Help Wanted: Sesame Street Live Writers
under Date Night,Entertainment,Success StoriesI’ve seen some bad things in my life. I saw a kid get hit by a car. I saw an entire season of Repo Games. I saw myself in the mirror three years ago. Up until last night, I have never seen anything as bad as the writing that went into the live production of Sesame Street that toured through our city.
I have pretty high standards when it comes to Sesame Street and The Muppets, and I won’t tolerate any B.S. I spent my entire early childhood glued to Sesame Street. So much so that my little brother would often try to mess with me while watching and I once ripped his head off. The doctors had to surgically reconnect it. True story.
Granted, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen it, and I really only went last night because I wanted to watch my girlfriend’s daughter enjoy the show. Also, I didn’t pay for the tickets. Also, I got a soda. Also, I got to spend time with my girlfriend. Also, it was an Elmo-centric show, and Elmo is easily one of my top four Sesame Street characters and top nine Muppets. I didn’t have high expectations, because I figured it would be geared towards two-year-olds. But for the same reason that kids’ movies have some adult undertones, this show should have at least had some sort of a plot.
Instead, it was characters dancing and singing about nothing, with each segment having nothing at all to do with the preceding or proceeding. The show was loosely centered on the idea that Elmo stole Abby’s magic wand. However, even this didn’t make any sense, and it was just an excuse for Elmo to dance around with a wand and make magic things happen like lights go off and then on again.
They played a lot of the classic Sesame Street songs, which were great, but they also played some other songs. I don’t know if these are Sesame Street songs that have been written within the past 22 years, or just some crap they threw together for this show, but I rather would have just heard the song “Sing“ played nonstop for an hour and a half.
Also, this is just a little gripe, but Cookie Monster did not eat a single cookie. As an adult, I often question why a children’s television character’s single characteristic is his love for cookies, especially in the midst of a childhood obesity epidemic. However, it’s Cookie Monster. There’s no going back. If he’s going to be in the show, which he damn sure should be, feed the guy a cookie.