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How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

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Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#101

Post by Fuzzwah »

pipermerriam wrote: post #92
aczerepinski wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peg + Cat is a fairly intelligent PBS kids show. Lots of exposure to math & music concepts.

Cannot recommend this enough. Strong female lead character. Entertaining enough for adults to watch. Math!

3rded. I ctrl+f'd to see if anyone else had mentioned it.

I often sing the "we solved the problem" song when I fix something at work.

I'm pretty sure that my 2 year old daughter feeds off my enjoyment of the show; its the only show she'll start doing a little happy dance to when the opening jingle comes on.

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#102

Post by douche »

KirinDave wrote: post #97
bitwize wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think DTN is necessarily bad on its own merits at all. Certainly there is much worse: Dora, Barney, Caillou, to name three. But compared to its predecessor it pales, significantly.

While I remember MRN fondly, it was as complete mess compared to what we have now. We need to accept that there was almost no actual rigor put into the creation of our kids shows, at their genesis. I remember them fondly and praise them regularly, but I try to keep this in mind. Modern kids shows are optimized for kids. Even Dora is specifically optimized for very young children. It appears insipid because it's repet…

It's a little disturbing to hear all of this praise of a model of children's television that's A/B tested to hell and back and engineered for children.

Then again, I grew up watching (and loving) Loony Tunes. There's a depth there that this modern-day pap doesn't possess. The Teletubies never did Wagner or the Barber of Seville; Bugs Bunny did.

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#103

Post by nerdcity »

austenallred wrote: post #10

There is no substance on earth more addictive than Elmo is to a two year old. In most television shows and movies what people are looking for is somebody that represents them - call it an "avatar" if you must. When kids watch Sesame Street they relate directly to Elmo. He's younger, smaller, has an insatiable curiosity, and is in a permanent mode of questioning and discovery. He even has similar mannerisms to childre…

Big Bird was supposed to be the child viewer's avatar.

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#104

Post by DanBC »

douche wrote: post #102
KirinDave wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I remember MRN fondly, it was as complete mess compared to what we have now. We need to accept that there was almost no actual rigor put into the creation of our kids shows, at their genesis. I remember them fondly and praise them regularly, but I try to keep this in mind. Modern kids shows are optimized for kids. Even Dora is specifically optimized for very young children. It appears insipid because it's repet…

It's a little disturbing to hear all of this praise of a model of children's television that's A/B tested to hell and back and engineered for children. Then again, I grew up watching (and loving) Loony Tunes. There's a depth there that this modern-day pap doesn't possess. The Teletubies never did Wagner or the Barber of Seville; Bugs Bunny did.

Teletubbies is aimed at children young enough to not be speaking yet - 6 months to 2 years old.

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#105

Post by JoshTriplett »

soylentcola wrote: post #98
oddevan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story you're about to hear is a fib, but it's fact.

Don't wanna be pedantic but I think the line was: "The story you're about to hear is a fib, but it's short. The names are made up but the problems are real." Honestly surprised I remember that gag since it's been ages since I watched that show but I did love those segments. It was like the Square One answer to 3-2-1 Contact's "Bloodhound Gang".

I was also sad to see the Ghostwriter series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter_%28TV_series%29) disappear.

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#106

Post by webkike »

Albright wrote: post #7
webkike wrote: post #2

As with literally every article written by kotaku, oh my god I just don't care

How Massive Amounts of Non-Gaming Content and Inundation by Perpetually Offended Millenials Ruined Kotaku

Is it so wrong to want gaming news but not care about cosplay?

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#107

Post by WalterBright »

bitwize wrote: post #52

I'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…

> It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.

As a kid in the 60s, we spent most of our time unsupervised roaming the countryside. The 60s Superman comics were the best, and for TV we had Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings. Chemistry sets weren't yet emasculated.

Somehow we learned to read without SS :-)

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#108

Post by WalterBright »

guelo wrote: post #95

Republicans killed funding for public TV so now the shows have to earn their own money which means the primary concern is no longer teaching but how to make money via toys and DVDs, etc. which leads to finding the most addictive character and making him a star. Because capitalism ruins everything.

Capitalism created the Beatles :-)

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#109

Post by Falcon9 »

bitwize wrote: post #66
sputknick wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that the show where they said "My name is Wednesday... it was a Tuesday?", might have been on right after 3-2-1 Contact? That show was awesome, now I'm going to have to find a few episodes for my kids! Thanks for the reminder.

"My partner is George Frankly; the boss is Thad Green. My name is Monday. I'm a mathematician." I think we're remembering the same show. Yes, do look it up; your kids will thank you.

At some point (according to Wikipedia, the start of the fourth season), Monday was replaced with a new girl, named Tuesday (naturally).

Re: How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street

#110

Post by specialist »

bitwize wrote: post #52

I'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…

The Muppets and Sesame Street is children's programmable watchable by parents. Something families could watch together. Pure genius.

Hunt's Elmo character broke that. As a parent, that's what ruined Sesame Street.

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