# Sesame Street "Old School"



## JRR (Feb 11, 2006)

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html

Apparently, there is a warning that the old episodes "don't meet the needs of today's toddler"

WTF????


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## vwguy (Jul 23, 2004)

Now I know why I turned out the way I did! Who can I sue!?

Brian


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## radix023 (May 3, 2007)

Didn't you read 1984? Don't you recall what Winston's job was? PC is the same thing.

Anyways, for the real scoop on Sesame Street:
https://www.bertisevil.tv/


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## Mark from Plano (Jan 29, 2007)

*RANT WARNING.*

I remember seeing an episode of 60 minutes (or some other news magazine show) several years ago where they did a profile of a middle-aged man who was afflicted with a virus that destroyed the portion of his brain containing long-term memory (long-term meaning more than about 5 minutes ago).

Somehow he still recognized loved ones, remembered how to play the piano, speak English, etc. However each time his wife walked into his room in the nursing home it was as if he was seeing her for the first time in years. He was effusive in his adoration and excitement since for him history did not exist. During any conversation lasting more than a few minutes he would periodically say something like, "I've just woken up. Just this minute I've woken from a coma. Isn't it wonderful!" If his wife responded that they'd been talking for some time, he'd say that he must have been talking in his sleep because he wasn't aware of any of it.

It's like all of our society has been afflicted by this disease. We are in a constant state of sudden awakening where everything we thought before was wrong and everything we think now is right. Cutting edge educational programming that is no more than 15 years old is unsuitable for children. Mark Twain and Scott Fitzgerald are unreadable in any modern context because their subject matter and viewpoints can't be tolerated.

Some day we will grow up (I hope) and learn to contextualize history without demonizing or discarding it. All insight was not crystalized in the last 15 minutes of history. That which is past is neither poison nor potion. My emotional response to this sort of PC nonsense is similar to watching that poor man who couldn't contextualize his life and was left constantly without context and meaning. We're that man.


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

In my best Count voice:

one, two, three PC nutcases...ah, ah, AH! four, five six PC nutcases...ah, ah, AH!


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## red96 (Jun 26, 2007)

I am of the vintage who watched Sesame Street when:

- Mister Hooper was alive and kicking.
- Snuffleupagus was a figment of Big Bird's imagination
- Nobody was tickling Elmo.

I think one of the beauties of the early Sesame Street episodes was that it taught you that there are different personalities out there, and I pretty quickly learned who were role models (Big Bird, Grover) and who to laugh at (Oscar, Cookie Monster, the Count). 

I am now teaching college students who are about 12 years my junior and they are much less prepared to deal with adversity and failure. If we don't expose people to the different elements of life, they won't adapt well. I think the first time I really understood what death was all about was when Mr. Hooper died. In today's show, they probably would have just said he retired to Florida or something like that...

Oh, and does this mean that I can't show my nephew old episodes of the Electric Company to help him learn to read? That show rocked...


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

vwguy said:


> Now I know why I turned out the way I did! Who can I sue!?
> 
> Brian


Jim Henson?


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## StevenRocks (May 24, 2005)

_Sesame Street_ was great! It's still great now,though a lot of the stuff that made it fun has been whittled away.


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## Beresford (Mar 30, 2006)

Just imagine how messed up some of us are who grew up watching the Three Stooges, Popeye and Gilligan's Island. Wanton violence, racism, sexism, classism, you name it!


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Now let's see, if watching Sesame Street may have warped my "poor wittle mind", I can only imagine the effects of all those years I watched the "Combat" and "12 O'Clock High" TV series. Thank heavens I wasn't exposed to "Bosum Buddies" at that vulnerable age! (winks)


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Sesame Street,Electric Company and Mister Rogers Neighborhood were my shows to watch from back in the days but now you see stuff like Boobah,Big Comfy Couch,Barney,Spongebob Squarepants and Dorah The Explorer.


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

Howard said:


> Sesame Street,Electric Company and Mister Rogers Neighborhood were my shows to watch from back in the days but now you see stuff like Boobah,Big Comfy Couch,Barney,Spongebob Squarepants and Dorah The Explorer.


Our son likes the Backyardigans, Spongebob and Go Diego. I used to watch the Great Spacecoaster when I was really young, and later Transformers, He-Man and GI Joe. Spongebob and Backyardigans are pretty funny, but most of the cartoons today are awful to watch. I'm tired of all the computer animation too. Can't anyone draw anymore?


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## JRR (Feb 11, 2006)

Laxplayer said:


> Our son likes the Backyardigans, Spongebob and Go Diego. I used to watch the Great Spacecoaster when I was really young, and later Transformers, He-Man and GI Joe. Spongebob and Backyardigans are pretty funny, but most of the cartoons today are awful to watch. I'm tired of all the computer animation too. Can't anyone draw anymore?


Ever try to watch Thundercats now...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundercats


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

JRR said:


> Ever try to watch Thundercats now...
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundercats


I never liked the Thundercats. Voltron wasn't bad though.


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## The Gabba Goul (Feb 11, 2005)

Laxplayer said:


> I never liked the Thundercats. Voltron wasn't bad though.


Voltron was where it was at...I liked Thundercats too though...

I've recently taken to watching old episodes of Gigantor and Astroboy, from the golden age of anime before it became nothing but cartoon porn with a ton of gratuitous violence mixed in...but honestly if I could think of one show that I associate with growing up it'd have to be The Simpsons...still to this day one of my favorite things to watch on TiVi...and yes, I still watch cartoons all the time (I probably watch Futurama and Family Guy on Adult Swim more than any other shows)...

I am also in complete aggreement about computer animation...I mean it was neat at first, but I actually think that there's something to be said about the dying art of drawn animation...it's less "cold" if that makes any sense...


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

The Gabba Goul said:


> Voltron was where it was at...I liked Thundercats too though...
> 
> I've recently taken to watching old episodes of Gigantor and Astroboy, from the golden age of anime before it became nothing but cartoon porn with a ton of gratuitous violence mixed in...but honestly if I could think of one show that I associate with growing up it'd have to be The Simpsons...still to this day one of my favorite things to watch on TiVi...and yes, I still watch cartoons all the time (I probably watch Futurama and Family Guy on Adult Swim more than any other shows)...
> 
> I am also in complete aggreement about computer animation...I mean it was neat at first, but I actually think that there's something to be said about the dying art of drawn animation...it's less "cold" if that makes any sense...


I watch the Simpsons and Family Guy too. I also bought a bunch of Marvel comics animated DVDs "for my son". :icon_smile_big: 
Dr. Strange and Iron Man are good ones.


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## red96 (Jun 26, 2007)

Laxplayer said:


> I used to watch the Great Spacecoaster when I was really young.


Wow, that brings me back. That show was definitely one of my favorites...to this day, I'll once in a while say to myself "No (G)news is good (G)news without Gary Gnu..."


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## Laxplayer (Apr 26, 2006)

red96 said:


> Wow, that brings me back. That show was definitely one of my favorites...to this day, I'll once in a while say to myself "No (G)news is good (G)news without Gary Gnu..."


Gary Gnu was great. I often say that line as well.


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## vwguy (Jul 23, 2004)

JRR said:


> Ever try to watch Thundercats now...
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundercats


I watched Battle of the Planets after school all the time, then of course there was Thundarr The Barbarian on the weekend, youtube has been a life saver.

Brian


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## rip (Jul 13, 2005)

red96 said:


> Wow, that brings me back. That show was definitely one of my favorites...to this day, I'll once in a while say to myself "No (G)news is good (G)news without Gary Gnu..."


Gary and his wife, Mary, were discussing "consequencing" young Gary (Jr.) for having spoken disrespectfully to his Sunday School teacher, Miss Nancy. Mary, ever the gentle soul, was in favor of a stern talking to, whereas Gary, always the macho man, favored a more vigorous and definitely physical approach to the issue, to which Mary replied, "If you insist on that, then you have to paddle your own gnu."


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## Bob Loblaw (Mar 9, 2006)

My favorite in the days of my youth:


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Southpark...the Sesame Street of the new millenium! It can't get any closer to real life than that(?)!!


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Bob Loblaw said:


> My favorite in the days of my youth:


Wow,Thanks Bob.Sesame Street always talked about the letters of the alphabet.Being that I'm 33,I still remember all the episodes when I grew up in the 80's.


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## 16128 (Feb 8, 2005)

Electric Company was always loads better than Sesame Street.

It had Morgan Freeman on the cast. How cool was that?


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

VS said:


> Electric Company was always loads better than Sesame Street.
> 
> It had Morgan Freeman on the cast. How cool was that?







An Easy Reader clip from 1973,enjoy VS. ^


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Kermit The Frog in "Disco Frog".^


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

A couple of sort of interesting points:

1. The reason they changed Snuffleupagus from a figment of Big Bird's imagination to a real character is that they didn't want to model the situation of a kid telling adults something and not being believed. It was thought that it would discourage victims of sexual abuse from coming forward. I think this was a sensible change.

2. I didn't realize it when my kids were watching Sesame Street, but the Count's predilection for counting is based on vampire lore. They are believed to have a compulsion to count, so if a vampire is chasing you supposedly one way to get away is to throw a handful of seeds on the ground; he will be compelled to stop and count them, giving you the chance to get away.

3. He isn't very well known, but the favorite character in our house was the Teeny Little Super Guy. When the voice announcing one of his segments would come on, my wife and I would run from whatever room we were in to watch him.


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

*35 years ago*

35 years ago I watched TV with my toddler daughter.

My beef with Sesame Street was that its pacing mimicked that of commercial broadcasting. I viewed this as a having the effect of habituating kids to the format of commercial TV, not a good thing. (FWIW I don't watch much television. Most of the shows mentioned on this post are unfamiliar to me.)

I noticed several years later (when my second marriage sons were watching Sesame Street) that the pacing had changed and the segments were much longer. I believe this reflected an appreciation by the show's producers that toddler attention spans are much longer than previously imagined.

The kid's show I really liked was Zoom, produced by WGBH. It didn't last too long, the way Sesame street or Electric Company did. It had a home made feel to it, perhaps because the kids on the show generated most of the content with help from professionals. As it happened, an individual who had been on Zoom worked for me for a couple of years.

"My" childhood TV programs were Sheriff John, Engineer Bill, Beanie and Cecil, and of course lots and lots of old movies, from the Our Gang comedy shorts and pre-war serials through all the dreadful westerns to classic films, Mutiny on the Bounty, the Sherlock Holmes films of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and many more. There were, of course, cartoons, real ones. And people talked about how bad they were for young minds.

With some notable exceptions, early commercial TV was not very good, although not as dreadful as the occasional glimpses I catch of current programming suggest contemporary TV to be.

Regards,
Gurdon


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

This here is Bert And Ernie doing a sketch from The film Casino.^


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Did anyone think Ernie And Bert were gay?


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## StevenRocks (May 24, 2005)

Howard said:


> Did anyone think Ernie And Bert were gay?


They're just roommates, nothing more than that.


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## omairp (Aug 21, 2006)

StevenRocks said:


> They're just roommates, nothing more than that.


I always thought they were brothers.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

omairp said:


> I always thought they were brothers.


Or Father and Son in a sort of way,Ernie reminded me of a little boy and Bert reminded me of a Father.


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