Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Well, This Could Explain A Lot


From an article by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times Magazine:

"Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”..."

Brief points:
  • Dingy brownstones
  • Inner city slums
  • Friendship and trust across gender and age lines
  • Misanthropic characters (not just Oscar, but Bert as well)
  • Pipe smoking (Cookie Monster parodying Alastair Cooke)
  • Poor snack habits( Cookie Monster, of course)
  • Invisible friends indicating possible paranoid schizophrenia
  • Suspected whole milk

How on earth did we ever turn out to be okay?

Read the whole article here.

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