5 Hours of 40 Years

I wish all my friends were more like Sesame Street, because Sesame Street has been celebrating its own birthday by giving us a ton of great presents. One of these, which I just finished consuming, is the two-disc DVD set 40 Years of Sunny Days.

Every season of the show is represented with at least one segment on this set, which pretty much guarantees you'll see some stuff you've known all your life, some stuff you've seen a time or two before, and at least one thing you've never seen.

For example, I had never seen the very first appearance of Telly Monster, in his initial incarnation as "the television monster." That's here, and it's almost worth the price of the DVD just to see it. That voice! Those swirling eyes! Boy, Telly's come a long way.

Then there's an appearance from the Fonz, and Bob and Linda performing "Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood" with an elevator operator, and some clips from the Hawaii episodes. (My goodness, but Mr. Hooper was hairy!) Oh, and Batman shows up at some point. It's a pretty comprehensive selection that goes way beyond the obvious.

The disc covering the first 20 seasons is a bit longer than the one covering seasons 21-40, and I'm guessing nobody's going to have a problem with that, as it's the old stuff that most people buying a Sesame retrospective DVD are looking for. So you got your Teeny Little Super Guy and your "Put Down the Duckie," and it all looks really fantastic, but there's plenty of great stuff from recent years, too. Mr. Noodle... Destiny's Child's cover of "I Got a New Way to Walk" with Zoe, Elmo, and Grover... season 40's groovealicious "Dance" iPod commercial parody... and "Can't Say the Alphabet Enough" by Gabi, Maria, and Gina, which I happen to love.

The extras are delightful too. There's a pretty healthy dose of "Behind the Street" footage that shows the cast and crew working on the show, and most of these focus on scenes that are included on the discs. As some folks on the Tough Pigs forum have noted, it seems like few people outside our little world of Muppet geeks would really be interested in a lot of this stuff, but that just proves that the Sesame people know we're out there and they want us to be entertained. (Hi, Sesame people! Thanks for the cool DVDs!)

My one and only fan-geek complaint is that I wish some of the clips were longer. I'm mostly talking about the street scenes... We get a few minutes of Snuffy being revealed to the grown-ups, and Gabriella's birth, and the hurricane, and so on, but it sure would have been nice to see a little bit more. It seems like we get an impression of what the episodes are about, and then it moves on to the next clip just as things are getting good.

My favorite part of the Snuffy story is when Phil Donahue comes in and hugs everyone, but that's not included. My favorite part of the baby Gabriella story is when Oscar sadistically withholds the news of the new baby from everyone, but that's not included either.

But that doesn't prevent this from being a dynamite DVD set. If you don't already have it, I suggest adding it to your Christmas wish list. If you do already have it, I suggest buying it for all your friends and family for Christmas. If they ever watched Sesame Street, chances are they'll dig it, and they'll thank you for getting "Ladybug Picnic" stuck in their heads.



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ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

The Muppets Take Brooklyn

On Saturday, November 21, The Brooklyn Public Library hosted a day of Sesame Street events. (Did you miss it? It's not like we didn't warn you!) Thankfully for us (and our lawyers), everything that Sesame Workshop advertised came true. There was music and art and puppets and panels, and we were there firsthand to see it and give you the full report. You can thank us later.

The day began just like any other, with a concert by Bob McGrath (what, he doesn't come to your house to sing you awake every morning??). While wearing one of Bill Cosby's sweaters, Bob sang a few songs, which asked if we were happy (and if we were aware of the fact then we should clap our hands), about letters of the alphabet, funky dinosaurs, and he even sang a few Christmas tunes. (Before Thanksgiving? Too soon, Bob!) Sadly, Bob did not break out into "Sir Duke" like we'd hoped. Throughout the show, Bob was interacting with the kids in the front row, which was too adorable for words. Especially when a mother sat her baby on the stage next to Bob for a photo op, and the baby broke into tears of sheer horror. Who knew that Bob had it in him to actually scare someone?

After the show, we had a few hours to check out the exhibit in the library. The front cases held photo puppets, original scripts and sheet music, claymation Bert and Ernie, the Teeny Little Super Guy, an invitation to Maria and Luis' wedding, an Emmy, and of course, lots and lots of photos. It's always impressive to see this much Muppet stuff in one room, and moreso to see it all be given the museum treatment it deserves. Behind these cases was a set of framed art, with original art from Sesame Street storybooks (including one from our favorite, "The Together Book"). It's easy to forget that Sesame Street has published so many books. I'll bet they could fill the entire library with illustrations by guys like Joe Mathieu, Michael J. Smollin, and Jack Davis.

One thing on my checklist that we weren't getting done was to get one of the new Elmo library cards. The advertisements said that they were for "new accounts", but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. When I asked, the librarian told me that they were "for kids." As if that's ever stopped me! But when I pressed further, she told me that I could request one, but only if I wanted to deprive some other child of getting his or her own Elmo library card. Needless to say, Elmo does not grace the cover of my card. Curse you, librarian guilt!
The main attraction for the day was the panel discussion, moderated by Louise Gikow, and featuring Chris Cerf, Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente, puppet builder Rollie Krewson, Bob McGrath, and Fran Brill. (Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell delivered the introduction, and he revealed that Iftah Ya Simsim, the Kuwaiti Sesame Street, is back in production.) After the customary how-did-you-get-started questions (Bob was big in Japan! Fran cold-called Jim Henson for an audition!), Louise Gikow did a great job at keeping the conversation moving and interesting to both the casual fans and the seasoned vets.

One of the most interesting bits to me was the inclusion of Rollie Krewson, who doesn't normally get to sit on panels like this. Krewson talked about getting her start as Henson's first intern (the first puppet she ever built: a baby Koozebanian, or "Koozie-pup", with the help of Dave Goelz). Another interesting tidbit she gave is that she prefers to sculpt characters before building, rather than sketch them out like other puppet builders. I for one would love to see some of the early sculpts for familiar characters. Yet another tidbit: Krewson's daughter came up with the idea to put sparkles in Zoe's hair (or is that fur?).

Chris Cerf, who lost his voice the day before, spoke briefly about working at Random House ("It helps when your father owns the company"), being in the army with Jeff Moss, and attending Harvard with Joe Raposo. He said that he got his start writing songs on Sesame Street because he "knew rock and roll", which is how his first song, "Count It Higher", came into fruition.

Bob McGrath talked about having trouble in his first year of Sesame Street because he couldn't figure out who his character was supposed to be. Jon Stone gave him the direction to "be himself", because kids can tell in an instant when an adult is faking it. Fran Brill spoke about the creation of Prairie Dawn, and how she started as "sweet, innocent and docile," but soon became a "neurotic perfectionist." According to Brill, the difference between Prairie Dawn and Zoe is that "Prairie would never go near a puddle, while Zoe would jump right in."

A few short tidbits from the panel: Fran Brill is 5'4", and sometimes has to wear 7" platform shoes, but she has never fallen. While performing a live-hand puppet, Frank Oz would sometimes rest his left hand over the right to keep the second puppeteer from over-gesticulating. Chris Cerf once wrote a sketch after receiving a letter from the Dairy Goat Association, in which a dairy goat apologized for a previous cartoon featuring a goat eating a sneaker (of course, it ended with a non-dairy goat asking, "are you going to eat those sneakers?"). The puppeteers and writers love Zoe's pet rock, Rocco, but they felt that he made Zoe "a little too bossy" (thankfully for all you Rocco fans, he'll be back in season 41). The Mr. Snuffleupagus costume weighs 115 lbs. While Paul Simon was on set in between takes, he walked past Oscars can, and Oscar popped out and said "Boy, you are short!". Paul Simon was not amused (Caroll Spinney said, "I don't know why I did that! I love Paul Simon!").

The highlight of the panel was an impromptu concert with Chris Cerf and Bob McGrath. Unfortunately, Cerf's voice was almost completely lost at this point in the night, so it's better in theory than in practice. But that doesn't stop these guys from being living legends, so enjoy this video of Chris and Bob singing a few famous Sesame tunes!

A million thanks go out to the great folks at Sesame Workshop and the Brooklyn Public Library for organizing this event. It was a lot of fun, we learned a lot, and we were thrilled to see so many people attend and show some love for Sesame Street.

If you'd like to see the exhibit, it will be on display at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza until February 21, 2010.
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joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

A Pox upon Sesame!

Recently, Sesame Street has come under fire from conservative news sources about a two-year-old joke in which Oscar the Grouch's girlfriend Grundgetta claims to want to watch "POX News: Now there's a trashy news show!" As we all know, conservative ears have trouble differentiating the P and F sounds, so the O'Reilly Militia immediately started shouting at the top of their lungs about how Sesame Street's liberal agenda has crossed the line by slamming their beloved FOX News network.

Of course, if they had taken the time to hit the rewind button on their VCRs (it's a well-known fact that Republicans don't own Tivo), they would have seen that the premise of this episode is that Oscar is a newscaster for GNN, the Grouch News Network, which promotes "All grouchy, all disgusting, all yucky news, all the time." That sure sounds like FOX News' mission statement to me. GNN reports on Horatio the Elephant taking a bath in Maria's bathroom (obviously because of the Republican party's love for their elephant mascot) and Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty's game of checkers (because they love lazy heads of state). Ultra-liberals Gordon and Bob both claim to watch GNN to get "both sides of the story," so they must not be the intended audience. No, the intended audience is Grundgetta.

In the now Internet Famous clip (which is way better than Regular Famous), Grundgetta claims that GNN isn't trashy enough for her, which is what gains POX News another point in the Female Grouches demographic. But how much trash could one Grouch need? GNN not only employs Oscar the Grouch, but also notable Grouches Dan Rather-not and Walter Cranky. Even Meredith Beware-a and Diane Spoiler are mentioned as grouchy guests on the network.

So what does constitute as "liberal news" on Sesame Street? Elmo sits behind the desk at MNN: The Monster News Network, Charles Blitzen anchors CDN: The Counter Downer Network (which I'm sure gets great ratings around the Christmas season), and Nora Nicks is a VJ over at NTV (they probably have NTV News, right?). There's also whatever network on which Kermit the Frog broadcasts his Sesame Street News Flashes. We can only assume that the residents of Sesame Street can't pick up the signals of DNN, DTV, KMUP, or WHHZ. Every one of these networks is bound to be the antithesis of POX News, so Grundgetta should be content with the level of trash on GNN.

But at the end of the day, GNN proves itself to be the yucky news network it set out to be by winning a Phlegmmy Award. And that's an honor that not even the real FOX News has achieved. So maybe the conservatives should do a little less finger-pointing at Sesame Street and work a little harder at bringing a fair and balanced amount of trash, rudeness, intolerance, and all-around grouchiness to their viewers.

Good night, and good yuck.
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joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Michelle Obama, Cameron Diaz, and the Letter H

Maybe you heard: The season premiere of Sesame Street aired yesterday. (What season are they on now, anyway? I'm not sure.) It was episode 4187 -- that's the four thousand, one hundred and eight-seventh episode -- and when 7:00 AM rolled around, I was sitting too close to my TV impatiently waiting for the show to begin. It was exactly like it was when I was four years old, only I was slightly stubblier.

I've been doing jumping jacks of anticipation for season 40, but I'll confess that when I heard that the show was switching to a "block programming" format hosted by Murray Monster, I was a little nervous. Of course I trust the Sesame people to know what holds a child's interest better than I would, and I think Murray is great, but I was crossing my fingers and hoping it wouldn't feel like a completely different show. In fact, it feels a lot like Sesame Street, which is good, because it would have been very difficult for me to type this with my fingers still crossed. Here's what we saw in this show:

● A new theme song sequence. I think it's actually the same arrangement of the theme as last year but with a nifty new animated chalk drawing motif.



It's interesting to note that the itty-bitty Zoe puppet is seen here... In early 2009 we heard that they were switching permanently to the smaller Zoe, but in recent interviews she's been back to her normal, non-freakishly-small self. I wonder if she'll grow and shrink throughout the new season, kinda like Oprah.

● The street story. When Big Bird complains about the cold on Sesame Street, he's ambushed by Frank Flapman from Flychert Real Estate, who insists that what Big Bird needs is a new habitat. (Habitat! That's the Word on the Street! Take a shot!) Flapman is played by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Broadway's In the Heights, and as he takes Big Bird on a virtual tour of various habitats, he raps about them. Man, how great would it be if all real estate agents rapped their descriptions of their properties? I'd love to hear a rhyme for "Jacuzzi bathtub."

So Big Bird decides to migrate ("migrate" being a sort of secondary Word of the Day, apparently) away from Sesame Street and go to live in the rain forest. He says goodbye to everyone, and everyone is completely baffled, but then it becomes clear that Big Bird doesn't quite realize how far away the rain forest is. Hooper's doesn't deliver there, and Snuffy won't be around, so Big Bird decides to stay, and he sings a nice-but-forgettable song about how Sesame Street is his habitat, and then everyone's happy again. "Welcome back, Bird," says Snuffy, which is a lovely thing to say even though that he didn't actually go anywhere.

This was a fine street story: I'm always happy to see all the humans, and it's great to have the season start off with a Big Bird-focused show. It was lacking in silliness, but we still have the rest of the season for that.

● Cameron Diaz and some Muppet animals explain habitat. Have we ever seen that raccoon before? He looks less Muppety than his pals there, somehow.

● The Letter of the Day. Today it's H, and Murray talks about H words before introducing a film about kids looking for H words. Is it me, or did they used to spend more time focusing on the Letter of the Day?

● Abby's Flying Fairy School. The new show-within-a-show took up a pretty large chunk of the episode, as an animated Abby and her fairy friends chased down Niblet, the class pet gerbilcorn. It's definitely kids' stuff, but it's bright and colorful, and it had a few pretty good jokes. (Fairy kids: "We'll never find him!" Teacher: "Never? Do fairies say never?" Fairy kids: "NEVER!") "Gerbilcorn" is supposed to indicate the fact that Niblet is a gerbil with a horn, but it kind of sounds like a brand of pet food. The fairies end up jumping into a crayon drawing in their pursuit of Niblet, and I was halfway expecting them to take a wrong turn and end up in Elmo's World.

I'm sort of hoping Flying Fairy School doesn't show up every day, so as to make room for other material, but it's charming enough. But wow, it's weird to see Abby blinking.

● Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures. I think this was recycled from last year, but I had never seen it: Bert and Ernie are detectives investigating a maltese duck. Pretty good, but I hope we see the puppet Ernie and Bert on the show soon, even if it's in an existing sketch.

● Elmo's World. It's a plague of frogs! And Kermit makes a very brief cameo! That's pretty amazing right there. But hey, if this is a new episode, it looks like Elmo's World is still being shot in a standard 4:3 ratio, while the rest of the show is in widescreen. I hope Elmo asks about aspect ratios sometime this year so we can figure that one out.


And that's pretty much it. I was entertained by this episode, and while I hope they vary the format a bit from day to day, I have no major complaints. Oh, and I almost forgot... Michelle Obama showed up to teach kids how to bury things.



Yay! Golly gee whiz, I want to be the First Lady when I grow up, so a tomato will cheer for me. So did you see the show today? What did you think? Drop by the Tough Pigs forum to let us know!

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ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary Roundup

Sesame Street's 40th anniversary is fast approaching, and there has been a slew of birthday-related shenanigans going on all around us. Let's take a moment to fondly remember them before Sesame Street gets old enough to need bifocals.

The most noticeable celebration has been over at Google, where Sesame Street characters have been incorporated into the Google logo every day. As of press time, we've seen Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, and Oscar, as well as a handful of international characters on the international Google sites. We'll keep on seeing more Sesame characters every day until the official anniversary on Tuesday, but who will we see next? I'm holding out hope for Herbert Birdsfoot hovering over the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

Pretty much every news source in the world is talking about Sesame Street this week. From New York to Chicago, all over the USA, in merry old London, and even the bizarre planet known as CNN, you just can't get away from it. But frankly, why would you want to?

Sesame Street has finally caved in and joined the Twitter and Facebook games. And that's pretty impressive, considering the fact that most 40-year-olds still don't know how to turn on their computers.



Big Bird traded barbs with Jimmy Kimmel on his show last week in an interview that reminded us how great these live appearances can be. A few furry friends will be on that other Jimmy's show (Fallon) on Monday the 9th, and on the same day Oscar will show up on Bonnie Hunt's show, probably to mock her fake relationship with Brian Williams.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and Cookie Monster showed up on The Today Show this week, most likely airing at the same time as Sesame Street on many PBS stations. What a ratings killer!


No Sesame celebration would be complete without a little controversy. A two-year-old Sesame Street clip was recently discovered by the right-wingers in which Grundgetta declares her love for trashy news show, "POX News". Naturally, the Bill O'Reilly fan club got all up in arms because they hate all of that un-American tolerance and education and Michelle Obamas that Sesame promotes. Of course, Sesame Workshop and PBS aren't apologizing for the joke, but they are saying that they could have made the "P" a little clearer to avoid confusion that grouches actually watch FOX News. Spoiler: Only grouches watch FOX News.

And don't forget about the new Sesame Street anniversary book (and our interview with writer Louise Gikow, here and here), the Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days DVD, the paperback printing of Street Gang, and of course, the 40th season, which premieres on Tuesday, November 10 on your local PBS station.

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joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Bonus: Revisit past birthdays with our recent "My Week with Sesame Anniversaries" anthology: 10th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th (Ah, ah, ah!!).

My Week with Sesame Anniversaries: Day 5, Year 35

This week I'm watching Sesame Street's past anniversary specials as we all get giddy with excitement about the show's 40th anniversary next week. If you haven't already, check out my thoughts on the 10th anniversary, the 20th anniversary, the 25th anniversary, and the 30th anniversary!

No, seriously. Can you believe Sesame Street has been around for 40 years? Why, it seems like just yesterday that we were saying, “No, seriously. Can you believe Sesame Street has been around for 35 years?”

That was in 2004, when the anniversary special The Street We Live On aired on PBS. This one is a different animal… It’s really just an episode of the show that happens to be all about the show itself. I’m not sure why they did it this way. Maybe none of the broadcast networks were interested in yet another Sesame birthday party, or maybe the producers just wanted to be meta. So we ended up with this, and that's fine, 'cause I never meta Sesame special I didn't like.

Now here’s Grover, and – oh, right. Here’s one thing that’s changed since the Elmopalooza. Frank Oz’s characters are now performed more often than not by Eric Jacobson (Grover and Bert) and David Rudman (Cookie Monster). It's a great decision... The increased presence of those three characters has really made Sesame feel more like itself since the dawn of the 2000s.

In 2004, the once and future Fix-It Shop was in its Mail-It Shop phase, and Maria and Luis have hired Grover to deliver an important package to Oscar. This seems like a really inefficient way to do business considering Oscar lives about twelve steps away… and anyway, isn’t Grover pretty bad at every job he attempts? No wonder the Mail-It Shop didn’t last.

On his epic journey to the other end of the block, Grover passes by pretty much every major character, Muppet and human, plus three chickens. I love when they do stuff like this -- I think it usually happens in the season premieres, when they do a big street scene with everyone as an introduction/re-introduction to all the folks who populate the street. Plus three chickens.

When he finally arrives at the can (Oscar’s can, not the bathroom), Grover gives Oscar the parcel, and hey, it’s from Elmo (whom Oscar refers to as “the little red menace”). It’s a drawing of Dorothy with spaghetti spilled on it. Mmm, that sounds tasteful. Ha. And with that, we transition to Elmo’s World, where the—

Whoa! Hit the brakes there, buddy! Are they really doing this? A show celebrating the past 35 years of Sesame history, and five minutes in they toss us into Elmo’s World, without any kind of warning?

Answer: Yep. Before we know what hit us, we're off the street and hanging with Elmo and Dorothy. But hey, today Elmo is thinking about Sesame Street (“You know… Sesame Street!”) so all the usual parts of the Elmo’s World formula are related to the show. The question for Mr. Noodle is “How does Cookie Monster eat a cookie?” (Answer: By crumbling it all over the place without ever really eating it.) When Elmo asks a baby, that baby is big, blue and furry: It’s Cookie Monster himself in a “clever disguise.”

The remains of the cookie remind Cookie of the letter C, and now we have a few letter C inserts, some older and some newer. And later, Elmo and the Count count monsters to determine the Number of the Day. (It’s 10, in case you were wondering.)

So all the familiar Sesame elements are here, as are all the Elmo’s World elements. I’m not convinced this was the absolute best way to go about it, but it very well may have been the most effective way to simultaneously get kids high on learning and shoot their parents up with nostalgia. Or, how about this: If you think of a normal episode as a peanut M&M, with the peanut of Elmo’s World inside the candy-covered milk chocolate of Sesame Street, then The Street We Live On is like a reverse M&M. The milk chocolate is all there, but it’s inside the peanut. Come to think of it, that’s some damn skilled candy-making on the part of the Sesame producers.

After Elmo does some other stuff, Grover shows up and takes him on a magical taxi ride (What would an anniversary special be without Grover driving?) to witness scenes of Sesame Street… before he was born! Elmo gets to see Mr. Hooper, and baby Miles, and Maria’s wedding, and… Hey, wait a minute! Isn’t that Elmo as the ring-bearer at that wedding?

After his trip through the space-time continuum, Elmo runs out to the street and demands that everyone gather on the stoop, and they immediately drop what they’re doing to do his bidding. They all sing a song that I’m guessing is called “The Street We Live On,” which is nice enough, although it’s a bit adult contemporary for my tastes. My aunt would probably like it. Everyone gets to sing a line (including Dorothy! And… a CGI tree?!), and when Miles gets his turn he gives a hilariously melismatic performance. Don't wish your neighborhood had regular sing-alongs where everyone magically knew the words?

And so we come to the end of The Street We Live On, an hour that honors the show’s legacy and embodies the fact that it’s still going strong as it reaches today’s youngsters. The end of the song is the end of the special, and everyone says bye-bye… but we’ll be back. After all, we live there too.

Other things about this special:

●Status update on Oscar’s grouchiness this time in 2004: I am happy to report that Oscar yells “Get lost!” at various characters about three times, with no provocation whatsoever. I know, I know, it's far from the the most blatantly dickish thing he’s ever done, but it’s still pretty darn grouchy.

●In the lead-in to “Journey to Ernie,” Bert finds himself in Elmo’s World, at which point he asks, “How do I get out of Elmo’s World?” thus echoing the sentiment of millions of parents watching at home.

●Were the writers worried kids watching this show might get bored with vintage clips and such? There are four different moments here where the kids are instructed to get up and do a dance along with the characters. One of these is led by Snuffy, and is a popular Snuffleupagus dance called “The Snuffleupagus.” Isn’t that a weird name for a Snuffleupagus dance? You don’t see us doing a dance called “The Homo Sapien.”

●There’s an extended version of the song “Dance Myself to Sleep” that features celebrities dancing. Julianne Moore is adorable, while Larry King doesn’t even bother to get up from his desk:


Then again, it’s possible that Larry King is physically unable to stand up, or perhaps he forgot to wear pants that day, again.

BONUS! What’s the Name of That Song?

Believe it or not, there was also a direct-to-DVD special billed as a 35th anniversary celebration. It’s really similar to A Musical Celebration ten years earlier, with Big Bird, Super Grover, and Elmo searching for a song that everyone can sing, interspersed with cool Sesame Street songs. It’s perhaps most notable for the fact that, after 31 years, the cast finally determines that “What’s the Name of That Song?” is the name of that song.

Naturally, this special ends with a big group musical number, and it's another groovy medley. (In which Bob comes in with his arm around Gina. Could she be his rebound gal after Linda left the show?). Yay, everyone can sing together, and yay, Sesame Street has a lot of good songs, and yay, we love it.

Whew! That was a lot of anniversaries. If this were a less interesting television program -- like say, Fishing with Roland Martin, or Senate Judiciary Committee in Session on C-SPAN, or Friends -- I would pretty sick of it by now, but this is Sesame Street, so I want more. Lucky for me, then, that new episodes of the show start on Tuesday, November 10 when the 40th season hits PBS. Tune in, and then come back here to see what we thought of it!


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ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

My Week with Sesame Anniversaries: Day 4, Year 30

This week, I'm marking Sesame Street's 40th anniversary by watching specials from the show's previous anniversaries. On Monday I celebrated the 30th anniversary of the 10th anniversary special, on Tuesday I comemmorated the 20th anniversary of the 20th anniversary special, and yesterday I marked the 15th anniversary of the 25th anniversary special. Join me now as I check out Elmopalooza, a special commemorating Sesame Street's 30th year.

Here we are now in 1998*. Has anything changed since the 25th anniversary a few years ago? You bet your sweet bippy it has, and it’s all because of a little thing called Tickle Me Elmo, the toy that captured the hearts of America’s children while simultaneously driving their parents to violent rioting in the aisles at Toys ‘R’ Us. The little red monster is a huge star now, and that explains why this special, which aired on ABC, is called Elmopalooza and not Sesamepalooza or BigBirdapalooza, or Sesamestreet celebratesitsbirthdaywithaprimetimetelevisionspecialpalooza.

But don’t judge a TV special by its cover: As Tough Pigs founder Danny Horn once pointed out here on the site, the show is really an ensemble piece, with the whole cast of Sesame Street Muppets putting on a show for us. Elmopalooza is a change of pace from previous anniversaries in that it is absolutely not a clip show. Clips are so 1994, so this is a variety show, coming to us live from Radio City Music Hall! And just to throw us off, nobody ever mentions the fact that it's the 30th anniversary.

Our host is Jon Stewart, during the post-Jon Stewart Show, pre-Daily Show era in which he was not yet the most trusted TV journalist in America. The director is Prairie Dawn. I’m a big Prairie Dawn fan – she’s a funny character who tends to get overlooked, so it’s nice to see her used so well here. She even gets to utter the show's one shocking obscenity: “We’re in deep doo-doo!” Yikes! What's next, Ernie saying "consarn it?" (I apologize if the previous sentence offended anyone.)

So why are they in deep doo-doo? Well, here’s what happens: It seems the door to the dressing room sticks when you close it… and Elmo, unaware of this fact, closes said door, trapping Jon Stewart and Prairie Dawn and the entire crew inside, just moments before the show is supposed to start. Jeez, Radio City Music Hall must be a pretty crappy little theater to only have one dressing room.

But now Elmo has ruined everything ("Just like he always does!" shout the old-school cynics), and that’s why he and all his friends have to run the show themselves. The show consists of a bunch of slickly produced music videos of classic Sesame Street songs performed by famous singers with Muppets. I don't know... If I bought an expensive ticket to a big show at Radio City, I'd probably be pretty disappointed if all they did was play some videos, but at least most of the videos are pretty cool.

It just occurred to me that none of the songs they chose are very educational, and I wonder if that was a deliberate for the primetime audience. “Mambo I, I, I” and “The Zig Zag Dance” (sung here by Gloria Estefan and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, respectively) are sort of about letters, but not really. Really they’re just catchy songs.

Some of the song covers are better than others. Shawn Colvin and Ernie sing “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” while on a romantic road trip (I swear, Colvin comes this close to asking Ernie to marry her). It’s quite lovely, although I’m not sure their driver would agree. He looks pretty unamused... I’m guessing he’s a Bert fan, and he’s never forgiven Ernie for that time he ate Bert’s piece of chocolate cake.

The Fugees do a hippety-hoppety version of “Happy to Be Me” on the streets of New York City, with Big Bird and Snuffy. I really like seeing Snuffy outdoors on location, and I wish we could see more of that on the show, although I would settle for seeing him walking down the street outside my house tomorrow morning. En Vogue shows up to do “I Want a Monster to Be My Friend,” and although the song loses a lot in the translation to an R&B arrangement, there’s some fun stuff with the Sesame Street monsters hanging out with the En Voguers. One of them is seen at a drive-in movie with the Two-Headed Monster, and I swear, this special is all about pop singers dating Muppets.

Meanwhile, the humans of Sesame Street – Susan, Gordon, Bob, Mr. Handford, and Gina – are on their way to the show, but they’re having some problems getting there because their driver is, of course, Grover. It was established 10 years earlier that Grover does not know how to get to Sesame Street by car, and now it seems he’s not so great at getting to 6th Avenue at 50th Street either. His wrong turns lead them to a snowy landscape where Grover picks up a few penguins, and Roswell, New Mexico, where one of the “Yip-Yip” Martians hitches a ride. How does Grover keep getting jobs? There's no way he's ever gotten a positive letter of recommendation.

The show goes on, even as various attempts to release Jon Stewart and Prairie Dawn from their well-furnished prison fail miserably. And guess who shows up again? It's Rosie O'Donnell, who, like Elmo, has become a lot more famous since appearing in Stars and Street Forever in 1994. (His fame rose because he was ticklish, hers rose because she threw Koosh balls at people.) They do an onstage performance of the song "Nearly Missed"... I believe it was originally sung by Susan, but Rosie and Elmo do a rap arrangement, and I can't say it's an improvement.

At the end of their song, Rosie does a big, theatrical, "ta-da!" gesture, knocking Elmo clear off the stage and into the wings, where he crashes into the stagehand monsters, resulting in all the scenery collapsing all over the stage. Elmo is despondent about having messed up the whole show, but I'd just like to point out that the destruction of this particular number was caused by Rosie O'Donnell. Not that she takes responsibility for it, no sir. She just lets Elmo -- an innocent three-year-old! -- feel sorry for himself. Didn't O'Donnell have the nickname "Queen of Nice" in those days? Well, in reality, she's a heartless beast.

And then a bunch of stuff happens, and everything's fine, and then the cast does a closing medley of their greatest hits onstage. With just a handful of Muppets and humans, it seems kind of small compared to the cast-of-thousands finales we've seen in previous shows, but who cares? Sesame Street has been around for 30 years, and as this show proves, everyone in the world loves it, from Jimmy Buffett to Chris Rock. Say it with me: Ten more years! Ten more years!

Other things about this special:

●So how's Oscar's grouchiness in 1998? Well, he doesn't get much time in the spotlight, so it's hard to tell. But for the second anniversary special in a row, he ultimately comes up with the solution that saves the day. Oscar the hero? It sure looks like he's getting nicer as he gets older.

●The video for "One Small Voice" tells a little story, with a kid at a talent show feeling too nervous to sing until Big Bird offers him some encouragement. The celebrity guest on this one is Kenny Loggins, but he doesn't appear at the talent show, no does he interact with anyone ever... He's apparently trapped in limbo, where he's surrounded by blackness and forced to sing inspirational children's songs for all eternity.

●And now a few more images... Check out Maria’s amazing pants in the “Mambo, I, I, I” video!


●Bob gets cozy with a penguin:


●The Count looks short when you can see his whole body:


So that's Elmopalooza. Tomorrow it'll be 2004, and Elmo will be itching to learn about Sesame Street for the 35th anniversary show The Street We Live On.


Click here for The Street We Live On. And click here to do the Zig Zag dance on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

*That's right: Although this was marketed as a 30th anniversary special, it aired in 1998, the show's 29th anniversary, so either they were so excited about turning 30 they just couldn't wait another year, or they're not as good at counting as they've always led us to believe.