If you open the Google web page these days you’ll be greeted by Sesame Street characters pointing the way to your searches. Some get Cookie Monster or Big Bird, I get The Count (or Count Von Count, to be more formal). It’s a nod to the 40th anniversary of the children’s educational television series, and it’s a great tribute to a project that people pooh-poohed in the early days but has lasted four decades — and taught millions of children how to read, count, spell, sing, dance, even cooperate. The children who watched the show in the 70s and 80s, yours truly included, are all grown up now, but most of us still remember the lessons we learned from Ernie, Bert, Grover, Kermit, and all the other people in the neighborhood.
I grew up watching Sesame Street, but I haven’t been able to watch the show since college. I was thus surprised to read a few days ago that the street has been given a cleanup and is now spic and span — a departure from the early days when the set had a realistic bite to it. Some of the buildings were run down and had a grimy texture, Luis’ fixit shop was low-end, and a few not too well-kept garbage cans (one of which housed Oscar the Grouch) stood in front of the iconic 123 Sesame Street apartment building. The producers have apparently updated the look and made the street more charming, but I myself feel nostalgic for the old days when Sesame Street looked and felt like the street in Malabon where I grew up.
Indeed, that was one of Sesame Street’s charms for me: it didn’t show a perfect American world where everyone was rich. Instead, it showed a real neighborhood, with real people (and muppets) who worked, studied, played, and struggled through life like Filipinos did. Even the song “Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?” paid respect to the working class, singing the praises of mail deliverers, carpenters, plumbers, and farmers. Only in specials did they ever sing about Martina Navratilova or Ralph Nader or Barbara Walters.
Speaking of singing, it’s the music that really stands out in Sesame Street for me. From the opening song (“Sunny day, sweeping up clouds away…”) to the instrumental closing credits, each piece is well thought out and is a standout composition by itself. The popular ones of course get the most attention (like the aforementioned neighborhood song, “Sing,” etc.), but the more obscure songs can give Top 40 songs a run for their money. Among my favorites are the poignant “The Lower Case N” and the sleazy sounding “Would You Like To Buy An O.” The latter is also among my baby daughter’s favorites and she can sing it with the same conspiring tone as Lefty the criminal-type muppet.
And speaking of criminals, I think it’s safe to say that they’ve all been removed or rehabilitated in order not to give bad ideas to children. Even Cookie Monster, whose love for cookies has since been described as an addiction, has been redone to love food other than the baked goodies; for him, cookies are just an option but he’d rather have healthful food. I am ambivalent about this: on the one hand, the muppets must be good role models to the children; on the other hand, I have always appreciated the realness of the characters, practically all of whom have some weakness of some kind that other characters help address or complement. I mean, nerdy but smart Bert wouldn’t be half as interesting if there wasn’t a cool but sometimes clueless Ernie to act as spoiler, and vice versa.
I’m not sure I’d love the new Sesame Street as much as the old, so I’ve made sure to snap up DVDs of the show whenever I find them. I now have a small collection, and my baby daughter simply loves the show to death. She can sing along with the classics like the aforementioned Buy An O, the two girls with the two dolls, and even the Martian Beauty. I know she’s getting as much fun and learning from Sesame Street as I did, and I sure am enjoying myself watching those old shows once again.
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