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August 20-24, 2001
This week, as a Tough Pigs experiment and as a personal challenge, I have decided to watch every episode of Sesame Street in its entirety, and report on my harrowing experience to you. I haven’t watched Sesame Street for a few years, so this is my first exposure to "Elmo’s World." Pray for me.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Monday, Aug 20: Explore! Explore!
Hey, hasn’t Gordon gotten fat! Sorry to start on such a personal note,
cause I love the guy, but still. He’s also doing a lot of unnecessary takes to
the camera, really hamming it up. Elmo, Zoe and Telly meet up with an Australian
"alphabet explorer," who’s looking for a Dotted Dinging D here in "the
wilds of Sesame Street." We hear some didgeridoo as the monsters volunteer to
help track the D. Okay, fine. Then there are a bunch of inserts, all very modern
looking and well-directed, but I’m starting to get mesmerised. So many jump
cuts. I can’t look away.
One of the themes for this episode is "imagination," and Big Bird
imagines an elephant dancing -- and then he’s joined by a Muppet elephant in
a pink tutu, dancing. Great elephant puppet, but isn’t the point of
imagination supposed to be that we don’t see the elephant? Maria
shows us some computer-animated clouds, and asks what we imagine we see -- but
then she informs us that we see elephants, and the clouds promptly morph into
elephants. Huh. Then there’s a song about exploring, with a bunch of kids "investigating"
-- which mainly seems to consist of swimming and then
looking through a magnifying glass at nothing at all -- while an offscreen
adult implores them to "Explore! Examine it carefully! Go explore! Satisfy
your curiosity!" It’s starting to get relentless. "We get to learn about
the things we see! Come on and explore with me!" No! I don’t want to! Just
leave me alone!
Phew. Then there’s a new segment, "Ernie’s Show and Tell," where
a little girl, Sydney, shows Ernie a picture that she drew. He asks her to
describe the picture. She shows him herself, her brother, and Ernie playing.
Ernie is delighted: "Oh, thank you! You drew me on a sliding board!" Ernie
sees that she drew a bright sunny day, the swing set, and the slide. I actually just read
a great book called How
to Talk So Kids Will Learn, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, and they
recommend praising kids’ work in precisely this way. You don’t have
to tell the kid, "This is great, this is bad." Just describe what you see.
If that’s what the child was trying to convey, then she will praise herself
for accomplishing her goal. As the adult, you don’t have to make her feel like
she needs your judgement for everything. Ernie is describing everything,
and not making judgements. I noticed recently that Faber and Mazlish have a
daily column on the Sesame Workshop Parents’ website, and now I see their
influence on the show itself. Sydney is clearly so happy to have
Ernie describe her picture. She’s thrilled. This is my favorite segment so
far. Meanwhile, I’m finding the quest for the Dinging D somewhat uninvolving. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less if they find the Dinging D or not. Things perk up when Gina arrives -- and look! She’s wearing a fab powder-blue lab coat and has just finished giving Barkley a checkup. I don’t remember Gina being a vet! Gosh, they grow up so fast. Gina suggests to the monsters that they try to lure the D by making D sounds, so they stand around and go: "Duh. Duh. Duh." [Insert obvious joke here.]
It works. They find the D. The explorer is
thrilled. Elmo goes off to feed his goldfish. Fast-forward through a long "alphabet jungle" cartoon which saps my will to live.
But then it’s "Elmo’s World!" Elmo is taking care of his
goldfish, Dorothy, in a make-believe bedroom made of magic crayon lines. Today,
Elmo wants to learn about Teeth. First, he asks his friend Mr. Noodle for help.
He looks through his shade -- but it’s not Mr. Noodle! "It’s Mr.
Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle!" I have to admit that I’m finding this
charming. Mr. Noodle is a silly clown-mime type in a brown suit, who messes up
all of Elmo’s tooth-brushing instructions. Elmo and some off-screen kids
encourage Mr. Noodle to keep trying, and he finally brushes his teeth properly.
Then some live kids appear to explain tooth-brushing again to Dorothy the
goldfish. The relationship between the kids and Mr. Noodle is really
interesting: In this world, Elmo and the kids know all the answers. This is
exactly the opposite of that crummy "Explore! Explore!" song. That was an
adult telling kids what to do, but not really giving them an actual topic to be
interested in. I got the same feeling from Gina suggesting the "D sound" trick to
the monsters. "Elmo’s World" gets it just right; the kids are the ones who
can figure things out, and Elmo is giving us interesting questions to guide us
through the research process. "Now Elmo will ask a baby!" He interviews a live baby, then notices that the baby doesn’t have any teeth. Then he sees that Dorothy doesn’t have any teeth! "That makes Elmo wonder -- what has teeth and what doesn’t have teeth? Let’s find out." Do birthday cakes have teeth? (Off-screen kids: No!) Do birds have teeth? (Kids: No, they have beaks!) Wow. It’s obvious to me that they did a ton of research on how to teach kids critical thinking skills in a way that actually engages them. Then Elmo gets a funny video e-mail (from the Count!) about toothbrushing. Elmo learns from a TV show on the Teeth Channel. Then he talks to the Wisdom Tooth to learn even more about teeth, and imagines himself as a cute red beaver, a shark and an elephant. This comes as a complete surprise to me, but I was mostly bored by Sesame today, except for Ernie’s Show and Tell, and I was charmed and amused by "Elmo’s World." Sesame was all about adults having the answers and giving kids instructions. "Elmo’s World" is all about kids getting interested in a topic, asking questions, making observations and drawing conclusions. Say what you like about The Red Menace (and I have, I have), "Elmo’s World" gets the pedagogy right. From now on, if you got a problem with Elmo, then you got a problem with me. I got that monster’s back.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Tuesday, Aug 21: Bring back the show!
So first there’s the theme. Then we get to Sesame Street, and Big Bird
starts singing the theme again. It’s a little disorienting. Other cast members
and Muppets join in. They go on for quite a while, Muppets and adults and kids
all singing, "Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away." It’s becoming quite a
production number. They take a second chorus. I start to get a little worried
that this may go on forever. Maybe when they’re done, someone else will sing
the theme. Maybe we’re trapped in an Escher loop and I’ll never escape.
Then Elmo explains that today is Sing-Along Day on Sesame Street. Okay, at least
there’s an explanation. I see light at the end of the tunnel.
Then there’s a whole bunch of other songs. Actually, the thing that
really strikes me today is how gorgeous the production values are on Sesame
Street these days. The sets, the puppets, the lighting, the choreography -- everything is so amazingly polished and perfect, but not in a sterile,
uncomfortable way. It’s like a perfect jewel, awe-inspiring - like your
favorite song, like your first crush. I want to hug it and put it in my pocket.
Maria leads a counting song in Spanish that’s really catchy. They do big
production numbers for everything. They do a celebrity version of "Sing"
with REM and Maya Angelou. It makes me want to be a preschooler again.
That being said, I fast-forward quite a bit. As gorgeous as the Muppets
are, I don’t have a lot of patience for cartoons about 16, and I’m impatient
to get to Elmo’s World.
Yay! It’s Elmo’s World. Elmo is talking about Hair today. Seeing
Elmo’s World for the second time in a row, I can see what’s formula - and,
like Bear in the Big Blue House, there’s some comforting repetition
here. I thought "Now Elmo will ask a baby!" was a funny bit yesterday, but
he does the same line today, so I guess that’s part of the format. Still
funny, though. The only time I fast-forward is during the film insert of Joseph
getting his first haircut. I have no time for Joseph and his haircut. I want
Elmo. On The Hair Channel, Elmo watches a fairy-tale cartoon about a kingdom where the king decides that everyone should wear their hair like his. And everyone does, except for a little black girl with dreads named Liddy LaRue. The king questions Liddy, and Liddy says: "No matter what I do, my hair won’t go that way. It’s just different. Besides, I like it this way." Liddy asks what’s wrong with everyone’s hair being different. The king is overcome by Liddy’s reasoning, and signs a new law that says that everyone can have different hair. Liddy is triumphant.
I love Liddy. Liddy speaks truth to power.
Liddy is the Rosa Parks of cartoon fairy-tale hairstyles. I can think of nothing
better than a world in which cartoons about Liddy are broadcast to our
nation’s pre-schoolers. We live in a Golden Age.
But there’s more! Elmo shows us a video that he made about Bert’s
hair. It’s shot on handheld video, shaky and close-up on Bert’s head. Bert
complains that he just got out of the bath, and his hair is all slicked down and
wet. Elmo asks if he can touch Bert’s hair. Bert reluctantly agrees, and
Elmo’s hand comes into shot and messes up Bert’s hair. Bert asks if Elmo is
done. Elmo says he wants to play now, but Bert leaves, saying that he needs to
go put gunk in his hair to make it stand up. This piece takes all of
about a minute, and I can not express in words how happy it makes me. Bert’s hair. Liddy LaRue. Dorothy the goldfish. Maya Angelou. It’s all so beautiful. And there’s still three more days left in this week. How do little kids do this every day?
Jon L. wrote in about his 4-year-old daughter Sage: "You and Sage respond to Elmo similarly. Other popular shows cut to 'real kids' (Arthur and Teletubbies do it), and it really bothers Sage. She shouts, 'Bring back the show!' Someone should tell the producers that we don’t like the documentary footage of toenail clipping and pencil sharpening." I like it when people send funny stories about their cranky kids. Send more of those, please.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Wednesday, August 22: No! Not the toes!
Okay, back to the salt mines. This is where the personal challenge part of this feature really starts kicking in. I worked late today and didn’t get home until 9pm, and now I have to watch a whole hour of Sesame Street before bed. I thought writing this column would be easy, but I find that I’m actually dreading it tonight. I once had a life beyond watching Sesame Street. That world feels so far away now. On the Street, Baby Bear idolizes the Count -- "the grand master of counting" -- and asks him to be his counting coach. The Count agrees, and teaches Baby Bear how to count a baby. First, they count the baby itself -- one baby -- but then the Count starts counting the baby’s ears (one, two), her eyes (one, two), her hands (one, two). Then they move on to the fingers. (One, two, three, four…) My eyes are glazing over. They finish the fingers. They move on to the feet. I’m afraid that they’re going to do the toes next. They finish the feet. They start on the toes. No! Not the toes! One, two, three, four… Okay, I’m starting to see why I’ve been dreading Sesame. The problem is not the counting. I don’t take issue with the counting. The problem is that this isn’t a story. There’s no conflict. There’s no character development. Nobody’s overcoming an obstacle. They want to count, so they count. Then they want to count some more, so they count some more. Same deal on Monday -- the monsters decided they wanted to find the Dotted Dinging D, and they found it. On Tuesday, they wanted to sing, so they sang. But there aren’t any conflicts between the characters -- if Baby Bear wanted to count, and the Count refused to teach him, then that might be an interesting story. I’m not saying it would be. But it might be. It’s possible to structure a show like this, where the characters are just gently going through their day. But if you’re going to try to get by without conflict or story, then the characters need to have tremendous personal charm to pull it off. I can watch Oscar read the phone book; I can watch Grover do his laundry; I can watch Elmo talk to his goldfish. But only a superstar can get away with it. I like Baby Bear and the Count, but they just aren’t superstars. Then there’s Elmo’s World, my reward for getting through the counting. What’s the topic today? It’s BABIES! Excellent! This is gonna be great. Dorothy the goldfish is baby-sitting two little goldfish. Mr. Noodle tries to play chess with Natasha. Elmo interviews a baby -- and the baby stuffs a soft ball into Elmo’s mouth. Ohhhhh, yeah. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Thursday, August 23: Poetry for the people
Back in the early 90’s, when Steve Whitmire first started performing Kermit, I always referred to the character as "the new Kermit." It actually took me a couple years before I could think of him just as Kermit -- partly because I had to get used to the new performance, and partly because Whitmire has gotten better and more fluent as Kermit over the years. Now Kermit is just Kermit to me. Whitmire’s also performing "the new Ernie" now, and today is the first time I’ve seen Ernie back out on the Street, where he belongs. Ernie and Bert weren’t on the Street for a long time, since back in the 80’s, when Henson and Oz went off to work on other projects and couldn’t show up to film Sesame episodes anymore. But now Whitmire is available to perform Ernie on the Street, and check him out. Ernie shows up at Luis’ Fix-it shop, announcing his new Instant Poetry Service: "Instant rhythm, instant rhyme!" He’s wearing a sideways baseball cap and a vest, and when he recites his poetry, he gets a little hip-hop backbeat: "Congratulations are in order. You just fixed a tape recorder!" Luis is impressed: "Ernie! How do you do it?" "Oh, I think it’s the hat," Ernie shrugs. "Poetry for the people, Luis!" Later on, Ernie sits with Tarah and Samantha on the steps of 123 Sesame Street. As the scene starts, he’s explaining to the girls: "It’s called Instant Poetry. I think there’s a big market for it." Noticing us, he announces that Tarah and Samantha are going to read us poems that they wrote. There’s some more Show-and-Tell Faber and Mazlish stuff here, with Ernie appreciating the "surprise ending" of Tarah’s poem. Then Ernie plays a game with Telly, playing the drums and trading rhymes with Telly. Ernie plays a funky backbeat on the drums that is so authentically cool that I can’t stand it. Okay, ya got me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s not "the new Ernie" anymore. This is Ernie. Meanwhile, on Elmo’s World, the topic is Birthdays -- and it’s Dorothy the goldfish’s birthday today! Dorothy has a little cake in her bowl. Elmo turns to her: "Is Dorothy having a good birthday?" Close-up on the fish. It never occurred to me before what a serious, deadpan expression goldfish have. Elmo chirps, "Good!" Dorothy is a worthy co-star on this show. Elmo’s World must be sponsored by the Goldfish Council, because I suddenly have the impulse to go out and buy a goldfish. Dorothy imagines Elmo being born, and we see Elmo’s parents in the hospital. "Oh boy!" Elmo’s dad says. "George is almost a daddy!" His mom adds: "Gladys is almost a mommy!" The doctor puts Elmo in Gladys’ arms, and they all giggle just like Elmo. I’m having flashbacks; it’s Christmas ’96 all over again. Happy birthday, Dorothy! Now blow out your candles.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Friday, August 24: Sadness saves the day
My last day of Sesame-watching begins with Luis showing monsters Ingrid and Humphrey that their baby daughter Natasha can scribble with a crayon. The proud parents coo over Natasha’s childish scrawls. Now, stop me if I’m getting too jaded, but little kids really do draw crummy pictures. It sounds harsh, maybe, but in your heart, you know it’s true. Kids’ drawings are messy and incoherent, with no sense of style or composition. Earlier in the week, I was loving this juvenile-art appreciation thing. Five days in, it’s really wearing me out. Perhaps a steady diet of Sesame Street has hardened me to life, but Sesame producers: you’re being too indulgent. I know you only want to encourage creativity, but there is, perhaps, such a thing as too much creativity. Twenty-five years from now, these kids will be making our game shows and action movies. You’re only encouraging them. Let’s move on to Monster Clubhouse, a new 8-minute segment starring four brightly-colored young monsters who have set up a clubhouse in a huge cardboard box. The monsters are hyper and enthusiastic, and they invite us to become monsters by messing up our fur and jumping around. They begin with the Monster Clubhouse theme, to the tune of Old McDonald: "M-O-N-S-T-E-R! C-L-U-B HOUSE!" So what happened at the last meeting? Mel, a furry blue moptop who speaks only in growls, "reads" the minutes and then tears them up furiously. Now it’s time to dance -- "the Honk your nose, Touch your toes, Spin around, Strike a pose dance!" It’s cute. The monsters mostly act as a group, so I can’t really distinguish them as separate characters -- but the segment moves fast, and they’re obviously having fun with it. Monster Clubhouse is definitely my favorite part of the day. Back on the Street, Baby Bear draws a picture of his superhero, a little brown bear with a cape and propeller beanie named Hero Guy -- or, as Baby Bear says, "Hewo Guy." Hero Guy springs to life, and leads Baby Bear into his drawing of a pirate ship. What is it with Baby Bear these days? Maybe it’s his cute wittle speech impediment, but he’s become a real magnet for crap. I’ll give you an example. Once Hero Guy and Baby Bear are on the pirate ship, they realize that they can’t sail it, because Baby Bear forgot to draw the ocean. "This makes me sad!" Baby Bear yelps. "You?" says Hero Guy. "This makes ME weally sad!" Baby Bear ups the ante: "This makes me weally weally sad!" It goes on. "This makes me weally weally weally sad!" And on. "This makes me weally weally weally weally sad!" Stop. Please. "This makes me weally weally weally weally" - I’m not exaggerating, it really goes on this long - "weally sad!" But Hero Guy cries so much that his tears make an ocean. Baby Bear cheers, "Your sadness saved the day, Hero Guy!" and they sail away. Oh my goodness. How can a show be so good and so bad in just one week? Unfortunately, we’re still talking about drawing pictures on Elmo’s World. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s five Sesame episodes in a row, but this is the first episode of Elmo’s World that isn’t thrilling me. I think it’s partly that watching kids draw is just boring. Drawing is one of those activities that’s fun to do, but not much fun to watch, like baking cookies, or playing soccer. I find myself longing for an Elmo’s World about knee surgery, or car repair. Anything for a bit of action. At the end, Elmo shows a video of himself drawing a picture of his parents. In the video, he fusses around with the picture, and then shouts: "Elmo loves his mommy and daddy! Hi, Mommy! Hi, Daddy!" Then he babbles a bit in baby talk. This feels to me like an admission of defeat -- I don’t care who you are, it’s hard to fill a whole hour of television with kids drawing. You just run out of things to say. It’s a shame that I have to end the week with kind of a dull episode, because I’ve actually learned quite a bit from my week of educational TV. I’ve learned that, contrary to popular myth, Elmo’s World really is better than the rest of the show. I’ve learned that birthday cakes don’t have teeth. And I’ve learned that Sesame Street is much more of a mixed bag than I remember. For every moment of greatness, there’s a clumsy, dull misstep. But, like me, Sesame Street is in its early thirties. We’re both grown up now. We ought to be thankful for our moments of greatness, I suppose, and accept our moments of weakness. So, as I think back to my week with Sesame Street, I’ll cheer for the good parts, and I’ll cry for the bad parts. And my tears will make an ocean, and I’ll sail away.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
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