One of the side effects of having a toddler is that after about a 25-30 yr hiatus I am regularly watching “Sesame Street” again.
To be able to watch Sesame Street after a hiatus requires coming back to it for about 2 weeks before you actually return from hiatus. So.. watch it as a kid… watch it some time in your young adult hood… then watch it as a parent.
Why?
Sesame Street has to change. It has to stay modern with educational methods as well as popular culture. This means that it’s not your Sesame Street anymore.
Effectively, you need to pass through your own personal Kübler-Ross model with the show before you can move on and appreciate it again.
For those not familiar… to summarize:
The stages are:
- Denial
- Example – “This isn’t really Sesame Street.”; “This can’t be what I’m really going to show my kids.”
- Anger
- Example – “Hip Hop Theme? That’s not the Theme!” ; “What’s with this ‘Elmo’ Crap!?!?” ; “That doesn’t even sound like Ernie!”
- Bargaining
- Example – “Just run the Ladybug Picnic.”; “I’d watch if they bring Grover back.”
- Depression
- Example – “My kid is not going to grow up well”; “I’m can’t be a supportive parent without Sesame Street.” ; “No one even knows what happened to David”
- Acceptance
- Example – “You know that Chris kid’s pretty funny.” ; (You know the order of skits on Elmo’s World)
- Example – “This isn’t really Sesame Street.”; “This can’t be what I’m really going to show my kids.”
So, now you’ve accepted the Children’s Television Workshop… the Sesame Workshop back into your life.
Unfortunately, now it’s more like Bullwinkle. Sure, it’s meant for kids.. But there’s so much subversive humour hiding under the covers. Pirate’s love F-Words
And this is what leads me to realize, I’m a very bad man.
One of the new characters on Sesame Street is a wide-mouthed monster named Murray. Last season he introduced every episode by discussing the common word for the day. This season Murray has a new segment.
The segment is called, “Murray has a little lamb.” Murray and his spanish speaking lamb travel around the city learning about different things. Murray’s lamb takes him on an adventure with only a few Spanish words as clues as to where the adventure will take them. Murray learns some Spanish words along the way.
The logo for this segment is a traffic sign of Murray following his Spanish speaking lamb.
And I looked at it. And my brain went south. Far south. See, I’ve lived too many places and as a result I’ve got political incorrectness coming out of my ears. I am a horrible person because I see this sign of Murray following his Spanish speaking lamb and could only think of one thing.
SFW: Sure you can look, but only if you’ll try to respect me in the morning