Sesame Street Lives

Recently Delaney has shown some interest in watching Sesame Street. She is not a big TV-watcher in general and most of the time she requires that you watch it with her, which ultimately is not always convenient when I'm about to cook dinner. But I like that she CAN occasionally be occupied by the TV for a few odd minutes when there is absolutely something I have to get done.

I'm not sure exactly what it is about Sesame Street that has finally grabbed her atention. Likely it's the combination of her fondness for Elmo (through the Elmo Potty video) and other funny looking puppets. Both Kevin and I have sat through several episodes with her to try and explain what is going on.

I was shocked and impressed to see that a lot of the human characters on the show are the SAME ones from when we were kids. Maria is the same, Gordon (although he apparently is not the original Gordon from 1969), Bob and a few others have been on the show for 30 some odd years. That's amazing to me! Imagine how many children those actors have touched over the years. I have to wonder when Maria took the job back in 1972 if she thought it would be this nice side-gig to help her pay the rent occasionally. Who knew it would be going strong nearly 40 years after it started.

Delaney's favorite part of SS is definitely Elmo's World. If she is watching it by herself she always comes and finds me to let me know that Elmo's World is on. My favorite part of SS are the funny guest stars and their songs. One of our Tivo'd episodes has REM singing "Shiny, Happy, Monsters" which Delaney has started to sing when the show isn't even on.

I think that for this age range (1-3 years old) this kind of television show is pretty much the best thing going. Sure a lot of the other animated and live action shows on Sprout, Noggin and Nick are educational and add value. But it seems like Sesame Street is the perfect combination of education, fantasy, culture, understanding, acceptance, etc. I appreciate that they make it fun to watch with your kids, especially since that's pretty much how we're going about it currently.