On the surface it may seem like kind of a dick move not to go, but look at it from my perspective. I was given a choice, and she was going whether I tagged along or not, and I wasn't too in to spending a Sunday with 200 of my closest under-5 friends. In any event, I went, and I could not have been more disappointed with the result.
It is no secret that Sesame Street was a giant part of my childhood, as I am sure it was for most of you. I still think a lot of the skits are pretty funny and some of them are just plain iconic. For example:
Do you remember this song? I do, the production and effort that went in to it is superb, and it has a haunting melody that should be appreciated far beyond a kid's show. Much better than any crap on any kid's show today. Who lives in a letter in the sky, anyway?
Unfortunately, as has been the case with society in general, Sesame Street has really become a shadow of its former self over the past decade. Bert, Ernie, Grover and Kermit have lost their leading rolls in favor of Elmo, Big Bird and a bunch of unidentifiable, ethnic monsters with shitty personalities. The only cool one that seems to have survived in to a consistent roll on the new episodes is Telly.
Grover was always my favorite growing up because of his hilarious skits with Kermit and Mr. Johnson, that fat headed blue guy who is always giving him shit at Charlie's restaurant. Lately, though, I have been beginning to appreciate Telly because he is neurotic, anxious and obsessive compulsive. Kind of like me. He is funnier, though.
Because I find Elmo, Zoe, Rosita and the rest of them to be annoying and not funny, we don't watch much Sesame Street anymore. It is a shame. Luckily, there is a show on demand called 'Play with me Sesame.' THis show is hosted by Grover, Bert and Ernie and Prairie Dawn- and it is wonderfully old school. They play old skits, new skits and introduce viewers to characters like Oscar and Cookie Monster who have fleeting rolls in the new, nicer, healthy eating Sesame Street. Damn yuppies.
Anyway, because of Play with me Sesame, the baby has fallen in love with the characters, hence the trip to Sesame Street Live. The theme of the performance was 'Elmo goes Green' or 'Elmo's Green Thumb' or something of the sort. Great. A whole show about Elmo and being nice to the Earth. Shoot me. To make matters worse, we got there about an hour early, so there was an hour walking around the Lowell Auditorium and trying to keep our kid from spazzing out.
The show finally began with Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster and Telly coming our on to the stage. The costumes for some of them looked good, Bert and Ernie just looked like really small men with abnormally large heads. Each character was introduced based on the letter of his or her name until everyone was out there. They did not, however, introduce Grover. He just kind of appeared. Same with the count. Not to mention, Grover was fat in the costume. Look at that video of Grover above again. His arms are the size of twigs. He isn't fat. Disrespectful and inaccurate. Probably the creepiest of them all was Big Bird, whose head couldn't move and for some reason he was wearing a polka-dot tie.
This is what the cast looks like. Look at Grover. Just look at him. And all of those unidentifiable 'new' characters. Suck suck suck. Why do the female characters have to all wear tu tu's? I don't know. I don't all of the monsters have always been naked, or fur covered. New Sesame Street sucks.Anyway, Av was really in to the show the whole time. The concept was Elmo wants to plant a flower in Big Bird's garden, but is somehow shrunken after a character named 'Abby Cadabby' shrinks them.I had no idea she was even a character. She wears a dress. That sucks. If I ran Sesame Street I would kill her off for the offense, but I don't, so she gets to live. Lucky.
The show was tolerable for the most part. Telly and Cookie Monster saved it with their humor and the baby really geeked out through parts of it, so it was cool. I will say that there was way too much dancing and the characters were way more animated when they spoke than they actually are on Sesame Street. And most of the songs were terrible. My only real, valid complaint, though, is that Grover didn't have a speaking part. I mean, that is outrageous. The guy was on stage through like half the show, dancing around in his fat suit, looking like an idiot, and he never said anything. You couldn't even make out his voice during the singing parts. He was just there. His mouth moved, he sang along, but there was no Grover voice. Unacceptable. No wonder this generation of human beings suck so much. No one should have to live in a world where Elmo is the star of Sesame Street and Grover doesn't speak. Fascists.
Like I said, Av had a great time so it was worth the trip. It felt like the show lasted about 13 hours, but I was surprised to walk outside and find that it was still light out, and only, like 2:45 in the afternoon. Oh, and Av made two new best friends.
They cost me $15 bucks each and I have to spend about 8 hours a day doing their voices and making them talk, but it was worth it....
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