Sesame Street

Last Friday our family went to The Palace Theater in Albany to watch “Sesame Street Live: When Elmo Grows Up”. This was a show featuring the most popular and recognizable muppets in Sesame Street, like Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, and of course Elmo. Over the last decade or so, Elmo has sort of dominated the Sesame Street landscape by virtue of being the most popular among pre-school kids; thus the subtitle “When Elmo Grows Up”.

This wasn’t always the case. First of all, Sesame Street is a relatively old show–it celebrated its 40th anniversary recently. Elmo wasn’t introduced until 1979, after kids my generation have already outgrown Sesame Street and so have never been acquainted with the red muppet until we finally met him (up close and personal) as parents. And so watching kids go ga-ga over Elmo, while our own favorites growing up–Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover–are relegated to the background, I can’t help but feel a Sesame Street generation gap.

Some parents my age actually are not that fond of Elmo. Their biggest complaint is that because Elmo refers to himself in the third person (”Elmo wants to know, don’t you?”), their kids have picked up on it and are now speaking in the third person. I can certainly see how frustrating/irritating that can be as a parent. After teaching your child how to properly speak and formulate sentences, here comes a muppet that ruins everything just from 30 minutes of exposure.

Well, good thing our son hasn’t picked up on the habit yet. Later maybe, but if he does, that’s it with watching Elmo