Sesame Street Topic?

Question

So of course i'm not the only one who's seen the topic about sesame street on today's yahoo main page.

Someone want to explain what the heck this guy is talking about?! Is he kidding me with this load of c**p???

It's just Sesame Street!!!

Answer 1

To the answer above mine - is that really teaching a lesson we want our children to learn?  (Obviously, the "don't go to the dirty old man's house" is a good one).  I'm talking about the idea that everyone must be cheerful and pleasant to be liked.  

There are grouchy people in the world.  We don't need to change them - we need to just accept that they're grumpy and like them anyway.

The design of ANY good puppet character is to take one basic human trait and focus that to nearly (or beyond) an extreme level.  Thinking back in time, Charlie McCarthy was the extreme trouble maker for Edgar Bergen.  Mortimer Snerd was clearly a country idiot.

Children are smart.  They know that people are grumpy, crazy, goofy...all that.  They need humor about it too.  And, with that humor, can come lessons.  If we act like the world is just a cheery place where everyone is happy and skipping, we're losing out on teaching a lot of great things to our children.

Matt

Answer 2

i have not seen it what is it about?????!

Answer 3

I know- it's crazy! i loved that show when i was little

Answer 4

He's talking about how you would never see something like the original Sesame Street produced today because we are too concerned about having our young children exposed to "bad influences" or unpleasant problems"   Today's toddler shows are more "positive" and sanitized.  You wouldn't have a cookie monster who over-indulges in fattening cookies (obesity being the enormous problem that it is among children in this country), and you wouldn't have an unmitigated, uncontrolled grouch -- you'd make sure to show his softer side (as they do now with his little charge, Slimey, who he is very nice to), and you'd make sure that the lesson a child learned from a nice old man inviting a little girl to his house would be DON'T GO, even though in the early Sesame Street, this scenario was just an old guy and his wife was being nice to a lonely little girl.

I agree with you that it's an overblown issue, but it is an interesting one to consider -- would we rather have a grittier program like Sesame Street or one that makes sure to promote only the positive lessons we want our kids to learn.  (As an example, Dora deals with a grumpy troll in her show, but she and Boots wind up helping him become more cheerful and nice -- he doesn't stay ill-tempered like the Grouch did -- and she lives in a colorful clean land where everyone is pretty much cheerful and nobody exemplifies any major vices for long).