everyone), but Bob Maria, Big Bird and everyone else has ability and depth. It's all about the song, dance, and interaction!!!!

The show won Emmy's for having that depth and transcending generations. Brew a strong pot-o-joe... It's time for the Workshop to find it's roots. The talent is already there and/or within reach. Develop, find and invest in the strong sketch writing for all of the characters (human and puppet), animators and Raposo-esque songwriters/musicians.

Watch the show by yourself before watching it with other people. If I had watched this with other people, I would have been ashamed of myself.

I can see why they didn't want to do the same stuff as other specials, but they could have done it in a different way. They could have brought it down to Elmo's level and had kids see the history of the show they love through his eyes. Instead, it's Elmo's World for an hour. Our worst fears come true. And who didn't want to shoot themselves when Elmo Starting to sing the Sesame Street song? No, I don't mean the theme song, I mean Sesame Street over and over again to the tune of single bells. ARGH!!!!! At least it was cut very short and wen to a real song.

Oh, and did anyone else HATE that everyone on the street was just waiting for Elmo as if they couldn't live without him? So many characters live on that street. Why were Big Bird and Snuffy talking about Elmo feeding his gold fish?

I relate to Bert. How do we get out of Elmo's World?

Okay...so far 13 people voted as liking this...I wanna hear their side. In the meantime, I'll try to find the good things...
Was that Brian in the 10 bit?
I liked the taxi stalling on the pinball set.
I thought Grover sounded really good, especially at the beginning.
I liked the seatbelt gag.
The clips at the end.

That was John Henson in the Baker #10 bit. It replaced the "10 Little Indians" portion, for racial reasons.

IT could have been SO much better.

Yes, How *do* we get out of Elmo's world?!?!

The best things about the show was the taxi stopping on the Pinball backdrop, although I wish they had shown that, it's one of my fav segments and probably attributes to my pinball addiction...

Christopher Meloni's (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) dancing in "Dance myself to sleep". I couldn't stop laughing at that.

Bert wanting to leave Elmo's World.

The clips at the end, saying from what year they were from.

And probably the biggest and best surprise, Mahna-Mahna at the end.

The taxi part was good and I thought I was in for a real treat then. But it didn't happen. And I too thought we'd see the pinball segment, but they just showed that in the back and that was it.

It did have good moments. And if this was treated as a regular show, then it would have been a great regular episode. But it was advertised as the 35th anniversary special. That's what brings it down for me. It wasn't really made like a special. It was made like an extended version odf Elmo's world. And I'm scared that this will be the new format for this year.

I think the problem here is one of two completely different audiences. Remember, this wasn't strictly a 35th anniversary special made for prime time. This was also the first episode of the new season. Thus, it absolutely has to appeal to the 2, 3 and 4 year old who are the core SST audience today. We want a special that celebrates the history of SST in a way that is meaningful for adults-- we want more of the old stuff and less of the new. But kids watching today don't know who Mr. Hooper was and it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of time in teaching them-- there's certainly no way to bring the character back.

In terms of making a special for kids watching today that celebrates the history of SST, I thought they did a really good job. Of course Elmo annoys all us grownups, but little kids LOVE Elmo. My three year old loved the special.

I loved seeing the typewriter-- something clearly for adults as few three year olds today have ever even seen a typewriter.

Two things I really didn't like: 1) the new Grover puppet-- his hair is too smooth and brushed out. Grover should be a little matted, like he's fallen from the sky a few hundred times. 2) My local PBS station used a voice over to promote other shows during Mahna Mahna! You don't drown out a classic like Mahna Mahna!

Over all I think it was a pretty good mix of tossing in a few nuggets for adults while keeping it in a format today's SST audience could understand.

Let's face it, kids like anything with cartoons and puppets. They could have done a REAL special and kids would have liked it just the same.

Saw a little of the Anniv. Special

Hi there.From what I watched of the anniv. special,didn't seem like one to me; it seemed like another SS episode.I expected the whole special to be all of the cast members,human & muppets to sit around & talk about the history evolution(that's what I read in the tv guide synopsis that the special would be on). I expected flashbacks,sing-alongs,seeing old muppet skits(bert & ernie,number songs & alphabet songs),especially when SS has 35 years of clips.Like it was pointed out,yes once again Elmo took over the show,only a handful of flashbacks were shown. I hope to see more of clips in further anniv. specials & less of the little red furry one.Yup,I do agree that Elmo should have his own show,would be for the best if that were to happen.JaniceFerSure

Alapeanutbuttersandwiches!-Mumford

The again, it could be an entire episode with celebrities doing horrid covers of old songs.

What you people don't thik about, is it's supposed to be about the entire series, the past, present and future.

They made an effort to dust off the old clips NOT SEEN ON SS IN WELL OVER 20 YEARS and mix them with newer clips. Plus they at least attempted to teach younger fans about the old days.

Think of it this way... it could have been just another uneventful episode, like the 4000th... zzzznk...

I think it was great. hardly the 20th or 25th, but I thought it was clever.

I mean, I had my doubts about Elmo hosting the show, but I feel that rather than jsut a fan driven retrospective, it was Sesame through the eyes of the younger generation.

Face it... we're all older now, and nothing pleases us as much as the kids.

Besides, from what I picked up no one got

The appearance of Wanda the Word Fairy, in a brief cameo

The subtle parodies of Elmo's World (Elmo sing the Sesame Song, the Big Bird, Maria, Grover, and all of Elmo's friends channel).

Oscar calling Elmo "the red menace" (a fan coined term)

Susan returning

Luis returning

The gag about the Pinball count

The retrospective at the end actually used clips like Star Wars, and the death of Mister Hooper, and ending it off with Manah Manah (WHICH I HAVE NEVER SEEN!!!!)

I mean, if Sesame Unpaved was actually on the air, I'd feel a little cheated, but these guys made an attempt! I mean, even seeing just the Baker Falling down the stairs was worth the entire episode!

I didn't have high hopes for this special, so I wasn't too let down.

However:

I was pleasantly surprised by the Typewriter Guy, and the Song of 10.

I thought the segments were far too drawn out. I kept thinking, "C'mon! Get to the classics!"

When Grover and Elmo saw Mr. Hooper, I started to cry, and then continued to cry until after it was over. Seeing all those old clips (all 2 seconds of each one) at the end made me realize how much this show meant to me when I was a kid, and how different it is today. It was like you could see it disintegrate when they got to the '90's.