Throwing caution to the wind, and ignoring the stern "This Material Is Not Suitable For Today's Preschoolers" warning, I recently purchased "Sesame Street: Old School" for a toddler I know. As it is not Christmas yet, I won't know what kinds of damaging effects it will have on his little brain for a few more days. Will I live to regret to exposing him to "Monsterpiece Theatre" and Cookie Monster smoking (then eating) his pipe?
Like most people my age who heard about the warning on this delightful DVD set, I was curious about how different the show actually was back then. My memories are a bit foggy. I mean, of course I remembered this:
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12
(Although I had no idea it was sung by the Pointer Sisters.)
But then...I found something truly shocking:
ON THE SUBWAY
Amazing, right? It's like a Martin Scorsese-directed segment. This Sesame Street musical number captures 1970's New York perfectly:
Filthy streets!
Bitchy muppets!
An obviously stoned, unhygienic drug-addict muppet!
An elderly muppet operatically singing, "You could lose your purse or you might lose something worse on the subway"!
An inefficient, over-crowded, grungy subway system!
No wonder I wanted to move here from the time I was old enough to talk.
6 comments:
This is what somebody has time to spend on? Making sure that today's youth are not scarred by the hideous 'monstars' on Sesame Street?
(And Grover, BTW is the only TRUE Monster. That little rugrat Elmo is a pretender to the throne!)
LONG LIVE SUPER GROVER!!!
This sad, sad commentary brought to you by the letters F and U.
And the number 69.
Sesame Street 1970's style--Only The Strong Survive.
One of my personal favourites from 1972... Stevie Wonder bringin' the funk.
Clickify
Several music legends in there, along with Stevie. Ray Parker, Jr. on guitar, and Lou Marini of the Blues Brothers Band on sax.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LRxFTQK4zNU&feature=related
The best. My 2 year old loves this. And, so do I. So smooth. So James. So mustache-ified.
(Sorry, I don't know how to 'clickify' things.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9M_thvQKWgo
One more fun one...
Okay, so it's not exactly old school...but it's John Rzeznik (90's uber-hottie.) Sorta old-school if you're currently a 10th grader. Warning - Elmo appears in this (hey, I like the little dude.) Come on, he's harmless.
Would be remiss if I didn't include another nugget from the early '90's. REM with "Furry Happy Monsters".
Clikify to watch
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