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For a reference essay on the shift from Big Bird to Elmo: https://kotaku.com/how-elmo-ruined-sesame-street-1746504585 https://kotaku.com/how-elmo-ruined-sesame

For a reference essay on the shift from Big Bird to Elmo: https://kotaku.com/how-elmo-ruined-sesame-street-1746504585 https://kotaku.com/how-elmo-ruined-sesame-street-1746504585 Major thesis: "It started in small ways. A lot of stories used to be based around Big Bird, who was psychologically characterized as a six-year-old. And in a lot of ways, this was ideal—six years old was on the older end of Sesame Street’s age demographic, and Big Bird served as both a role model and a peer to his audience. Big Bird’s comparative maturity also meant that he could project a wide range of emotions—he was ‘old enough’ to understand mature concepts, such as the permanence of Mr. Hooper’s death." "Elmo stories, on the other hand, tend to affirm and celebrate the child’s perspective. Rarely, if ever, is Elmo’s innocence challenged, or is he forced to think about someone’s happiness other than his own. He spends most of his time hanging out with Zoe, Abby, Telly, and Baby Bear—Muppets who share his emotional maturity, and unlike Grover, Kermit, and Ernie, do nothing to push him. In fact, he is the de facto leader of his group—the dialogue lowers to Elmo’s level, rather than rising to an older character’s. And while this is cute and fun, it gets old fast, and it doesn’t really go anywhere. Elmo is learning about counting to four and different shapes, but he’s not learning a whole lot of life lessons."

jay_kyburz 7y ago
I caught a few episodes a few years ago (my youngest is 6 now) and there were a few "lessons" that I though just wrong and I didn't want my kids learning. The only one I can remember was this episode where they were stacking lots and lots of hats on somebodies head. They were banging on and on about "guessing" how many hats were on his head. Don't count, just guess. It was bugging me.
- TylerE 7y ago
  Estimation is a very useful skill.
  - krustyburger 7y ago
    Not in my estimation.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Surely that was exactly the point of that lesson: sometimes you have to guess. I'd say it's a pretty good lesson to learn that sometimes you need to guess, and how to visualize and imagine what different amounts of something look like. What does 10 hats look like versus 100 hats? Believe me, there's no shortage of counting on Sesame Street, so the fact they detour into guessing once or twice isn't a bad thing.
40four 7y ago
I grew up watching Big Bird as the lead character, and I think this analysis is spot on. I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. I guess it makes sense from a business perspective for the creators. I’m sure it helps the bottom line. Kids go nuts for Elmo. Regardless, it makes me happy to see PBS expand their reach. The quality level across the board is astounding! If it was the only network I had access to I would be happy. Nova science is unreal! ‘Nature’ episodes are best in the business for nature docs. Many of the Masterpiece series are great... and don’t sleep on all the cooking shows. For a publicly funded organization, it’s absolutely mind blowing the quality of product they put out. A real treasure.
- rangibaby 7y ago
  > I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. There's a torrent of ancient Sesame Street episodes out there, I used to show them to my kid
- balls187 7y ago
  > I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. My (at the time 2 year old) referred to Seasame Street as "Elmo." The shift in content aligns with the shift that has happened in Early Learning Education in the US--mainly less emphasis in academic subjects, and more emphasis on social and emotional skills. Modern Seasame Street broaches social topics, with a small amount of academics (mainly letter and number of the day).
  - caro_douglos 7y ago
    I happened to watch an episode when visiting some family and even though the characters were slightly different it did feel like it was touching on EQ more than IQ skills. That being said the count is still the count and Chappelle's skit [1] is still spot on. [1] https://youtu.be/v595FBEngj8 https://youtu.be/v595FBEngj8

jay_kyburz 7y ago

I caught a few episodes a few years ago (my youngest is 6 now) and there were a few "lessons" that I though just wrong and I didn't want my kids learning. The only one I can remember was this episode where they were stacking lots and lots of hats on somebodies head. They were banging on and on about "guessing" how many hats were on his head. Don't count, just guess. It was bugging me.

TylerE 7y ago
Estimation is a very useful skill.
- krustyburger 7y ago
  Not in my estimation.
nkrisc 7y ago
Surely that was exactly the point of that lesson: sometimes you have to guess. I'd say it's a pretty good lesson to learn that sometimes you need to guess, and how to visualize and imagine what different amounts of something look like. What does 10 hats look like versus 100 hats? Believe me, there's no shortage of counting on Sesame Street, so the fact they detour into guessing once or twice isn't a bad thing.

40four 7y ago

I grew up watching Big Bird as the lead character, and I think this analysis is spot on. I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. I guess it makes sense from a business perspective for the creators. I’m sure it helps the bottom line. Kids go nuts for Elmo. Regardless, it makes me happy to see PBS expand their reach. The quality level across the board is astounding! If it was the only network I had access to I would be happy. Nova science is unreal! ‘Nature’ episodes are best in the business for nature docs. Many of the Masterpiece series are great... and don’t sleep on all the cooking shows. For a publicly funded organization, it’s absolutely mind blowing the quality of product they put out. A real treasure.

rangibaby 7y ago
> I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. There's a torrent of ancient Sesame Street episodes out there, I used to show them to my kid
balls187 7y ago
> I don’t have kids of my own yet, so I’m out of touch with how the show is being run these days, but if Elmo is the lead now, this definitely sounds like a step back in quality level. My (at the time 2 year old) referred to Seasame Street as "Elmo." The shift in content aligns with the shift that has happened in Early Learning Education in the US--mainly less emphasis in academic subjects, and more emphasis on social and emotional skills. Modern Seasame Street broaches social topics, with a small amount of academics (mainly letter and number of the day).
- caro_douglos 7y ago
  I happened to watch an episode when visiting some family and even though the characters were slightly different it did feel like it was touching on EQ more than IQ skills. That being said the count is still the count and Chappelle's skit [1] is still spot on. [1] https://youtu.be/v595FBEngj8 https://youtu.be/v595FBEngj8