I'd rather a million Elmo-centric Sesame Street episodes than even one episode of Barney or Caillou.
That said, every kid needs some old-school, Elmo-free Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. (No, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is not the same; it's insipid and dumb by comparison.)
Also, back in the day, Square One TV had a police-procedural parody called Mathnet that was still loads better than network TV's attempt at a mathematical-cop show for adults (Numb3rs).
It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.
My two kids enjoyed "The Backyardigans", and with my own interest in musical expression, I found it mostly quite entertaining. Episodes about space, art, math, earth science, cultural beliefs... And a few clever spoofs of some grown-up faves. It was a fun show, and each episode had a genre-specific set of musical arrangements. Zydeco, country, folk... Very cleverly done.
I have a soft spot for that show beyond its lack of Dora-level annoyance: my son is on the autism spectrum, and for some time, his only speech was echolalic. He was most fond of using phrases uttered by one of the Backyardigans, Austin, who himself didn't speak much. He always used the echoed speech in contextually appropriate ways - one time he saw snow falling outside, and said, "it's..it's..it's snowing," with the exact prosody of Austin's utterance of that line in "The Secret of Snow". That was very illuminating for me as the father of a developmentally delayed child. I didn't know how to predict his ability to function as he got older, or really his understanding of language at all...But that day, the sight of gently falling snow never seemed so amazing to me.
When it was on, I often watched it with them; I didn't want to lob a bowling ball at my television, which Caillou made me consider doing. And don't even get me started on Kai-Lan...
> "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is not the same; it's insipid and dumb by comparison.)
Funny, because DTN is a award winning show with excellent writers and a body of research and consulting experts backing up their approach. It's only "insipid" if you try to analyze it as an adult. For kids, its engaging and important.
Compare and contrast to other popular shows like Pororo that, while charming and well executed, really don't have nearly so much science behind them.
Speaking of Mathnet they had another segment on there called Mathman. I got so into it when I was younger that I really rooted for Mathman to not lose to Glitch. They did a good job of gamifiying math for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yd3tA4wMPI.
> It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.
As a kid in the 60s, we spent most of our time unsupervised roaming the countryside. The 60s Superman comics were the best, and for TV we had Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings. Chemistry sets weren't yet emasculated.
> It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.
Don't forget such gems as "The Electric Company", "3-2-1 Contact", "Reading Rainbow", "Mr. Wizard", "Bill Nye" and others.
It seemed for a while that TV producers really wanted to pursue the mission of Television as an educational medium. I honestly don't know anything about the quality of today's material, but the material I grew up with was really well done on so many facets. It wasn't just about learning basic reading or arithmetic, but also about how to socialize well, diversity training, problem solving, emotional growth and more. It was multi-faceted and didn't pander to children or just spend 30 minutes entertaining them with vapid songs. I feel like there was a real earnest effort by very smart educators to use the medium to its fullest and I grew up enjoying those shows more than afternoon cartoons and other 30 minute commercials.
By comparison Barney, Teletubbies, and those late 90s, early 2000s "educational shows" are pure garbage. I can still sit down as an adult and find enjoyment in classic Sesame Street. And I think that's part of the difference, the modern shows were basically entertainment and electronic babysitters for busy parents, SST, Mr. R and classic children's shows taught on multiple levels and parents weren't bored out of their minds to sit with their own kids and help reinforce the lessons.
(Mathnet was one of my favorite segments of its parent show, It was funny and entertaining, but introduced basic math skills as well as critical thinking skills. It also introduced me to this kind of slightly archaic story-style which helped give me a life-long love of classic radio dramas and comedies)
Was that the show where they said "My name is Wednesday... it was a Tuesday?", might have been on right after 3-2-1 Contact? That show was awesome, now I'm going to have to find a few episodes for my kids! Thanks for the reminder.
For those who didn't grow up with Mister Rogers, I encourage you to watch this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA, to get a sense of how effective he was as a speaker.
I don't understand why folks think this is out-of-place on HN. It seems on target to me.
It is evidence of an emergent media phenomenon (albeit a slow one) - that a single character on an iconic platform changed its dynamic enough to cause its identity to come into question.
Because Sesame Street leveraged novelty and maturity, the emergence of a cutesy, immature, "it's all about MEEE!" type of character represents a sort of test case, and in this case, the evidence is that the show changed as the result.
It would have been interesting to explore characters as they age throughout the show. Given the shows longevity it could have been really interesting to have a varied set of characters age right along with the viewers.
Children could identify with Elmo for their entire lives. The Elmo of today would be finishing school and starting a job, and only visiting occasionally. He would take a very different role than that of 20 years ago.
As a father I agree Elmo is essentially the never ending toddler who does too much on his own on Sesame street. He really does need someone a little more mature than him to help teach him lessons.
But having said that I've watched far too much Sesame street and yes Elmo usually gets more time than the rest but not always. The author paints a picture like Elmo always gets most of the time but the truth is he isn't played THAT much more than the others. Even in the hurricane episode that is cited in the article Big Bird was on screen longer than twice the time of any other monster.
So yes he needs to be downplayed a little bit but the article is over the top as well. In fact watching many of the episodes in the past 5 years and you'd think Abby was gunning for Elmo's spot; she gets quite a lot of screen time especially with fairy school.
To my mind, Jim Henson's death and the resulting loss of his voice, puppet characters, and leadership, dealt a blow to Sesame Street from which it has not really recovered.
I completely agree. I can not stand Elmo as a character. He lacks depth and is really annoying. However, observing my 1.5 year old niece when Elmo comes on, you can see why he is the popular Muppet. Kids love his annoying voice and silliness which is why Elmo will continue to be at the forefront of Sesame Street.
I saw the episode where they talked about Mr. Hooper's death. It was the saddest thing I had seen in a very long time. Very emotional and probably the most honest episode ever made.
The tone is of course hyperbolic as it must be these days, but I do agree that Sesame Street used to have a very interesting adult/child dynamic, which may be gone (haven't watched the show in years). I always loved the interactions between Grover and Mr. Johnson... even as I see myself becoming more like Mr. Johnson every day:
I recently watched "I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story" documentary and I had this impression that the show shifted towards a younger audience with Elmo. I wonder that this was probably related to a bigger audience on this age range.
The number of people who are quick to jump unquestioningly on this and say, "It was better before" are... well it bums me out.
Sesame Street's role in child development has changed radically as the general opinion on how TV should interact with kids has changed. These kids shows have been pushed down the age bracket, appealing to younger markets where demand is a lot greater for the content. Older kids shows? They exist in the spaces between cartoon network hot properties, and do a good job of confronting the complex issues kids will face from 4-12. The same is true of The Mr. Rogers->Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. They're tuned for totally different age ranges and requirements.
I dunno how many of you are parents. I have a 15 month old daughter. A constant chime of the following information is reiterated by child care consulting, doctors, and developmental evaluators:
- Sensory experiences are more important than anything right now.
- Emotional stability is more important than anything.
- Disregard the advice about "no screen time." Screens shouldn't be a substitute for parenting, but kids can learn to use tablets startlingly early in life and interactive education is provably better than passive education. In some specific subjects, interactive solo play is superior even to parentally guided play.
Let's also not forget: This article is just false. The idea that no one ever corrects Elmo? Totally wrong. Elmo gets a lot of screen time, but over the last year we've seen a huge amount of investment in a lot of other characters. Cookie Monster, Abby's complexity, and most importantly a huge increase in the time humans spend on sesame street talking.
The idea that Seasme Street doesn't touch on tricky subjects is false. Just last week the PBS Kids app rotated the episode on "Minne Myna". It's a two-sided story. On the one hand, Big Bird makes a case to bird court that someone else can't steal his nest just because he left it. "Finders Keepers is a bad rule."
But it's also trying to talk to kids and say it is okay to be sad and that they SHOULD be sad if they lose their homes. The episode is delicately touching on the subject of home eviction. Someone who has never been evicted might not even notice, but anyone who has lost a home will immediately realize what Big Bird's singing about. Big Bird gets a happy ending, but the episode leaves reminding kids that many other birds didn't get their nests back and that it's okay to be sad.
I see so much of these kinds of articles. All I can do is despair as my generation begins to make the exact same mistake as our outrageous parents who had very similar things to say about childhood programming which we all wax nostalgically on now.
> "I see so much of these kinds of articles. All I can do is despair as my generation begins to make the exact same mistake as our outrageous parents who had very similar things to say about childhood programming which we all wax nostalgically on now."
Thank you so much for this insightful post. As the parent of a two and four-year-old, reading this article all I could think was, "But Sesame Street is not for you!!! Who cares if your adult-self doesn't like Elmo?"
People don't seem to understand that Sesame Street was established on and heavily influenced by hard scientific research [1], and that research has found letting your children watch the show gives them a head-start on learning before they enter public school. When the show changes, science informs those changes.
And I can see it with my boys. Elmo youtube videos taught my two-year-old the alphabet, his shapes, and counting to 10, which blows his daycare teachers away. My four-year-old got the same jump on these concepts from Elmo. Funny enough, he seems to have outgrown the character and has moved onto Team Umizoomi [2] where he enjoys problem-based learning for math and patterns. It's best to watch these shows with the kids, engage the learning with them as they watch, and also make references to the characters and events to reinforce the learning away from the television.
I also find all the "get off my lawn" comments in this thread and in these kinds of articles disheartening. I agree that it seems like my generation is just adopting the cycle of knee-jerk cynicism to change to which our elders subjected us.
I'm just old enough to have watched Sesame Street when Grover was a big deal and Elmo had yet to become huge (late '80s), and he was the main character I glommmed onto then. I still don't get Elmo's appeal.
Adults are no longer the target audience for these shows.
Malcolm Gladwell touched on this in the Tipping Point.
Sesame Street pioneered the use of TV to entertain and educate toddlers. But a lot of the original content was beyond the comprehension of younger children.
While Elmo is annoying to us, he is perfect at keeping the attention of a young child, and while he has their attention he can teach them things.
my vote for the gold standard of kid's educational tv is "Schoolhouse Rock"
Pretty much an entire primary school education just from that handful of shorts--civics ("I'm just a bill") grammar ("conjunction junction, what's your function") and math ("my hero, zero")
to this day 100% of my understanding of the US legislative process is from "I'm just a bill"--eg, "yes i am only a bill and i'm sitting her on capital hill"
i heard on NPR once that the guy who conceived and wrote those, was/is a jazz musician, and when he would perform in nightclubs, people in the audience would recognize this voice request songs from SchoolHouse Rock.
There is no substance on earth more addictive than Elmo is to a two year old.
In most television shows and movies what people are looking for is somebody that represents them - call it an "avatar" if you must. When kids watch Sesame Street they relate directly to Elmo.
He's younger, smaller, has an insatiable curiosity, and is in a permanent mode of questioning and discovery. He even has similar mannerisms to children - he laughs a lot, has lots of energy, and is frequently confused as to what's happening around him.
The reason the author doesn't like Elmo is because Elmo acts like a two year old. The reason two year olds love Elmo is because Elmo acts like a two year old.
Sesame Street was created for two-year-olds, not bitter Internet pundits.
Sesame Street was created for two-year-olds, not bitter Internet pundits.
It may have been created for two-year-olds, but do you know what it was created TO DO for two-year-olds?
The article has it exactly right. The purpose of Sesame Street was never entertainment. Their purpose was to use TV to help preschool aged kids get a head start on academics and emotional development, while pushing a specific set of liberal social values around inclusiveness on them. It is a matter of historical record that this was the goal.
In order to accomplish this goal, Sesame Street deliberately had to have enough entertainment value to keep kids watching. And pulled in enough pop culture people to give babysitters a reason to turn it on. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G95MA6RxJTs for an example of how they combined those two.) But those are means to an end, not the end. And it is very important to always push kids to do a little more than they think they can do.
The current dominance and role of Elmo reflects how Sesame Street has lost sight of their initial vision and confused the means (entertainment) for the end.
>The reason the author doesn't like Elmo is because he acts like a two year old.
I think the author's reasons for not liking Elmo are actually the ones he stated and took an entire essay to carefully explain.
And I find the author's detailed reasons compelling. I think there's something to be said in modeling behavior that you'd want a younger child to aspire to rather than just presenting them a mirror as they are today. I'm with him in feeling that it just isn't as challenging or valuable. I absolutely think the old show did a much better job of that.
Two year olds are incredibly diverse. Elmo exhibits only certain, particular behaviors of a two-year-old: he is self-centered, demands everyone else's attention, and is mostly oblivious to the fact that he's part of a larger social dynamic.
In the early days of Snuffy and Big Bird, they acted more like two-year-olds also, but they leaned on other qualities that are often evident in people who are learning language and movement: they were thoughtful, unafraid to say things that didn't make sense at first blush, and descriptive about their imaginations.
But that's the thing: Sesame Street wasn't created for two-year-olds. Or rather, not just two-year-olds. It was created for kids as young as two, maybe younger, and as old as six or seven, maybe older. But the increasing focus on Elmo is stripping the show of its capacity to speak to anyone older than maybe three in a useful way. It's come to the point that it's probably detrimental to older children, really to all children, because, as the author points out, it may (inadvertently?) teach things like, "Intrude on personal space! Whine and quiver your lip, kids! Guilt gets things done! Cuteness will get you everywhere!"
It is very hard to put yourself in position of very young child and issue judgement on what toddlers would like.
I couldn't stand Teletubies, I still can't. But young kids are fascinated and my late grandma loved them too. Who am I to judge.
The issue here isn't really what toddlers like or don't like. The issue is, if you're going to sit your kid in front of a screen to watch something, what are they getting out of it? A 3- or 4-year old seeing 6-year old behavior in Big Bird sees a role model in how to behave. Seeing 3-year-old behavior in Elmo reinforces how they're already behaving.
Totally with you here. My kids were at the right age for elmo and Teletubbies when those phenomena got popular. Elmo "worked," but Teletubbies blew Elmo out of the park. My youngest would stop walking and stand transfixed at the TV when Teletubbies came on. It was positively creepy. A British friend said it was very controversial because of all the child psych research that went into capturing the kids' attention. The "Tinky Winky" controversy came along much later.
My kids, 7 & 2, have never seen Sesame Street. I used to watch it in my youth. My kids jump to Netflix or Mickey Mouse clubhouse on YouTube. May Elmo did ruin SS?
[+] [-] bitwize|10 years ago|reply
That said, every kid needs some old-school, Elmo-free Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. (No, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is not the same; it's insipid and dumb by comparison.)
Also, back in the day, Square One TV had a police-procedural parody called Mathnet that was still loads better than network TV's attempt at a mathematical-cop show for adults (Numb3rs).
It literally couldn't get any better for a kid than PBS in the 70s or 80s.
[+] [-] spdustin|10 years ago|reply
I have a soft spot for that show beyond its lack of Dora-level annoyance: my son is on the autism spectrum, and for some time, his only speech was echolalic. He was most fond of using phrases uttered by one of the Backyardigans, Austin, who himself didn't speak much. He always used the echoed speech in contextually appropriate ways - one time he saw snow falling outside, and said, "it's..it's..it's snowing," with the exact prosody of Austin's utterance of that line in "The Secret of Snow". That was very illuminating for me as the father of a developmentally delayed child. I didn't know how to predict his ability to function as he got older, or really his understanding of language at all...But that day, the sight of gently falling snow never seemed so amazing to me.
When it was on, I often watched it with them; I didn't want to lob a bowling ball at my television, which Caillou made me consider doing. And don't even get me started on Kai-Lan...
[+] [-] KirinDave|10 years ago|reply
Funny, because DTN is a award winning show with excellent writers and a body of research and consulting experts backing up their approach. It's only "insipid" if you try to analyze it as an adult. For kids, its engaging and important.
Compare and contrast to other popular shows like Pororo that, while charming and well executed, really don't have nearly so much science behind them.
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|10 years ago|reply
I remember that; it was awesome. Drenched in cheesiness, but it served its goal, and it did manage the "tainment" part of "edutainment".
[+] [-] Yhippa|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|10 years ago|reply
As a kid in the 60s, we spent most of our time unsupervised roaming the countryside. The 60s Superman comics were the best, and for TV we had Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings. Chemistry sets weren't yet emasculated.
Somehow we learned to read without SS :-)
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
Don't forget such gems as "The Electric Company", "3-2-1 Contact", "Reading Rainbow", "Mr. Wizard", "Bill Nye" and others.
It seemed for a while that TV producers really wanted to pursue the mission of Television as an educational medium. I honestly don't know anything about the quality of today's material, but the material I grew up with was really well done on so many facets. It wasn't just about learning basic reading or arithmetic, but also about how to socialize well, diversity training, problem solving, emotional growth and more. It was multi-faceted and didn't pander to children or just spend 30 minutes entertaining them with vapid songs. I feel like there was a real earnest effort by very smart educators to use the medium to its fullest and I grew up enjoying those shows more than afternoon cartoons and other 30 minute commercials.
By comparison Barney, Teletubbies, and those late 90s, early 2000s "educational shows" are pure garbage. I can still sit down as an adult and find enjoyment in classic Sesame Street. And I think that's part of the difference, the modern shows were basically entertainment and electronic babysitters for busy parents, SST, Mr. R and classic children's shows taught on multiple levels and parents weren't bored out of their minds to sit with their own kids and help reinforce the lessons.
(Mathnet was one of my favorite segments of its parent show, It was funny and entertaining, but introduced basic math skills as well as critical thinking skills. It also introduced me to this kind of slightly archaic story-style which helped give me a life-long love of classic radio dramas and comedies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_eBFzNLsGk
[+] [-] sputknick|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|10 years ago|reply
Hunt's Elmo character broke that. As a parent, that's what ruined Sesame Street.
[+] [-] aczerepinski|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hitekker|10 years ago|reply
For those who didn't grow up with Mister Rogers, I encourage you to watch this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA, to get a sense of how effective he was as a speaker.
[+] [-] na85|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Domenic_S|10 years ago|reply
You might need to go rewatch some MRN. Fred Rogers is basically a saint, but MRN had plenty of insipidness of its own.
[+] [-] stevewillows|10 years ago|reply
I love George Shrinks though. It's simple adventures, but they created something that's actually interesting without being overly complex.
[+] [-] mtreis86|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] commenter1239|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wdr1|10 years ago|reply
Well, except for, you know, books.
I don't really buy any of this "need" stuff when it comes to TV (or that one form is significantly better than another).
If you drop your kid in front of anything and they turn into a slackjaw zombie (as my son tends to do), that's bad.
If you drop your kid in front of anything that you watch, engage, and use as a jumping off point for interaction, that's fine.
[+] [-] jMyles|10 years ago|reply
It is evidence of an emergent media phenomenon (albeit a slow one) - that a single character on an iconic platform changed its dynamic enough to cause its identity to come into question.
Because Sesame Street leveraged novelty and maturity, the emergence of a cutesy, immature, "it's all about MEEE!" type of character represents a sort of test case, and in this case, the evidence is that the show changed as the result.
[+] [-] Splines|10 years ago|reply
Children could identify with Elmo for their entire lives. The Elmo of today would be finishing school and starting a job, and only visiting occasionally. He would take a very different role than that of 20 years ago.
[+] [-] marshray|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandonmenc|10 years ago|reply
Fortunately, I'm old enough to have watched Sesame Street before Elmo took over.
As an aside, I wish someone would revive The Electric Company.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|10 years ago|reply
But having said that I've watched far too much Sesame street and yes Elmo usually gets more time than the rest but not always. The author paints a picture like Elmo always gets most of the time but the truth is he isn't played THAT much more than the others. Even in the hurricane episode that is cited in the article Big Bird was on screen longer than twice the time of any other monster.
So yes he needs to be downplayed a little bit but the article is over the top as well. In fact watching many of the episodes in the past 5 years and you'd think Abby was gunning for Elmo's spot; she gets quite a lot of screen time especially with fairy school.
[+] [-] djcjr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DigitalSea|10 years ago|reply
I saw the episode where they talked about Mr. Hooper's death. It was the saddest thing I had seen in a very long time. Very emotional and probably the most honest episode ever made.
[+] [-] qq66|10 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPLY9uxiss
[+] [-] silveira|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] norea-armozel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KirinDave|10 years ago|reply
Sesame Street's role in child development has changed radically as the general opinion on how TV should interact with kids has changed. These kids shows have been pushed down the age bracket, appealing to younger markets where demand is a lot greater for the content. Older kids shows? They exist in the spaces between cartoon network hot properties, and do a good job of confronting the complex issues kids will face from 4-12. The same is true of The Mr. Rogers->Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. They're tuned for totally different age ranges and requirements.
I dunno how many of you are parents. I have a 15 month old daughter. A constant chime of the following information is reiterated by child care consulting, doctors, and developmental evaluators:
- Sensory experiences are more important than anything right now. - Emotional stability is more important than anything. - Disregard the advice about "no screen time." Screens shouldn't be a substitute for parenting, but kids can learn to use tablets startlingly early in life and interactive education is provably better than passive education. In some specific subjects, interactive solo play is superior even to parentally guided play.
Let's also not forget: This article is just false. The idea that no one ever corrects Elmo? Totally wrong. Elmo gets a lot of screen time, but over the last year we've seen a huge amount of investment in a lot of other characters. Cookie Monster, Abby's complexity, and most importantly a huge increase in the time humans spend on sesame street talking.
The idea that Seasme Street doesn't touch on tricky subjects is false. Just last week the PBS Kids app rotated the episode on "Minne Myna". It's a two-sided story. On the one hand, Big Bird makes a case to bird court that someone else can't steal his nest just because he left it. "Finders Keepers is a bad rule."
But it's also trying to talk to kids and say it is okay to be sad and that they SHOULD be sad if they lose their homes. The episode is delicately touching on the subject of home eviction. Someone who has never been evicted might not even notice, but anyone who has lost a home will immediately realize what Big Bird's singing about. Big Bird gets a happy ending, but the episode leaves reminding kids that many other birds didn't get their nests back and that it's okay to be sad.
I see so much of these kinds of articles. All I can do is despair as my generation begins to make the exact same mistake as our outrageous parents who had very similar things to say about childhood programming which we all wax nostalgically on now.
[+] [-] ideonexus|10 years ago|reply
Thank you so much for this insightful post. As the parent of a two and four-year-old, reading this article all I could think was, "But Sesame Street is not for you!!! Who cares if your adult-self doesn't like Elmo?"
People don't seem to understand that Sesame Street was established on and heavily influenced by hard scientific research [1], and that research has found letting your children watch the show gives them a head-start on learning before they enter public school. When the show changes, science informs those changes.
And I can see it with my boys. Elmo youtube videos taught my two-year-old the alphabet, his shapes, and counting to 10, which blows his daycare teachers away. My four-year-old got the same jump on these concepts from Elmo. Funny enough, he seems to have outgrown the character and has moved onto Team Umizoomi [2] where he enjoys problem-based learning for math and patterns. It's best to watch these shows with the kids, engage the learning with them as they watch, and also make references to the characters and events to reinforce the learning away from the television.
I also find all the "get off my lawn" comments in this thread and in these kinds of articles disheartening. I agree that it seems like my generation is just adopting the cycle of knee-jerk cynicism to change to which our elders subjected us.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street_research [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Umizoomi
[+] [-] 7Z7|10 years ago|reply
I and many people I know have been saying this since Elmo first became popular. It isn't a new hipster opinion its always been true, for some people.
[+] [-] poofyleek|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|10 years ago|reply
http://flavourmachine.com/sesamefighter/
(Inspired by http://www.deviantart.com/art/Sesame-Street-Fight-Elmo-Bison...).
[+] [-] mathiasben|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] amyjess|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nzealand|10 years ago|reply
Malcolm Gladwell touched on this in the Tipping Point.
Sesame Street pioneered the use of TV to entertain and educate toddlers. But a lot of the original content was beyond the comprehension of younger children.
While Elmo is annoying to us, he is perfect at keeping the attention of a young child, and while he has their attention he can teach them things.
[+] [-] doug1001|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austenallred|10 years ago|reply
In most television shows and movies what people are looking for is somebody that represents them - call it an "avatar" if you must. When kids watch Sesame Street they relate directly to Elmo.
He's younger, smaller, has an insatiable curiosity, and is in a permanent mode of questioning and discovery. He even has similar mannerisms to children - he laughs a lot, has lots of energy, and is frequently confused as to what's happening around him.
The reason the author doesn't like Elmo is because Elmo acts like a two year old. The reason two year olds love Elmo is because Elmo acts like a two year old.
Sesame Street was created for two-year-olds, not bitter Internet pundits.
[+] [-] btilly|10 years ago|reply
It may have been created for two-year-olds, but do you know what it was created TO DO for two-year-olds?
The article has it exactly right. The purpose of Sesame Street was never entertainment. Their purpose was to use TV to help preschool aged kids get a head start on academics and emotional development, while pushing a specific set of liberal social values around inclusiveness on them. It is a matter of historical record that this was the goal.
In order to accomplish this goal, Sesame Street deliberately had to have enough entertainment value to keep kids watching. And pulled in enough pop culture people to give babysitters a reason to turn it on. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G95MA6RxJTs for an example of how they combined those two.) But those are means to an end, not the end. And it is very important to always push kids to do a little more than they think they can do.
The current dominance and role of Elmo reflects how Sesame Street has lost sight of their initial vision and confused the means (entertainment) for the end.
[+] [-] deveac|10 years ago|reply
I think the author's reasons for not liking Elmo are actually the ones he stated and took an entire essay to carefully explain.
And I find the author's detailed reasons compelling. I think there's something to be said in modeling behavior that you'd want a younger child to aspire to rather than just presenting them a mirror as they are today. I'm with him in feeling that it just isn't as challenging or valuable. I absolutely think the old show did a much better job of that.
[+] [-] jMyles|10 years ago|reply
Two year olds are incredibly diverse. Elmo exhibits only certain, particular behaviors of a two-year-old: he is self-centered, demands everyone else's attention, and is mostly oblivious to the fact that he's part of a larger social dynamic.
In the early days of Snuffy and Big Bird, they acted more like two-year-olds also, but they leaned on other qualities that are often evident in people who are learning language and movement: they were thoughtful, unafraid to say things that didn't make sense at first blush, and descriptive about their imaginations.
[+] [-] kenbellows|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] desireco42|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcphage|10 years ago|reply
The issue here isn't really what toddlers like or don't like. The issue is, if you're going to sit your kid in front of a screen to watch something, what are they getting out of it? A 3- or 4-year old seeing 6-year old behavior in Big Bird sees a role model in how to behave. Seeing 3-year-old behavior in Elmo reinforces how they're already behaving.
[+] [-] dhimes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrScump|10 years ago|reply
But what they like, going in, is often worst for them.
If you put both ice cream and a spinach salad in front of a child, which will he pursue by choice?
Being challenged is often initially uncomfortable. But that's part of the point - to learn the long-term value of delayed gratification.
[+] [-] anon4|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramanamit1234|10 years ago|reply