Good grief...what...HUH?

[kyburg]

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old “Sesame Street” is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper “Elmo’s World” started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.

I'm sorry. I couldn't find a logical place to cut that down to a line or two.

I've often wondered what the target audience actually had been for Sesame Street - now I know. Four years old, black and inner-city dwelling. (For the record, I was nine the first time I got to see Sesame Street, after hearing about it for years. That coincided with Hemet getting cable for the first time, BTW.) I loved Sesame Street, in all the ages I've passed through since then because...for one good example...cities weren't evil. They were routine places where nice people could live, have lives (and adventures) and not a little magic. Not hardly whitewashed, neither.

The mind boggles about the things we won't talk about these days. Horrors.

I fear no DVD. Bring it.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Yep, and when my daddy went to school he took his shotgun with him.... because in the days of the postwar recession a chance encounter with a squirrel coming home might mean the difference between meat on the table and cornbread mush. Nevermind that in that same community, even, today, a water pistol would've gotten him permanently expelled.

*shakes head dolefully* This is how empires collapse. Their innards get soft, and they go down under their own weight.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Well, hell, NOBODY goes hungry in this country, doncha know!

*facepalms*

[reannon.livejournal.com]

A rumor I heard was that it was really Monsterpiece Theater that kicked it off G rating. Cookie Monster, while introducing the segment... is SMOKING A PIPE. You can't do that on children's television!

I loved SESAME STREET then, but I have to say, Elmo gets a bad rap. Kiddo was a Sesame Street fan for much of his toddlerhood, second only to Bear in the Big Blue House. I hate Elmo myself, but Kiddo loved the little bugger, and I found nothing objectionable or whitewashing in the modern Sesame Street. No, they wouldn't let Cookie Monster smoke anymore, but I was good with that. They dealt with important issues face-on; when a hurricane hits Sesame Street, Big Bird loses his nest. He's scared, having to live with Gordon for a while, missing his things, and it's a while before they can rebuild his next. That came out after the hurricane wiped out so much in Florida, and they reran it after Katrina. And the international Sesames have been outstanding - they dared to introduce an HIV-positive muppet to the South African version, because dammit, half those kids have AIDS or lost a parent to AIDS. They're not wimps.

I'd be interested to look at the early Street myself, WITH Kiddo. Guess I better up the Netflix. :)

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

This is so sad too, and yeah, that's what I heard.

It's funny that a pipe would change the rating. Because when I was in kindergarten, our school principal smoked a pipe. And this was back when smoking was still allowed in public schools. It didn't alter my judgment of the man, because of the pipe smoking, because most of the teachers smoked cigarettes. Somehow, my non smoking self managed to live through it with no trauma.

The rating system is weak.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It's LAZY. For crying out loud.

[lostboydv.livejournal.com]

Added to wish list. :)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Oh, only if YOU deliver it in person. We'll go to Disneyland and scare everyone. Promise.

[cowgrrl.livejournal.com]

LOL - I'd just finished reading that article when you posted it! What they're describing is the Sesame Street I knew and loved. I was watching it back in 1969 (the kid I babysat for introduced me to the show).

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

OK, this pisses me off.

I was raised on Sesame Street. I learned my numbers, my colors and my letters from Sesame Street.

Parente just needs to get over herself.

These are the people that raise their kids in some sort of pink, glassbubble world where, heaven forfend, their little darlings actually learn about the icky, nasty dirty world outside.

Where, you know, the Brown People live.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Yo. Keep the faith.

[lostboydv.livejournal.com]

Was the author serious? I assumed it was humorous irony to demonstrate how Sesame Street has derailed from its intentions.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* You need to come out here to get a dose of the culture she and I live in. Oh, I'd have to say so. And you are dead in the black as to why. (And the word count explaining THAT could skyrocket. Ask me if you need more information.)

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

I assume you've seen Avenue Q.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I've heard of Avenue Q, I haven't seen it yet - pity me, yes?

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

Yes, you must see it. A true Sesame Street for adults.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

The non G rating was because of the Monsterpiece Theater, which I though was pretty funny. It didn't make me want to go smoke a pipe, although I did have a penchant for cookies, and two Cookie Monster dolls.

I'll probably buy the set, because while I'll probably never watch the new Sesame street (Elmo makes me cry inside), I loved the old Sesame street when I was a kid.

You want to talk about racy, go watch some of the Muppet Show episodes. Jilted Miss Piggy who's so pregnant she's ready to pop singing to Kermit? Priceless.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I LOVE me some vintage Muppetage.

[foogod.livejournal.com]

Personally, for me, the Day That Sesame Street Changed was the point at which everybody else suddenly started seeing Snuffy. I understand the reasoning behind the change, but I'm still not sure whether I agree with it. But even if I were to agree, it still saddens me.

That was the day that proved to me without a doubt that "imagination" and "believing in onesself" have been replaced by "anxiety" and "fearing for one's safety" as the important, desirable qualities of our society.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Keep 'em scared and keep 'em stupid. Yahoo.

[bronxelf-ag001.livejournal.com]

I grew up watching Sesame Street. I watched a LOT of it as a very young child. I'm not black but I had inner city dwelling down cold.

For the record, Oscar has *always* (always always) been my favorite.

Which makes such incredible sense now.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I always wanted to see inside his trash can. Musta looked like a Tardis or something.

*taps chin* NOT going there.

[kiyone.livejournal.com]

1985?? That seems too early, for some reason. I just remember being extremely surprised that everyone could see Snuffleupagus when I babysat a kid in the mid-1990's.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

The wonders of endless repeats. That's the year after I graduated from college, and it was old news then. I just shrugged and went "ok, they got lazy and decided to make it easier to keep the continuity straight."