Puppet Kaos -

Sesame Workshop has recently put a lot of Sesame Street videos online. I’ve been spending a lot of time watching these videos. It’s nice that they are all in one place so I don’t have to look around for them. I am watching mostly Cookie Monster videos. I did not know there’s this version of C is for Cookies. But I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s also Cookie introducing each of the 26 letters. And all the Monsterpiece Theatre clips. How I love that silliness. You can watch Cookie Monster eat cookies, pipes, a house, and other miscellaneous things. Ah, I wish the new Sesame Street still has that much Cookie Monster. Elmo is so over-rated. Cookie Monster is awesome because he eats everything with such passion. You’ve got to love that.

You can use the tags as well as the search box to find the videos you want to watch. You can also click on the characters’ pictures on top and all the videos with those characters will come up. These are probably mostly older clips. For example, when I searched Abby Cadabby, nothing came up. Anyway, I think it’s awesome for them to have all these videos up. On a somewhat related topic, I also think it’s smart for networks to stream some of their shows online. They get to have a say in how their contents are distributed and draw people to their websites. It’s a good thing.

I am off to watch more Cookie Monster… and sometimes other characters too.

Via PuppetVision.

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My friend Jay gave me a link of an NPR (National Public Radio) article/interview about the early episodes of Sesame Street being released on DVD. They talked about how some of the things they did back then wouldn’t be shown on TV by today’s standards (for kids anyway). Oscar the Grouch lives in garbage and he never seeks help to get out of it. Cookie Monster is a compulsive eater. In some parodies he was even shown smoking a pipe (and ended up eating it too). These are the things that you would no longer see today.

Now I am only 25, not old enough to be growing up watching the vintage Sesame Street. I hadn’t checked out the DVDs either. I watched a bunch of classic Sesame Street stuff on YouTube though, so I know what the interview was talking about.

My observations are that, at one time, Cookie Monster is one of the most important character on Sesame Street, but now it’s Elmo. Cookie Monster even had a song about cookie is good for sometimes, but eating healthy is important too. Cookie Monster nowadays don’t do much other than coming out to read a letter but ends up eating it because the letter is written on a cookie. He’s certainly not as important as before. Oscar is a lot less grouchy. He is still not the nicest guy, but now we really only see his soft side. Now all he does is tell Trash Gordon stories to Slimey. Well, I do think Slimey is really cute, but my point is, some of these characters have all been toned down a lot for clean, family fun.

I guess it’s a fine line between being silly and being too adult, huh?

This also makes me think about my own writing a little bit. So far, all the episodes I’ve made are pretty kid-safe (except for those who think tooth fairies are real - oops). I was wondering if I will venture into issues that’s more grown-up. When I say grown-up, I don’t necessarily mean sex, but rather, topics including politics, society, etc. as well. Maybe they will start to say words like “hell” and call each other stupid more. I don’t know. Still something to think about.

One thing I am very against though, is people thinking that puppets cursing = funny. That gets old really fast, actually. Cursing is fine by me if they have a good story to tell, or good gag to present. Sometimes cursing is good for emphasis of certain things. But yeah, I’d like to tell them, if ou have to make a puppet curse in order to get laughs, I’m sorry. That’s simply offensive and not funny. You can do better. (If you cannot do better, then don’t do it.)

Most un-focused post ever…

PS. This week I’ve been going to the LCC show: Enchant This! that I mentioned earlier. And then I’ll also be going home for Thanksgiving, so I’m not sure if I have time to whip together an episode this week. I do have something already brainstormed but I’m not sure if I have time to do all the production work. We will see…

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The other day I was channel surfing and Sesame Street happened to be on. James Blunt was the guest star for that segment. I don’t know if everyone has heard of James Blunt, but since most of my readers are in California, and radio stations here play his hit song “You’re Beautiful” five million times a day, I assume that most of you know who he is. Anyway, in this segment, James was singing to Telly about how he’s looking hard for a triangle. It’s one of the most amusing stuff I’ve seen lately. I think it’s really cool when a singer does a parody of his own song.

By the way, Episode 6 will be released on Wednesday (finally!!). Hopefully Episode 7 can be released the Wednesday after. I’m still looking for the tape and script that’s packed away somewhere.

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So I was watching Sesame Street (I still love the show, m’kay?) today. I noticed that they’ve made a change, or rather, an upgrade to Elmo’s World. Now, if you’ve been watching Elmo’s World (but who has, anyway?), you know there’s a book. It’s kind of a recurring character that Elmo talks to. The book used to be a puppet (and I like the way they designed the eyes and the mouth) but now it’s 3D animation. And actually, I like the puppet version better. Elmo’s piano also has keys that’s more 3D than before.

I actually don’t like the animated book as much as the puppet. I guess I like tangible things. When I watched Power Rangers the movie, I was a little disappointed when they showed the Megazords that’s animated on a computer. I know the computer animation is much more flexible than a man in a robot suit, but there’s something about watching a man in a robot suit fighting another man in a monster suit. That’s what I want to see.

Yes, puppets are more clumsy and they are not as free to do whatever they want to do as 3D animations, but there’s just something about puppetry that’s charming. You know there’s a physical thing there instead of something that’s rendered on a computer. You know the objects are actually bumping into each other rather than some collision detection algorithm simulating physics.

But there are just my random thoughts. In Elmo’s World, he drew a lot of things with crayons and all the objects (tables, computers, drawers, walls, etc.) are made to look like they are drawn with crayons. In fact, many of those things are in fact puppets, but special puppets that map the movement and position information to the computer so it can draw 3D animations on top of it in real time. And now they are adding more 3D characters and I’m not liking it. Hm, I guess my thought is just a mess now.

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The other day I had a random idea. What if there’s a farmer that grows thyme? Then he’d be saying things like “Before the harvest, I have no thyme (time) for you, but after the harvest, I got all the thyme (time) in the world for you.” or “I would like to make a deal with you right now, but I simply don’t have any thyme. In fact, I just ran out of thyme.” How did this all started? It started when I randomly started singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” (after all, it’s near Christmas), but then realized that it can also be a farmer bragging “it’s the most wonderful thyme of the year.” So yeah, I was going on and on with my sister with thyme/time jokes.

Guess what, I just saw that same joke on TV today.

So I was watching Sesame Street today. Ernie, who dressed up as a farmer, was singing a song about how some plants grows tall, and some grows low. And there were a bunch of vegetables and fruits singing with him too. At the end, the farmer started to wonder about how thymes grow, and a vegetable said “we’d tell you, but we simply don’t have thyme (time)!” And a good laugh was had by all.

Wow, I think like a Sesame Street writer. I must have watched these shows too much. What’s interesting is, this is not the first time that I came up with a joke, and later ended up seeing it on TV. The last time was about how people hate reading because “hate” and “book” sounds the same in Taiwanese.

Man, I should totally write for TV.

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