Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away...

[ambersweet]

Well, I missed yesterday because I laid down for a nap and woke up this morning, so I guess I'll have to make an extra post sometime. This whole thing where I'm working until 3:30 AM and then getting up at 7 the next morning is doing weird things to my sleeping habits.

finch found a DVD of "old school" Sesame Street at the library and we've been watching that. It's funny how many of the old segments we've both seen, and so many songs I knew all the words to - including ones I'd forgotten I knew. Remember J - jump joyful jumble around? I totally loved that song.

Included in these eps was the first appearance of Mr. Snuffleupagus , who looked bizarrely creepy (he had yellow and green eyes and blond eyelashes) and several segments in which the adults made fun of Big Bird for his "imaginary friend." Considering how kind and patient and encouraging they all are with human children, the way they consistently mock and dismiss Big Bird is upsetting. I don't know if this was a deliberate choice (because adults are often impatient and dismissive of children, so it's realistic, but they're not hurting the feelings of actual children) or just accidental, but I've always loved Big Bird and hated how everyone treated him. Their behavior wasn't any better in very early episodes where he was developmentally disabled (and microcephalic) rather than eternally 6.

(And Snuffy lives in a cave right off of Sesame Street... would that be - Central Park? Or is it just a sideways dimension, because clearly Snuffy and his family are magical creatures? Theories?)

I do like the casual integration, and the number of characters of color although the genie with the Brooklyn accent named Mabel who was apparently from Baghdad was very...strange.

Also, watching Bert and Ernie through a slashy lens as an adult is hysterically funny. The innuendo, it totally drips. Totally.

OMG BERT IS DOING THE PIGEON RIGHT NOW, GUYS. RIGHT NOW. HE HAS STRIPY SOCKS AND SADDLE SHOES.

Some of these sketches are so WEIRD. Like, some of the writers got lost on the way to Monty Python, or something, IDK. There was this sketch with Luis trapped in a brick-walled room, and an EXIT sign dropped from the ceiling, and he stuck it on the wall and then created a door in the wall by pushing the bricks. LUIS IS TRAPPED IN THE LABYRINTH.

I really ought to finish my reading so I can turn in my discussion questions.

Comments

[finch]

I'm not in the least surprised to learn there was a Labyrinth entrance on Sesame Street.

[finch]

Also HOW WEIRD WAS ORANGE OSCAR THAT WAS REALLY WEIRD.

[ambersweet]

OMG SO WEIRD.

[ambersweet]

MAYBE SNUFFY'S CAVE WAS IN THE LABYRINTH.

[finch]

He could fit in in the Swamp, I suppose, huh?

[yukie]

Oh god, have you run into the cartoon with the kid thinking back to remember his way home and he meets the weird dude who turns into the weird buildings he saw? It didn't strike me as strange when I was a kid because my imagination was a BIZARRE place and, well, my dad introduced me to Harry Nilsson's The Point when I was wee (which has stuff like this in it XD), so 'weird' was very relative... But now it's really odd.

And the counting-to-12 pinball machine song's in my head now.