Tag Archives: Sesame Street

I Survived Sesame Street Live

We planned to take Lexi to Sesame Street Live on Saturday night for her birthday, but a week of illness meant my wife couldn’t go. So Saturday comes along and I find myself taking Lexi and one of her friends to Sesame Street Live by myself. Either I’m super dad or an idiot. Maybe both.

In the end I survived. But I was ready for bed at 9:00 p.m.

The girls were good, for the most part. We had a minor run-in with the spring-loaded chairs and then I think Lexi was getting restless near the end. Both the girls enjoyed it, but I don’t think they were quite old enough to really enjoy it. Then again it was just Sesame Street dancers singing songs for an hour and a half. I think they’ve perfected the art of maximizing profit with as minimal production as possible.

Their favorite part of the evening was probably running down the long, empty corridor between the parking lot and the Target Center, which confirms my suspicion that a fun afternoon would be wandering the skyways.

Watching Sesame Street Again

This week Abby showed Lexi some old school Sesame Street clips on YouTube. Lexi loved them—especially the YipYipYipYipYip monsters. So I decided we’d try watching some Sesame Street when it was on PBS. I’m usually not big on watching TV with Lexi, but an hour of very educational TV has been better than I thought it’d be.

Though Sesame Street has changed a lot from when I was a kid (duh). Yesterday’s show was brought to you by the letter M and the number 20. And McDonalds, Beaches Resort, EverydayKidz.com (AstraZeneca), New Balance and Earth’s Best. Each sponsor (except for M and 20) had a 15 or 20 second commercial plug at the beginning and end of the show. I remember underwriters getting a logo and a mention, and that was it.

And while it has changed (and Elmo’s World is enough to drive anyone crazy), Sesame Street does still have classic moments:

Elmo: “What’s it like being a yo-yo?” Yo-yo: “Well, it has its ups and downs.” Yuck, yuck, yuck. Then as the yo-yo left: “I’ve got to go walk the dog.”

Then there was the sketch about Jack be nimble who couldn’t jump over the candlestick because he didn’t eat breakfast. So he calls out: “Mom be nimble, mom be quick, please give me breakfast on the quick!” I love breakfast time.

The Count watching his favorite TV show: 24. Each show is only 24 seconds long and consists of counting to 24. And yes, it did feature a puppet Jack Bauer.

It also kind of weirds me out that Muppet characters sound like Sesame Street characters. Kermit sounds just like Ernie, Miss Piggy sounds like Grover and Fozzie sounds like Bert. And yes, Jim Henson (and now Steve Whitmire) voices both Kermit and Ernie, and Frank Oz voices Miss Piggy, Grover, Fozzie and Bert. It’s strange that the kids never catch on—though you never see those characters together.