Sesame Street Beef

Today's Blog is Brought to you by the Letter B...As in Bull Poop

I wrote yesterday about some of the conservative beefs with Sesame Street. I think they are misguided. This is me being polite. Listen, so what if Oscar's news isn't "trashy" enough leading other grouches to watch "Pox News." There are a lot of little kids who would now probably think it was cool to watch "Pox News" because grouches love it! I would rather watch Oscar's interpretation of the news, rather than anything any of the news networks have for me.

Picking on Sesame Street for this is like criticizing Santa for delivering presents to all good girls and boys, not just whoever adheres to the brand of Christianity you happen to subscribe to. (Does anyone actually do that? I hope not) Every single show on PBS preaches basically the same message: acceptance, tolerance, sharing, caring, listening, patience and, yes, a certain mushy kind of multiculturalism, environmentalism and community engagement. Dragon Tales has a two headed, bilingual dragon who speaks Spanish and English (I'll get to that one in a different post; we've just started watching the show, so I want to hold off snarking - I mean judgment until I get a good idea about the show). And I'll write late (today?) about this mushy middle in just about every kids show on TV. These aren't bad concepts to instill in our kids. It's up to us as parents to decide how to elaborate on these concepts for our kids as they grow up and interact with the world, which unfortunately isn't nearly as cuddly and fun as their beloved TV shows have made it out to be.

Besides, if you're going to attack Sesame Street, there are way better targets. I, too, have a problem with the show receiving government money. Why? Because it's freaking Sesame Street, the merchandising juggernaut. They just about invented character licensing. How much money did they make just selling Tickle Me Elmos? I've spent enough money on toys, DVD's and other products that bear the mark of Sesame Street (diapers, cookies, juice, snack bars, place mats, books, CDs, etc) to fund an entire season of the show. So why do they still need grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

Which brings me to the next complaint: hypocrisy. Sesame Street, free of commercialism (unlike the Playhouse Disney I subject my children to). I'm sorry, when my daughter lost her mind about Elmo when she was barely a year old, we then had to go out and buy every single piece of Elmo gear known to man (and some I had no idea about). If it had Elmo on it, I had to buy it. I didn't always, don't worry. But to tell me that it's not about selling products, I call bull crap. And do you know who else brings me Sesame Street every day? McDonald's. Beaches Vacations. New Balance Shoes. That's right. Commercials. Look, I have no problem with commercials. But please get off your self-righteous hill where you look down at the rest of us and admit that, no, you're probably (definitely) not as pure as driven snow.

I haven't even started on the quality of the show now. It's not Sesame Street anymore, it's four different shows huddled together under the street sign. And it now reflects more contemporary theories of learning, rather than the hard lessons put forward by the older shows. And, yes, self-esteem was always a central part of the show during any period, but it seems to have crowded out basic skills that the show was trying to teach in order to prepare disadvantaged kids for school.

And yes, I am a cranky old personal complaining that things were better in my days. But they were, and I have proof. I have Volumes I and II of Sesame Street Old School, taken from the late 1960's and early 1970's. Cassie likes to watch them. They come with a ridiculous disclaimer at the beginning of the show that the episodes are meant for entertainment purposes ONLY and are no longer educational. Right. Tell that to my daughter who now knows the letter M because of one of the episodes, repeating the letter over and over and over again in various songs, words, rhymes and stories. Sesame Street from today hasn't taught her another letter. And maybe that's not the point anymore. And if it isn't, that's the biggest shame of all. And I think it's one we can all get behind.