"How do I get out of Elmo's World?"

[spatch]

Good question, Bert. (He wandered into Elmo's pad looking for Ernie, and then didn't know how to get back out again.)

There's some prime-time Sesame Street 35th anniversary special going on right now on WGBH. I thought "Oh, neat, it'll be fun, probably some nifty retrospective documentary or something."

But it seems to be just like a regular modern episode of the show. It takes place entirely in a crayon drawing set called "Elmo's World." Elmo runs around it and gets e-mail from Big Bird and runs around some more and acts annoying and talks to his goldfish and every now and then oh hey there's Sesame Street outside what a neat place Sesame Street is, in fact it's so neat we're gonna stay in "Elmo's World" and talk about it!

Then Big Bird goes off to find Ernie in a segment that looks like it's a regular one, and they run around a greenscreen environment interacting with minimally-animated cartoon characters, like the three little kittens who've lost their mittens, or Humpty Dumpty, or Little Bo Peep. I was somewhat amused while watching until I started grousing "In the Henson heyday, they wouldn't have needed to use cartoon characters, they'd have just grabbed three cat muppets from the workshop, put them up on a wall, and..."

That's when I realized that I shouldn't be grousing so much. The show is no longer made for me. It really hasn't been for quite some time, honestly, so who am I to bitch? And I am sure a five-year-old watching Elmo dance around his computer-animated house is having a blast and isn't thinking "Gee, this show was much better when they showed the funky pinball counting animations and more Muppets." And twenty-some-odd years down the line, if Sesame Street still exists, this kid will watch and go "Gee, this show was much better when they had Elmo's World on."

Time and memories march on.

However, I do have to admit that watching Beverly Sills in full Cleopatra-esque getup singing an operatic version of "C Is For Cookie" while muppet attendants marched around her with feathers and fans was pretty hilarious and cool.

Comments

[maren.livejournal.com]

elmo's world is a frequent segment on the show these days. interestingly, it has its own writer and production crew (and it shows)

i hate this bullshit.

can you buy the muppet show on dvd?

[mr-bad-example.livejournal.com]

And let's not forget Mr. Bentley as the painter guy or the window washer or whatever he was.

Elmo quite displeases me, but at the very absolute least, the Mr. Noodle segments gave Bill Irwin a little more exposure, and that's always a good thing.

[spatch]

Actually, yes, there are episodes of the Muppet Show out on DVD, packed three per disc. Each one is introduced by Brian Henson, and you know it is Brian Henson because at the beginning of every episode introduction he says "Hi, I'm Brian Henson."

They picked the good ones to do, too. The one I saw a month ago had Elton John, Julie Andrews, and a very bemused-looking Gene Kelly.

[spatch]

Noodle! So that's what Elmo was calling him. I kept hearing "Noo-dough" or something, but that's just Elmo babyspeak. Yes, there was a Bill Irwin segment in the show I saw and yes, it was rather nice to see him in action, even if he's looking a bit more aged than he used to (he's always had that youthful look about him...)

[piemancer]

[wheezy old man grumble] Yeaaah, that show aint been the same since people other than Big Bird have been able to see The Snuffleupagus.[/grumble]

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

I saw a bit of that too, suckered in by the notion that it would be a retrospective type deal instead of all that elmo crap. The description on my Direct TV menu said something like "Grover shows Elmo the history of Sesame Street" but I didn't see no Grover. I thought it was weird that they would have those two interacting, since Grover and Elmo represent the same development level (age three) and Elmo basically pushed Grover off of the Street. Goddamn I hate Elmo.

I hate Elmo

[morgaine723.livejournal.com]

Man, I hate Elmo. But my 4-year-old loves him.

Unfortunately, watching Sesame Street with my kids isn't nearly the delightful trip down memory lane that I expected it would be. Thanks a fuck of a lot for reminding me, eh?