It’s been a long-lasting art form. A little bit of mud, a little bit of paint, a camera and a whole lot of patience and you’ve got yourself a claymation cartoon. From Gumby to Davey and Goliath, from Wallace and Gromit to The California Raisins, everyone’s favorite characters end up embodied in clay-form eventually. Ok, maybe not every single one of your favorite characters, but we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Those Pixar guys are making it look easy.
Starting later this year, millions of Sesame Street viewers will be treated to new versions of Bert and Ernie. They’ll be popping right out of the screen in The Adventures of Bert and Ernie, a new 5-minute program in which the duo will appear as moving sculptures as they travel the world through their imaginations.
So now you’ve heard the good news. Are you ready for the bad? Do you want to sit down for this? Maybe have a cup of hot cocoa?
The Adventures of Bert and Ernie will not be available in the United States. It will be shown in Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Denmark, Spain, The Netherlands, Israel, Norway, Sweden, and parts of Asia as a separate program (meaning, not during their regular local Sesame Street). Two seasons are being produced as we speak, 26 5-minute episodes in each. Thats four hours and 20 minutes worth of stop motion comedy.
Now, you may ask yourself, “Why am I talking to myself?” And you may then ask yourself, “Why aren’t these being shown in America, the greatest country of them all?” Good question, me. With the ever-lasting possibility that the Republicans-that-be might cut funding to Public Broadcasting, Sesame Workshop needs to find more ways to create funds outside of merchandising and Viewers Like You. One of these ways is to produce a new program and sell it to other networks. It’s unknown to us if they tried to sell it in the United States, but if they did, and if it didn’t sell, then they’re sure to make a buck or two overseas.
No word yet on where Clay Bert and Clay Ernie might be going with their imaginations, but now that they’re animated, the limits are possibilityless. No wait, scratch that, reverse it. They may travel to the far reaches of Egypt. Or perhaps they’ll pretend to be knights who fight dragons. Or maybe they’ll want to live on the moon! (But somehow I doubt it)
My selfish hope for this program is that one day, several years from now, production will end on The Adventures of Bert and Ernie and it will cease to air on foreign networks. Then, with all of these episodes collecting dust, Sesame Workshop will slap them in new episodes of Sesame Street right between Roman Numeral Of The Day and Elmo’s Subconscious.
Though it might be better if Sesame Workshop just kept making money so Sesame Street stays on the air forever and ever. Yeah, I like that idea too.
I might like them a little more if they didn't have those weird, disconnected sausage-link fingers. I wonder how much money in the budget was marked for 'clay smoothing-down' and they ended up blowing it all on their heads?
ReplyDelete'Cause, man, those are some damn smooth heads.
I like the look of "The Adventures of Ernie and Bert" -- but a problem with showing it in America is that we don't have a lot of vacant 5-minute timeslots in our TV schedules.
ReplyDeleteAmerican TV is scheduled by the hour and the half-hour, which has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that our TV schedules aren't very flexible. The advantage is that it's the only normal way to run a TV schedule.
It's always baffled me that in the UK, they have shows that start at 7:45 and run until 8:20. I have a hard enough time remembering what night something is going to be on. I don't think I could handle the kind of commitment that would be required to watch a show at 8:20.
I imagine that it's not even that good in the developing world; their shows probably start at 4:18, and they only run for three and a half minutes.
For those countries, a five-minute show would be a blockbuster; it would be that network's anchor show. The other channels would be desperately trying to counter-program with five really good one-minute shows. And as a viewer, that's a tough schedule to keep up with; imagine taking a bathroom break and missing the entire Thursday night lineup.
Another problem is that if you allow for 5-minute shows, then the TV listings must go on for pages and pages. The TV Guide must be like a phone book every week. At a certain point, you just give up, and you go back to subsistence farming or writing poetry or whatever the hell you do with your free time.
All I can say is that if "The Adventures of Bert and Ernie" is airing in parts of Asia, then good luck to parts of Asia. I hope they have TiVo.
Then again, string together three 5-minute episodes, and you've got a healthy half-hour show. With an openting theme, credits and 'sponsored by' bumpers, you might have to trim the shorts down a little.
ReplyDeleteHeh. "Trim the shorts down".
Three 5-minute episodes is 15 minutes.
ReplyDeleteYours sincerely,
Math Whiz