The Elmo Generation Gets Cranky

You know how people in their 20s and 30s are always complaining about the current version of Sesame Street? They say the show has been ruined, that it's a shadow of its former self, that it's a whine whine of its kvetch kvetch... The complaints are nearly always built around one word, and that word is Elmo.

Folks who watched the show in the 70s and 80s hate the fact that a sappy, silly "new" character became a star and usurped Big Bird as the representative Sesame Street character. Several weeks back, in my review of the new Sesame Street DVD Being Green, I embedded the "Elmo's Green Mashup" video, which was officially posted on YouTube by the show's producers. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm always fascinated by internet comments, and I couldn't resist looking to see what the common people of the web had to say about the clip.

One trend immediately caught my attention. Several commenters who saw the clip assumed that Elmo's change of hue was a permanent development... and they were pretty unhappy about it. This comment posted by AnimenerdMuffin is representative of this: "noooo he cant be green D: he was always red when i watched him growing up"

Meanwhile, NikTee123 is a little confused, but had the same basic reaction: "wtf first they made the cookie monster orange now elmo is green. WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING ON THAT STREET!"

lexy1234 is even more sadly misinformed about other characters, but is in the same boat: "this sucks. elmo and cookie monster have changed. elmo is green. cookie monster is now the veggie monster. what happened to the old days :( "

Do you know what this means? The tide is turning! Whereas Generation X holds dear the pre-Elmo Sesame Street from its childhood and resents Elmo for showing up and changing it, we now have Generation Y, who grew up with Elmo and resents any indication of a Sesame Street without the standard Elmo. Mr. Born-in-1974 believes with every fiber of his being that the only true Sesame Street is the Sesame Street before the little red guy... but you know what? Mr. Born-in-1994 believes with just as many fibers that Elmo is an essential ingredient in the Sesame Street recipe.

Just think -- whereas now we have young adults complaining that Elmo has taken screen time away from classic characters like Big Bird and Grover, in just a few years we're likely to have young adults ranting about how Abby has taken screen time away from classic characters like Elmo and Baby Bear! Since Elmo hit the big time, grown-ups have been like, "It's a huge mistake to give Elmo the spotlight over the classic characters! The show was so much better before he showed up!" But now the viewers who were in the audience for the first Elmo's World segments are becoming grown-ups themselves, and they're all like, "It's a huge mistake to change the Elmo character! The show needs the classic Elmo!"

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, and I guess I don't really have a point to make, and I can't say that one group of fans is more correct than the other. But isn't it interesting?



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