Teeny Little Super Guy, pops right up before your eyes...

[SmileyBoy]

He's no bigger than your thumb,
Snap your fingers, here I come!
(Now stop me if you heard this one...)

Don't look in the sky, don't look in the sea,
He's inside of you and me,
(Did I ever tell you about the time??...)
You can't tell a hero by his size,
He's just a teeny little super guy...
Oh yeah...

(*DISCLAIMER* You must be at least 20 years of age to be old enough to understand this thread.)

[Bouncy Ball]

1. Uh, so you have to have been alive in 1985 to get it?

I was a teenager then. And I don't get it.

[SmileyBoy]

2. OK, you have to be between the ages of 20-30 to get it.

You have to have been a child at any point in the 80's.

[Bouncy Ball]

6. Well shit

looks like I'm a bit too old, then.

[TheMightyFavog]

3. New Stoner age and Post-Stoner Epoch Sesame Street.

I watched one episode of the street yesterday and noticed a few things.


If Bob gets one more facelift, the poor guy's dick and balls are going to be hanging off his neck. (Hell, he's gotta be at least in his 70s now, right?)

When the fuck did Maria and Luis get out of the repair buisness and into the copying buisness?

A story that once would span throughout multiple segments spanning the entire episode now takes up one 10 minute bit!

That Journey to Ernie shit has got to fucking stop.

Same for Elmo's World. If you're gonna devote 20 minutes to just him, give him his own show. (Admitedley, the tradition of Chaplin impersonation lives on in Mr. Noodle. The current actor playing him has it down pretty well.)

[SmileyBoy]

5. Sesame Street is geared towards 3-4 year-olds nowadays.

In my day (the late-80's), it was geared towards Kindergardeners and 1st Graders. The show has dramatically changed through the years.

[TheMightyFavog]

7. Why?

Why the fuck did the Street dumb down?

[SmileyBoy]

8. Why the fuck did America dumb down???

I think those two things are intertwined.

[TheMightyFavog]

15. OK, I'll give you an explanation.

I divide the history of The Street into different Eras.

First you have the Old and New Stoner age, named because many of the people working for CTW were quite the stoners. :smoke: The Stoner age as a whole ranges from 1969 to 1982 (or 1985 depending on who you ask)

The New Stoner Age begins when Roscoe Ormond assumes the role of Gordon in 1974. There is some conjecture on exactly when the New Stoner age ends. More conservative historians claim that the Stoner age ends with the death of Mr. Hooper in 1982. Others claim that the Stoner Age ended in 1985 when everyone could see Mr. Snuffalupagus.

Next you have the Post-Stoner Epoch, which was still marked with higher quality episodes which lasted until May 19, 1990 when Jim Henson Succumbed to pneumonia. The deaths of legendary composer Joe Raposo and actor Northern Calloway (David) the previous year didn't help either.

During the Post-Henson Period, the quality of the show began to seriously to deteriorate when the show struggled to fill the shoes left by Henson. In 1994, when longtime director Jon Stone left, things started to reall go downhill.

There is conjecture on when the current period known as the "Sellout Era" began. Conjecture ranges from the first Tickle Me Elmo in 1996, to CTW becoming Sesame Workshop in 2000, to the dumbing down to the series in order to compete with Barney and Friends, to the beginning of Elmo's World.

Anyhoo, that's my take on Sesame Street history.

[SmileyBoy]

16. I think once Barney came on the scene, it all went downhill.

Sesame Street and Mister Rogers held the oligopoly from the early-70's until about 1992 when Barney and a couple other popular shows came onto the scene. Before that, any other show that had to compete with the Street and Mr. Rogers was considered just fluff around the edges.

Barney had meteorically raised itself out of cult status by about 1992-1993, and as a result, Sesame Street felt they had to compete for that demographic (even though they were completely different age groups; Barney was aimed towards 3 year-olds and Sesame Street was aimed towards 6-7 year-olds, so there was really no need for this).

As a result, Sesame Street dumbed down and sold out, and the rest is history.

[TheMightyFavog]

21. And it'll keep going downhill.

Now with Teletubbies and Boobah on the scene.

I Swear, the people who did Boobah must have gotten the idea by reading a quantum mechanics textbook while hopped up on quaaludes.

[SmileyBoy]

23. That Boobah thing leaves me scratching my head.

That and this show on Nick Jr. featuring this guy with a rubber face and a bunch of latex puppets called "Lazytown". It also features a little nymphomaniac girl with pink hair who seriously tries to get in the sack with this Russian-speaking dude.

I couldn't even make this shit up.

[Pithlet]

24. When my son was 2

There was a show on Noggin based entirely on hand puppets. Seriously, they were just flesh and bone hands with plastic eyeballs glued to them, and the "puppeteers" just flapped their fingers up and down in a talking motion. It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. I'm so glad they still run repeats of Mr. Rogers... I mean, come on. That's not even trying.

[SmileyBoy]

25. Bare hand puppets??

Man, that's not even trying...

[Pithlet]

27. It was called "Woobie" or something like that.

Truly awful.

[scarlet_owl]

4. *Sigh* They just don't make Sesame Street like they used to.

I liked it when it was all trippy and shit. Now it's just an hour of Elmo.

[yellowdogintexas]

9. Not necessarily I remember the teeny little super guy from

Sesame Street, wasn't it?

I am 56

[SmileyBoy]

10. Yup, you're right.

Do you happen to have any kids currently in their 20's, by any chance?? That would probably explain why you know.;)

[yellowdogintexas]

26. actually, I just happened to like it, but I do have a 20 yr old

When Street first came out, I was married to a grad student at Harvard
He used to hang out between classes at the Divinity School Dorm, where he had lived before we were married, and every afternoon at 4pm, all the guys would gather in the TV lounge and watch Sesame Street.

He said it was really surreal, watching a bunch of MDiv and PHd students sitting around a TV, shouting out "One, Two Three,,,Four Five Six ...Seven Eight Nine Ten" Tennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone!!"

Some of these guys could at least read Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and some of them could read Aramaic and Syriac as well. Singing along with Sesame Street like the kindergardeners....

Too funny. I loved the weird little space aliens who couldn't figure out the phone, and Cookie Monster and the Count...

I am sorry to hear that super guy is no longer in the ensemble

[meppie-meppie not]

11. damn and here I thought it was about my uncle jack...

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

12. I remember those!

Born in '78 here.

[SmileyBoy]

14. Born in '82 here.

:hi:

[blue neen]

13. Ahhhh! Teeny Little Super Guy! He was great!

My son is 21, and I used to watch this with him....<sigh>memories!

[TheMightyFavog]

17. Remember the Sinister Sam bit?

"I wanna know Y."

[SmileyBoy]

18. There was too much good stuff to remember.

I do remember vividly the acid and meth-induced number counting sketches with the trippy colours. There were some colours included in there that I don't think I ever remember seeing any other place in my life besides those sketches.

"OnetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteenfourteenFIFTEEN!!!!!!! FIFTEEEEEEENNNNNN!!!!"

[TheMightyFavog]

20. And the ones with the poor baker at the end...

TEN CHOCOLATE CREME PIES!!!!! crashboomtinglebang!

Yeah, thos guys were smoking something when they made that.

[SmileyBoy]

22. And the News Flashes with Kermit the Frog??

I really wanted to be a news reporter when I was a little boy, and I would idolize Kermit, of all people. Not Dan Rather, not the local news guy, Kermit.

[Pithlet]

28. Vintage Sesame Street is great.

They've been doing little snippets to celebrate 35 years this season. It brings back so many memories. My favorite was the little counting number about the number twelve sung by the Pointer Sisters. The animation was portraying a world inside a pinball machine. "Onetwothree-FOUR-FIVE-sixseveneight-NINE-TEN, ELEVEN TWELVE!" laid down on a funky track.

[Bat Boy]

19. Oh good...

You see him too.

I was worried for a second...