RIP Jerry Nelson

Will will miss you.  Sesame Street voices just won't be the same.  You will be greatly missed.  Thanks for the great memories.

Casting call at Sesame Workshop

Acccording to Sesame Workshop's official site, the producers are searching for actors to play a new, recurring human character.  Judging by the list of qualifications, a long-time viewer like me might think the Workshop plans to replace Luis and Maria:

Male or female actor, 18-25, fluent in Spanish and English, comfortable with multiple Spanish dialects and accents. Good sense of humor. Must sing well. Actor should be comfortable with both physical and improvisational comedy. Actor should be warm, likable and engaging. Must be prepared to sing a cappella in Spanish and English.

Granted, Emilio Delgado (the actor playing Luis) is old enough for real-life grandchildren now; and Sonia Manzano (Maria's performer) also helps produce and write for the show that made her famous.  Neither fact automatically means that Sesame Street's leading Latinos will be dropped from fhe cast  anytime soon:  to use a similar example, Alaina Reed played Olivia on Sesame Street for twelve years without replacing Susan.  Both characters are outgoing, lively black women who enjoy singing and playing with toddlers; but Susan and Olivia were never interchangeable.  In the same spirit, I hope that the new cast member plays a character just as memorable and engaging as the classic ones -- without replacing anyone outright.

Robin Gibb Of The Bee Gees and Sesame Street Fever Has Died

I am saddened to say that today Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees has died.  In the Sesame Street world he performed on the Sesame Street Fever  LP.  He will surely be missed.  Here he is on Sesame Street Fever.

Disenchanted with Abby Cadabby

If you thought parents complaining about Cookie Monster's eating habits was bad...new characters have inspired complaints that are even more bizarre. Some concerned parents in Australia have written to ABC (not the same ABC network that airs in the States!), claiming that Abby Cadabby's use of magic depicts "witchcraft" in an inappropriate light for young children.

Now, I'm not a parent or an occult expert, but there's a big difference between real-world witchcraft and the kind of magic depicted in fairy tales. Abby Cadabby's magic use is a playful, modernized version of fairy-tale magic; it's as different from occult practices as Mumford is from Aleister Crowley. So please, Aussie parents, watch some of the "imagination" skits from the old days of Sesame Street; maybe you'll learn about the differences between reality and childhood fantasy.

Get Well Soon Loretta

I just found out in a comment of my YouTube video that Loretta Long (Susan) was hit by a car in New Jersey. She is in stable condition with a head injury. Hope she gets well soon. This is very sad news. We all hope she can return to Sesame Street. Bob

Alaina Reed Hall: 1946-2009

Some old-school fans may have already learned that Alaina Reed Hall, the actress who played Olivia on Sesame Street, died on the 17th of December this year. A fellow fan on YouTube put together a short, but very watchable, playlist in her memory--enjoy yourselves!

Hawaii episodes in the news

Thanks to a determined fan on the Muppet Central forums (hi, Mike!), I've stumbled across a newspaper article about the "cast trip to Hawaii" story arc...published just before the episodes themselves were broadcast. Google Archives makes the article a little hard to read (scrolling through 35 pages of a whole daily paper...ugh!), so I've captured the clipping as a PDF file. Enjoy!

If you're rich enough, sign up...

Sesame Workshop is holding their 40th annual spring benefit dinner in New York City; tickets start at $2500, so ordinary fans probably won't be able to attend. If you're fortunate enough to get hold of that much money legally, though, I'd definitely recommend contacting them for an invitation. They need all the financial support they can get from people who won't cut into Sesame Street with more advertisements. (Remember when only letters and numbers "sponsored" an episode, and the funding credits took less than two minutes at the end?)

S is for Sesame Street, sick, and STOP!

After reading that the US military has been using Sesame Street music (among other sources) to torture POWs, I felt queasy and wondered whether the few surviving founders of CTW were reacting just as strongly. The producers of Sesame Street have gone out of their way to keep the show politically neutral in every country that broadcasts it: in Serbia, for instance, the local version doesn't even teach letters because favoring one of the two official alphabets would imply supporting one side in a political conflict. Even here in the US, references to war and the military have always been low-key on Sesame Street proper, as you can see in these YouTube clips--














Despite occasional war imagery like this, Sesame Street was never intended to teach that violent behavior (by children or adults) is acceptable. The producers, performers, and songwriters ought to protest against the US government's misuse of Sesame Workshop material; I'm sure that Joan Ganz Cooney and her surviving friends would be proud to hear people stand up for the show's intended message.

Aloha Oe, Nona Beamer!

"Auntie Nona" Beamer, who appeared in the Hawaiian trip episodes from the late 1970s, died yesterday at age 84. Even though I have no personal ties to the family or to Hawaii, I still remember her performance on Sesame Street fondly--and plan to post a few clips to Channel 123 in her memory. God bless you, Nona!

Threaten Me Elmo?

When a friend on Muppet Central passed on this news video about a defective Elmo doll making death threats, I couldn't help thinking: "This is what happens when Sesame Workshop depends too much on tie-in products to raise money for their programs." No, I'm not going to turn this post into a rant about Elmo ruining Sesame Street; he's been on the show in some form since 1979, and was actually a decent supporting character at first. Still, I miss the days when the Workshop didn't need  to cash royalty checks from toy companies...or mention corporate sponsors at the beginning and end of every Sesame Street episode.

[Update: After Googling for more information about the story, I found another user's blog post explaining the malfunction. What James' mother mistook for "kill" is actually the name "Keir"; the doll was saying two names accidentally!]