Sesame Street, a mainstay of childhood for over 40 years, has evolved to relate with children through the ages. Created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett and using puppets by Jim Henson, Sesame Street has sought to use lovable characters to teach children about everything from math to geography. However, with the recent Elmo sex scandals and the Cookie Monster now eating vegetables, Sesame Street has gone downhill.
Before digging into what has become of Sesame Street, it is important to explain what made Sesame Street so great as a kid. Back in the early 1990’s, when most of us who are currently in engineering were kids, Sesame Street had its core mainstay of characters. The show was graced by characters like Big Bird, Elmo, The Count, Grover, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Ernie and Bert. These characters, along with a cast of children and celebrity guests made up many of our childhood television experiences. Furthermore, each character had a distinctive ‘shtick’ that was a memorable educational experience. For example, it is really hard to forget The Count singing the Batty Bat while counting over and over again. And this my friends, is where the decline of Sesame Street began.
Characters in modern Sesame Street have become watered down, politically correct, smiling fluffballs of mindless stupidity (Coincidentally enough, so have all children’s shows, but that is a topic for another day). Ernie and Bert don’t sleep in the same bed because of homosexual connotations, Cookie Monster now eats vegetables and Elmo has been pushed to the forefront. Speaking of Elmo, Kevin Clash, Elmo’s puppeteer since 1985, has resigned because of an on-again, off-again, child sex scandal. This negatively impacts the ability for the show to get children to come on the show. If one puppeteer was potentially having sex with children, why wouldn’t another one?
Moving away from children, another large aspect of Sesame Street has always been its celebrity guests. Back in the day, Sesame Street featured celebrities like Yo Yo Ma, R2D2, and Robin Williams. Today Sesame Street features celebrities like Katy Perry’s breasts, a Justin Beiber look-alike, and Will.i.am. A celebrity like Yo Yo Ma, who was featured explaining and playing the Cello cannot be compared to a rapper Will.i.am who raps about being “hard to the core”.
To recap, Sesame Street has gone downhill from when most of us were kids. It is unfortunate that a show that was beloved by so many can become such a disappointment to kids of today.
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