[deleted]
How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
51–60 of 194 posts
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#52I'd rather a million Elmo-centric Sesame Street episodes than even one episode of Barney or Caillou.
That said, every kid needs some old-school, Elmo-free Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. (No, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is not the same; it's insipid and dumb by comparison.)
Also, back in the day, Square One TV had a police-procedural parody called Mathnet that was still loads better than network TV's attempt at a mathematical-cop show for adults (Numb3rs).
It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#53I don't understand why folks think this is out-of-place on HN. It seems on target to me. It is evidence of an emergent media phenomenon (albeit a slow one) - that a single character on an iconic platform changed its dynamic enough to cause its identity to come into question. Because Sesame Street leveraged novelty and maturity, the emergence of a cutesy, immature, "it's all about MEEE!" type of character represents a…
It would have been interesting to explore characters as they age throughout the show. Given the shows longevity it could have been really interesting to have a varied set of characters age right along with the viewers.
Children could identify with Elmo for their entire lives. The Elmo of today would be finishing school and starting a job, and only visiting occasionally. He would take a very different role than that of 20 years ago.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#54It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like. I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
Totally with you here. My kids were at the right age for elmo and Teletubbies when those phenomena got popular. Elmo "worked," but Teletubbies blew Elmo out of the park. My youngest would stop walking and stand transfixed at the TV when Teletubbies came on. It was positively creepy. A British friend said it was very controversial because of all the child psych research that went into capturing the kids' attention. Th…
It was perfect watching when home from highschool with a fever, which does tend to reduce me to the emotional range of a toddler.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#55I LOVED Sesame Street, but have always hated Elmo - for exactly the reasons detailed in this article - and I'm glad I'm not the only one. Fortunately, I'm old enough to have watched Sesame Street before Elmo took over. As an aside, I wish someone would revive The Electric Company.
They tried. The new Electric Company lasted 1.5 seasons or so. It was totally new and different... and not nearly as addictive, funny, or clever as the original one.
The premise reminded me of Ghostwriter and The Bloodhound Gang from 3-2-1 Contact, but less well executed than either and even more self-consciously hip than Ghostwriter. In other words, well trod ground. Part of the problem is that Sesame Street was developed by psychologists as a way to catch and keep children's attention while delivering an informative payload; newer edutainment shows are developed by marketroids who know mainly how to entice kids to beg their parents to buy sugared cereal.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#56I'd rather a million Elmo-centric Sesame Street episodes than even one episode of Barney or Caillou. That said, every kid needs some old-school, Elmo-free Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. (No, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is not the same; it's insipid and dumb by comparison.) Also, back in the day, Square One TV had a police-procedural parody called Mathnet that was still loads better than network TV's attempt at a…
> Also, back in the day, Square One TV had a police-procedural parody called Mathnet
I remember that; it was awesome. Drenched in cheesiness, but it served its goal, and it did manage the "tainment" part of "edutainment".
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#57It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like. I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
> issue judgement on what toddlers would like
The issue here isn't really what toddlers like or don't like. The issue is, if you're going to sit your kid in front of a screen to watch something, what are they getting out of it? A 3- or 4-year old seeing 6-year old behavior in Big Bird sees a role model in how to behave. Seeing 3-year-old behavior in Elmo reinforces how they're already behaving.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#58As a father I agree Elmo is essentially the never ending toddler who does too much on his own on Sesame street. He really does need someone a little more mature than him to help teach him lessons.
But having said that I've watched far too much Sesame street and yes Elmo usually gets more time than the rest but not always. The author paints a picture like Elmo always gets most of the time but the truth is he isn't played THAT much more than the others. Even in the hurricane episode that is cited in the article Big Bird was on screen longer than twice the time of any other monster.
So yes he needs to be downplayed a little bit but the article is over the top as well. In fact watching many of the episodes in the past 5 years and you'd think Abby was gunning for Elmo's spot; she gets quite a lot of screen time especially with fairy school.
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#59Horrible Rant: As a kid of the eighties You could say that I was their target audience and yet the show never appealed to me. It always gave me the creeps. Somebody else here mentioned Mr. Rogers and that one is even creepier. I felt like it was trying to lure me to his neighborhood to do bad things to me.
Sorry but to this day I still cannot see the appeal of these shows. Why did you like it?
Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street
#60I liked the treatment of Sesame Street as a microcosm of celebrity. Of course the show would find the very first popular chord it hits and then jam on it with all the subtlety of Nickelback. There's way too much money in that, emotional maturity is bound to take a back seat. I can understand the lamentations, but really, if you were expecting your kids to learn the hard lessons of life from television programs, you d…
I would expect children to learn to count and spell and, occasionally, how to deal with death, from Sesame Street. Unfortunately, it seems the show has become more about pushing merchandise to parents and pandering to celebrity than education, and this is worth complaining about.