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Watching 'Sesame Street' when you're too old for it

Started by bandit957, February 27, 2015, 09:24:10 PM

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bandit957

Has anyone here ever watched 'Sesame Street' despite being too old for it?

I don't mean watching it with your kids or something. I mean watching it just to be watching it.

When I was about 10, I used to watch cartoons each afternoon on a local station. But they kept preempting my cartoons for stupid stuff. So I got frustrated and threatened to watch 'Sesame Street' instead. I kept saying, "I'll go back to 'Sesame Street'!" And my mom got really mad because I was too old for 'Sesame Street'. Sometimes, when I was watching my cartoons, a commercial would come on and I'd briefly change the channel over to 'Sesame Street' just because. I burst out laughing.

I wanted to watch the episode where Mr. Hooper died, because Mr. Hooper was just so cool. But my mom wouldn't let me watch it on the big TV in the living room, so I had to watch it on the small set in the den.

The thing about this is, from the time I outgrew 'Sesame Street' when I was about 6 until I was about 9 going on 10, I never thought much about the show. Then all hell broke loose.

Has anyone else had the same experience?
Might as well face it, pooing is cool


ARMOURERERIC

Sesame Street did not premier until I was 6, school encouraged out parents to have us watch it until I was 10.  I sure beat the heck put of the "educational" show my mom made me watch every day prior:  Edge of Night/Peyton Place.

bandit957

Quote from: ARMOURERERIC on February 27, 2015, 09:30:20 PM
Sesame Street did not premier until I was 6, school encouraged out parents to have us watch it until I was 10.  I sure beat the heck put of the "educational" show my mom made me watch every day prior:  Edge of Night/Peyton Place.

I vaguely remember watching 'Popeye' cartoons each afternoon with my brother when I was preschool age. But my brother says this stopped because 'General Hospital' was expanded from a half-hour to an hour, and my mom insisted on watching 'General Hospital' instead.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

bugo

I kinna like Spongebob Squarepants. It's obviously a kids' show and is marketed as a kids' programme. But as in old Warner Brothers shorts there are some very adult jokes and double entendres in every episode. The adult jokes are often very subtle, and often very blatant. I guess they were put in there so the parent would enjoy watching the show with his kids. The children would be oblivious to the raunchy jokes until they grew up. Cartoons affect adults differently than they affect children.

GCrites


bandit957

Quote from: bugo on February 27, 2015, 10:06:39 PM
I kinna like Spongebob Squarepants. It's obviously a kids' show and is marketed as a kids' programme. But as in old Warner Brothers shorts there are some very adult jokes and double entendres in every episode. The adult jokes are often very subtle, and often very blatant. I guess they were put in there so the parent would enjoy watching the show with his kids. The children would be oblivious to the raunchy jokes until they grew up. Cartoons affect adults differently than they affect children.

There was an episode of 'Sesame Street' where the characters were going through a metal detector to get on a plane to Hawaii. The sequence with the inspection officer pulling the chain out of Oscar's trash can is full of adult jokes.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

kphoger

Doesn't this belong on the "Waaaaaaaaaaay off-topic" category?
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Quote from: kphoger on February 28, 2015, 12:07:29 AM
Doesn't this belong on the "Waaaaaaaaaaay off-topic" category?

It belongs in some kind of "Waaaaaaaaaaay off" category, that's for sure.

Is it the weather that's bringing it all out lately?

english si

Given Sesame Street is doing spoofs of things like Homeland, House of Cards, etc that are not only aimed at adults, but are not suitable for children, I doubt there is a "too old for it" age-range.

GCrites


Stephane Dumas

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If Harvey Kneeslapper continued his pranks today; I guess the big blue mustache guy might snap out of it and lost his temper. :D
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Pete from Boston


Quote from: english si on February 28, 2015, 06:46:41 AM
Given Sesame Street is doing spoofs of things like Homeland, House of Cards, etc that are not only aimed at adults, but are not suitable for children, I doubt there is a "too old for it" age-range.

Let us step back into reality and remember that this is a show designed to provide an entertaining way for children to learn LETTERS AND NUMBERS.  The target audience is about three.  Is it done intelligently?  It is.  Are there things in there only the parents will get?  Certainly.  Does this mean the show is produced also for engaging viewing by adults with no children around?  Not by my understanding of "adult."

Next you'll be telling us you watch Teletubbies out of admiration for the costume construction.

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english si

Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 28, 2015, 01:44:39 PMNext you'll be telling us you watch Teletubbies out of admiration for the costume construction.
Tellytubbies had none of the intellegence though. It is aimed at preschoolers without bothering to appeal to older people (plus it had no variety in costumes, so no one would watch it for the costumes)

Sesame Street might target 3 year olds, but it goes out of its way to appeal to the parents of three year olds (and unlike Tellytubbies, etc not make them want to gauge out their eyes / pop their ear drums). It seeks to be a show aimed at toddlers that no one is too old for.

Yes, of course, the bits teaching numbers and letters in Sesame Street are typically dull if you are over, say, 5 (though I found them boring at 3 and the toddlers I know around that age would also find them boring), but there's more to it than that.

Is it gripping TV for adults - no. Is it rather repetitive - yes. However, is it watchable - yes.

If I had a toddler, I'd be perfectly happy to sit down and watch it with them - unlike Barney, Tellytubbies, etc (though I don't think I'd allow them to watch that rubbish) - but whether as a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent, I'm not going to be 'too old' for it (unless I'm totally and utterly senile and can't work out what's going on). I'm not going to go out of my way to watch it, and haven't seen anything but the funny videos that do their rounds on the internet for 20 years, but if it was there on the TV, I'd watch it.

jakeroot

I still like to flip on an old episode of Spongebob Squarepants for a good adult laugh, but I never watched Sesame Street. Even at like 6 or 7, I felt too old for it.

Laura


Quote from: Pete from Boston on February 28, 2015, 01:44:39 PM

Quote from: english si on February 28, 2015, 06:46:41 AM
Given Sesame Street is doing spoofs of things like Homeland, House of Cards, etc that are not only aimed at adults, but are not suitable for children, I doubt there is a "too old for it" age-range.

Let us step back into reality and remember that this is a show designed to provide an entertaining way for children to learn LETTERS AND NUMBERS.  The target audience is about three.  Is it done intelligently?  It is.  Are there things in there only the parents will get?  Certainly.  Does this mean the show is produced also for engaging viewing by adults with no children around?  Not by my understanding of "adult."

Next you'll be telling us you watch Teletubbies out of admiration for the costume construction.

Everyone knows the real reason people have kids is so that they can do kiddy things again without any judgement. Seriously, my favorite part of babysitting girls is being able to play Barbies again in a socially acceptable setting. (I was a very much a tomboy as a kid, except I loved dolls because I could write life stories for them - and did - and then could act them out.)


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cpzilliacus

#16
Quote from: bandit957 on February 27, 2015, 09:24:10 PM
Has anyone here ever watched 'Sesame Street' despite being too old for it?

Because I was far beyond its target demographic when it first aired, no.

But to this day, I still enjoy a much less "good" form of programming that was directed at children, Three Stooges shorts, the older the better.  This gem from 1941, An Ache in Every Stake, may be their finest effort.
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cjk374

#17
I remember growing up in the early 80s watching (in this order, Monday thru Friday) Sesame St., Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, then The Electric Company.  It was very entertaining and educational.  They even had a song that used signs in the streets of NYC.  The only Spanish I know I learned from Luis & Maria (and man was she HOT!!  :love: )

How about Capt. Kangaroo?  I watched it early in the mornings.  Nothing was funnier than watching Mr. Moose dumping hundreds of ping-pong balls on the Captain's head.  They had a really cool train video that I think had UP's Big Boy steam engines in it.  I explored Youtube and this was all I could find.  I know this ain't the video from the show, but it has the actual song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3tlCqqg7lw
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Truvelo

I never watched it even when I was the right age. TV here is flooded with American imports.
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bandit957

Quote from: cjk374 on March 01, 2015, 10:08:24 AM
I remember growing up in the early 80s watching (in this order, Monday thru Friday) Sesame St., Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, then The Electric Company.

We had this same sequence starting at 4 PM each weekday. I think 'Zoom' may have been on right after 'The Electric Company' for a while around 1977.

Anyone remember 'Zoom' and the "Ubbi-Dubbi" language? It was this ridiculous thing where they'd insert "ubbi-dubbi" into each word. Kind of like Ned Flanders inserting "diddly" everywhere.

QuoteHow about Capt. Kangaroo?

I vaguely remember watching him when I was about 3. I don't remember anything about the show.

Around here, a local station had a children's show called 'Uncle Al'. Local kids would go down to the station's studio and appear on the show.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

thenetwork

I have stopped (briefly) on Sesame Street in my channel surfings, and for what I have seen -- including half the show devoted to "Elmo's World" -- the Sesame Street of today is nowhere close to the SS of the 70's.

In fact, I have seen on DVDs for older Sesame Street episodes WARNINGS that state content that was suitable for children back then is NOT suitable for the children of today!

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/nov/26/sesamestreetnotsuitablefor

Perhaps these warnings are from kids of that era who were forced to watch Sesame Street and it somehow scarred them for life.  The same warnings have been seen on DVD collections of Saturday Morning cartoon sets from the 60's and 70s, so those people really had some mental problems back then and now for trying to deprive future generations of some of the best kids TV ever.

Quote from: bandit957 on March 01, 2015, 11:45:52 AM
Quote from: cjk374 on March 01, 2015, 10:08:24 AM
I remember growing up in the early 80s watching (in this order, Monday thru Friday) Sesame St., Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, then The Electric Company.

We had this same sequence starting at 4 PM each weekday. I think 'Zoom' may have been on right after 'The Electric Company' for a while around 1977.

Anyone remember 'Zoom' and the "Ubbi-Dubbi" language? It was this ridiculous thing where they'd insert "ubbi-dubbi" into each word. Kind of like Ned Flanders inserting "diddly" everywhere.

QuoteHow about Capt. Kangaroo?


Zoom was boring as hell, IMHO, yet I watched it a lot on the weekends.  Go figure.  The Captain was cool to watch in the morning in the 70's, with all the little skits they did.

There was a reason why the reboots of Electric Company and Zoom over the last decade or two did not last long...The way they want to teach kids now on TV is dumber than the way the originals did it.

And quite honestly, if the content of the 60's and 70's shows is deemed so questionable now, why did PBS rerun Mr. Rogers for so long after his death?   These safe-for-kids TV radicals should have pegged him as the "creepy neighbor" (the show was designed as a daily one-on-one visit with a man who was asking kids to be his friend) looong ago and had his show off the airwaves before any of these other shows or old-school formats, like the original Sesame Street.

And NO, I am not saying that Mr. Rogers was/is a bad influence on children.  His show was done in a day when communities were safer and more trusting with everyone.

slorydn1

I liked Mr Rogers, he had that big traffic light in his living room.
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bugo

What was so bad about early Sesame Street? I never watched it that much except when my sister was a baby (early '80s) so I never watched it in the '70s. I've read that it was "darker". In what ways is it dark/sinister/evil?

Pete from Boston

Roosevelt Franklin got into trouble and was kicked off the show.  Bad stuff all around.

bandit957

Quote from: bugo on March 01, 2015, 04:21:44 PM
What was so bad about early Sesame Street? I never watched it that much except when my sister was a baby (early '80s) so I never watched it in the '70s. I've read that it was "darker". In what ways is it dark/sinister/evil?

I saw an article a few years ago that said it was mostly because Oscar used to be a lot meaner and the Count used to be a lot scarier.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool



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