{"id":1098,"date":"2007-11-21T08:54:46","date_gmt":"2007-11-21T13:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2007\/11\/21\/taking-a-stand-on-sesame-street\/"},"modified":"2007-11-21T08:54:46","modified_gmt":"2007-11-21T13:54:46","slug":"taking-a-stand-on-sesame-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2007\/11\/21\/taking-a-stand-on-sesame-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a stand on Sesame Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before <\/a>about my love for the original, unadulterated Sesame Street of my childhood, and how Simon and I have spent hours enjoying the old clips – first on YouTube and then on our Sesame Street Old School <\/a>DVD collection. I’ve even added the latest collection (Old School: 1974 to 1979<\/a>) to my Christmas wish list. Not Simon’s wish list, mind you. Mine. <\/p>\n

What I didn’t notice was that apparently somewhere on the DVD collections there is a disclaimer <\/a>that states: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153These early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcSesame Street\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preschool child.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n

Seriously?<\/p>\n

I mean, you only have to watch some of those old episodes to see how they are fundamentally different – and, IMHO, far richer – than what’s available on PBS today. But not suitable for a preschool child? What, because of the psychedelic colours, the folky music, the blissful naivety, the 1970s peace-and-love groove? Granted, it’s a little disturbing that Oscar the Grouch starts out as orange and Big Bird has obviously had recent exposure to a malicious barber in the very first season, but in general I find the oldest episodes are by far the most engaging, intelligent and entertaining of the lot. <\/p>\n

And what’s not to love about the old episodes? I pine for the days when the Count’s counting ended in thunder and lightning, not confetti, and when Snuffleupagus could only be seen by Big Bird. You might argue that preschoolers like the predictability of routine, but did they have to make the show so painfully formulaic? And really, can anyone explain what on earth is the appeal of Journey to Ernie, let alone the pedantic and overwrought Elmo’s World, and why they are given so much air time every. single. episode? I miss the old days when they’d mix it up a little, and you never knew if the next clip would be Kermit the Frog reporting live on scene, or a flashy clip of Hindu-inspired animation, or Maria and Bob and Gordon bursting into song on the stoop. (Oh, how I wanted a stoop when I was a kid.) <\/p>\n

Yeah, I know, I’m just a bitter old curmudgeon pining nostalgically for my youth. But I can guarantee you that Simon would much rather sing “C is for Cookie” than “A Cookie is a Sometimes Food<\/a>” and that my <\/strong>preschoolers will always be encouraged to watch the earliest episodes of Sesame Street. <\/p>\n

Some things are just better old school, yanno?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before about my love for the original, unadulterated Sesame Street of my childhood, and how Simon and I have spent hours enjoying the old clips – first on YouTube and then on our Sesame Street Old School DVD collection. I’ve even added the latest collection (Old School: 1974 to 1979) to my Christmas … Continue reading “Taking a stand on Sesame Street”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-and-rambles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}