Alex Schwartz: Alright. It's that special time. That time that we do on every critics at large episode. It's time to announce the letter of the day. Oh my God. Are you guys so excited to find out what it is? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I'm on fucking Tenter Hook. Yeah. Excuse my language children. Alex Schwartz: It could be anything, but it's the letter O. Naomi Fry: Hooray. Let's celebrate the letter O. Let's do it. It's as infinite as the cosmos, as the ocean. Oh, right. Vinson Cunningham: My God. Oh my God. What a God. Great letter. Alex Schwartz: That's it. Oh boy. Oh, oh. Boy's. The letter O. It's so large. Oh boy. Naomi Fry: This is Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Vincent Cunningham. Alex Schwartz: And I'm Alex Schwar. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Mm. Alex Schwartz: Hello my friends. Hello. Hello, friend. Hello. Well, I wanna get us right down to business because we are here to talk about something near and dear to my heart. We are here to talk about the television show. Mm-hmm. Sesame Street. Wow. Yeah. What a show. Yeah, what a show. Sesame Street. Of course. We're referring to the incredibly long running children's television program. It has been on the air for 55 years. years. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Um, longer than Saturday Night, live longer than The Simpsons. It's, it's been around forever and it's been on my mind recently. I have a young child, as you know, so it's. Been on my mind and on my screen. Um, but it's also something that I think just about anyone who grew up in the United States and possibly farther away, whether kid adult has some kind of relationship too. People have their favorite characters, people have their favorite segments, people remember certain songs. Um, is there a Sesame Street character that you especially relate to? One who expresses the innermost condition of your heart and soul? Naomi Fry: Yeah, I think I'm a,Big bird, uh, sun with a burt moon. Ooh. Or something. Is that the right, term? I think somebody's gotta Vinson Cunningham: be rising. Oh, rising's a rising, a Naomi Fry: a Burt rising? Alex Schwartz: Uh, maybe I get the whole picture more than I do. If you were to tell me your actual signs, Naomi Fry: I'm open faced and w wonder filled like a young child, and yet I seek control at every turn. Oh, beautiful. Vinson, do you Alex Schwartz: have a favorite Vinson Cunningham: favorite? It's, it's a tie, a, a, a, a total tie between Burt and Ernie. Um, both of whom I feel like I'm very much like in the context of intimate friendship and romantic relationships. Naomi Fry: Yin and yang. We're gonna get into all of it. And Yang, Vinson Cunningham: How about you? Alex Schwartz: I wanna say right now, if we're doing the mashup, I like Abby Cabi, I gotta say. Oh, interesting. She was, maybe just because she was a female pioneer on Sesame as being the first female puppet to be featured after years. Mm-hmm. Years of the main cast just being male. And also I really like, and this is a character I don't think has appeared in some years, but I think inside my Abby exterior is the little Lamb ota who just screams a lot. Vinson Cunningham: Okay. From Alex Schwartz: Joy. Vinson Cunningham: Okay. There you go. It's a little that I Alex Schwartz: remember her. Yeah. Well, we're here to talk about Sesame for a few reasons, but one of them is that in the last year, this show has been going through it. I dunno about you guys, but I've been following the Sesame News avidly and what I learned was that at the end of 2024, they lost their distributor HBO and let's not even get into the confusion over HBO Max and Max now gonna be HBO Max again. Let's just call it HBO, um, as God intended. Exactly, yeah. And we were all in a bit of a doldrums about it because Sesame's future seemed to be unsure. Then what do you know? Naomi Fry: What do you know? Alex Schwartz: Just last week it was announced that Netflix wow will be distributing the show starting later this very year. But at the same time, president Trump has been issuing executive orders that throw the future of public media itself into question and. It's unclear exactly how these cuts would impact Sesame Street itself. It obviously has, uh, donors, corporate sponsors, et cetera. But it is a moment, I think where the value of a program like Sesame Street really, um, comes to the fore. So that's today we are talking about Sesame Street. Its past, its present, and its future. We're gonna look back at what made the show so groundbreaking when it first came on the air over 55 years ago, November, 1969, and how the program has morphed as we've entered our very own internet age. So one thing I'm wondering is in a time like ours, when screens and content, can you see my scare quotes? Yes. Of problem or kids are pervasive, what do we see as good children's media? And does Sesame Street still make the cup? So that's today on critics at large, the lessons we've learned from Sesame Street. ________________ Were you guys, Sesame Street watchers in your childhood, in your parenthood? When was the last time you really watched the show? Vinson Cunningham: Um, of course all the way through my childhood and then my older daughter's now 19. Uh, I, I started watching it again, you know, almost 20 years ago, uh, when she was, uh, you know, started one, two, whatever. Um, but yeah, it's like, I don't even, I almost don't remember watching it, even knowing that I did, because it struck me as like the water that came outta the faucet. Yeah. It's a public utility. Yeah. Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Just like a thing that was around and there to be tapped into. So I never followed it so much as sometimes availed myself of it. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Is how I feel about it. Yeah. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I definitely watched it and I actually. Contrary to you, Vincent. I do remember watching it because as you guys know, I did not grow up in America all the way through. I came to America intermittently from Israel and Israel, um, didn't have Sesame Street until a little bit later. There was an Israeli version that I can talk about a little bit, please in a minute. Um, but I, I, so I do remember actually coming to know Sesame by watching it when I was like four or five on American television and this is something that I actually know more. From my mother then, you know, remember it myself, but her saying that I learned English from Sesame Street. Mm-hmm. Essentially, I mean, I also went to preschool, but that it really kickstarted my ability to speak this other language that I completely didn't know. Wow. Um, I feel like it played kind of an Im imperative role for me. And then later on in the eighties, I would say kind of in the mid eighties, um, the Israeli version of Sesame Street came in. Um, and it had dubbed clips of all the characters like the Ernie and Bird, you know, and, and all of that, the count. But then it had its own street with its own version of Oscar the Grouch. Moishe Ufnik, his name was. And uh, that's pretty funny and like a big, uh, and like a big, um, porcupine. and it was interesting because much, because it had some, we can talk about this more in the American context and in today's context it seems absolutely kind of utopian, but it had a lot of Arabic content as well. Uh, Arab Arabic language and culture content, um, which was extremely important, similarly to some of the things that were happening in American Sesame when, uh, kind of like cultural diversity and, and sort of, um, advocating for mm-hmm. Uh, kind of like broad class race and ethnicity vision of the world, you know? Oh Alex Schwartz: yeah. I think it is interesting to think about all the international versions of Sesame because there are a lot Yeah. And they all take place in the environment or a version of Sesame Street that makes sense in the cultures where they are. Um, you know, some of my biggest sesame memories mm-hmm. Are not of any of the main characters, but are of some of the interstitial bits that really stuck in my mind over years. So for instance, do you do, does the phrase the Oinker Sisters mean anything to you? No. Alex Schwartz: Is Naomi Fry: that like an animated, was it animated? No, it's also Alex Schwartz: puppets, but it's band, three pig sisters like the pointers something, the Pointer Sisters themselves who appeared and sang a song. that stuck in my mind. And also I always loved when we got to have a window into. Just parts of the world. We didn't know, I'm not talking about foreign countries, but like going to a Crayola crayon factory or something. Oh yeah. And seeing the wax poured. Ugh. I love that. And just seeing other kids look at it. And that stuff really stuck in my mind. Yeah. The way that sesame would kind of take you to other places. Um, and then of course I started watching it again a year and a half ago with my own child, who at that time was very small and I started to put on some stuff. And it was like slipping back into a bed. Whose pillows have been plumped just for you? Vinson Cunningham: Oh man. Alex Schwartz: All my friends were there. and I just found it to be utterly delightful. I wanted to hang with these furry dudes. Yeah. And also their human companions. And so we've continued to watch quite a bit. He's not in sesame phase right now, but for a while that was, I think all he thought that was on tv. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Elmo, he had asked for Elmo, and Elmo was. Television, Johnny Carson. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I was happy to be in that mode for a while and sadly now we're out of it, but that's what was going on. Yeah.So what do you guys make of the position of Sesame and the culture? It's a huge question. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Where do you see it? I Vinson Cunningham: think it's exactly what you mentioned, which is Yes, it's its own world of, of brownstones and. Benevolent squalor, you know, people living in trash cans because they want to. Mm-hmm. Not because they have to, et cetera. Um, it's a choice. It's a like a sort of, you know, whatever. It's a choice. uh, maybe, um, like Naomi Fry: Yeah. Or like, what if we're rewriting it as a kind of a libertarian text? Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Or like, or there's like a sort of rundown social democracy. I don't know. Right. Yeah. It's, it's very Alex Schwartz: free to be you and me as was the ethos. Absolute. So when it came out, which we'll get into. Yes. Vinson Cunningham: Oh yeah. But what you said, Alex, which is that it took you other places. Mm. So it's like, it's almost like the ses, Sesame Street was a portal. To other places. that would sort of, oh, and now we're gonna take you to some live action kids like doing this or, like a little sketch very much drawing on the TV traditions of the variety show, sometimes echoing and parodying the American musical. Yeah. Um, it's a sort of a agglomeration of American entertainment forms, um, turned toward children. I think at the, the, the impetus for the show, um, the Carnegie, corporation was involved in its founding, and it was like, the idea was let's harness the quote unquote addictive properties of television and make them, make them somehow good. And I do think that it certainly at, at its inception, that is what it did. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Take us back. Let's go back to the inception. Naomi Fry: Yeah. So just to say, Vincent, I think you're totally right that Sesame is a portal to other worlds, but it, it is also completely a world that is in tune with its own time, um, at least at its beginnings. Mm-hmm., its roots were completely in the kind of ideas of the great society and, the civil rights movement. Alex Schwartz: yeah, yeah. Totally. I mean, there, there's a great piece by Jill Lepore that was published in the New Yorker in 2020, called How he Got to Sesame Street. I read that piece in advance of this episode. I learned a lot from it. Um, but what you guys are saying is exactly it. There was a sense, first of all, TV was everywhere and what wasn't everywhere, actual early childhood education. And so people were finding that kids were just sitting in front of the TV that they would watch anything that their brains were just sponging up whatever those airwaves were sending them. And out of this comes the idea that maybe an educational program could be tried. And it does seem that the great, I don't know how you guys read this, but like the great stroke of luck they had was in hooking up with Jim Henson, an American genius, an American genius, and a subversive American genius. Mm-hmm. So you get this, the brilliance of the puppetry and also a kind of irreverent. Style. Like even as children are getting educated, even as the program wants to be teaching kids their ABCs, it wants to be teaching them numbers, it's trying to teach them concepts, you also get a sense that you're part of something that is a little bit adult, I think. Mm-hmm. And we can get more into that when we discuss the early episodes, but there is like a fun but not a saccharine fun that goes with early sesame. Yeah. And another thing I found really interesting that goes in line with what you guys are saying about early sesame was the general radicalness of it to me seems, as you're saying, know me, like very in keeping with ideas that were in the culture in the sixties Naomi Fry: completely. There's a beautiful, um, quote here from, uh, the New Yorker's own Rena Adler. Oh yeah. Who wrote about sesame in 1972. So three years after its inception, very early on. But it's really, it's such a beautiful passage. Um. Which I think encapsulates what, what we're talking about. Um, so she's writing about Sesame and she says it's as though all the lessons of New Deal federal planning and all the sixties experience of the local people, quote unquote, the techniques of the totalitarian slogan and the American commercial, the devices of film and the cult of the famous, the research of educators and the talent of artists had combined in one small television experiment to sell by means of television, the rational, the humane, and the linear to little children. Vinson Cunningham: That's very beautiful and so true. Naomi Fry: And it's all about, and it's, it's kind of, I think one of the things that it clarifies is that this experiment, as she calls it, as Adler calls, it could only have emerged serendipitously in, in this particular moment. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And, and you know, that moment in American history. Late sixties, early seventies, a lot of, a lot of amazing things are happening. Uh, travel, a lot of very terrible things are happening. Travel, but then also many tra it's it, yeah. You know, the Yeah. Obviously assassinations. Yeah. Political violence, et cetera. It's like, it was sort of the coming of age or a coming of age for the American nation in, in very many ways. Um, and so maybe it made sense that, that this sort of, um, show focused on pedagogy would come into view and have this dual-sided, like it's for children, but it's also an induction into, um, adulthood. Like there's this trope now the Pixar movie, the Disney movie before it, that has jokes that are aimed more at adults than at children. Right. Where it's, it watching the early s Me, it's like, oh, that starts then this thing of the, um. Sort of sophisticated joke that might go over your head, but you know that it's something to aspire to and it's really an education into, um, into a culture. Here's what the pattern of standup comedy sounds like. Even if this is for kids and not the real thing. Yeah. Here's what a parody feels like. Even if you don't understand, um, the signified thing that the parody is trying to point to. It's, I remember that kind of childhood being sort of pleasantly confused by things like, this is for me, but it's also teaching me something that I'm gonna have to, you have a Naomi Fry: hunch Vinson Cunningham: ask, ask about later. Yeah. You Naomi Fry: have a hunch something is going on. Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: And when you finally figure out what the sort of reference is, you're like, oh yeah. You know, that sort of, um, respect really for children that's so apparent. Yeah, Alex Schwartz: I totally agree. And I think that's the thing that is ensured the show's survival for as long as it has survived. because that's the link I think, between all kids. The bullshit meter. They can tell. Yeah, they will tell. Yeah. I do think that that was something that was really radical about it and it just ensured that it could keep growing and flourishing. Let's think about some of the great sesame moments. Naomi Fry: Oh Alex Schwartz: God, I wanna bring us right to Big Bird death. Naomi Fry: What a beautiful moment. You wanna set it up? Yeah. Okay. So Mr. Hooper, this is, we are 1983. Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: Um, Mr. Hooper, who was one of the humans, the human characters on Sesame right from the beginning. He has the store, he's the shopkeeper. Mm-hmm. Hooper store. And, uh, as often happens when there are actors on the older side who are on a show for many years, the, the, the actor dies, and then Mr. Hooper, then the character also dies. And Big Bird Learning what death is after being told that Mr. Hooper is not gonna come back. CLIP - Mr. Hooper Big Bird It's everything. We talked about that, that's good with Sesame. The, the sort of like, um, eye to eye look, uh, with children and. While meeting them at their own level and respecting the fact that they don't know what it means for someone to die, uh, and that you need to teach them about it and educate them about it. Um, also not pandering to them and not saying like, oh, he's, he's gone to sleep or he's gone to heaven, or he's, he's like, you know, he's on a long trip or ignore or ignoring even the fact, but just saying, yeah, this is part of life. He's not gonna come back. But we loved him a lot when he was here and, um, this is a lesson that one struggles with for their entire life. You know, we don't like it and we have to live with it. Alex Schwartz: Yeah.I actually think it's one of like the most radical and revolutionary moments in television history. I'm just gonna put that out there because there's so many things about it. There's, there's the questions that Big Bird has. There's also the emotions that all the adult actors are feeling. They have lost one of their friends. Their friends, yeah. And by the way, was a pretty amazing guy. Will Lee, he was blacklisted. Um, and Sesame gave him a job in the sixties and kind of brought him back so that that was quite something. And it also takes its time. I think that's another thing we just don't have enough of in general, that TV paradoxically may have. A, a role to play in just feeling some time. They're pausing, they're trying to think through their answers. There isn't this snappy. Every second has to be filled. There's silences, there are gaps. And that more than anything, I think is okay and good, that time has to be taken. Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: And the time is precious. And in this very short clip, you really feel that. And I, I just, it's, it's one of the pinnacles of children's tv. And no, Mr. Hooper cannot be dying every single week. And everyone's confronting it all the time. Like that's not the point either. But they just took something that was very real. Vinson Cunningham: No, he can't. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. They took something that was very real. [a][b][c][d] Vinson Cunningham: That'd be a bad show. That Alex Schwartz: would be a bummer. Alex Schwartz: Sesame Street has evolved a ton since it first came on air and to see just how much we went back and watched the very first episode. That's in a minute on critics at large from the New Yorker :: MIDROLL 1 :: we've been talking about. Sesame Street. We've been talking about the role of Sesame Street in our own lives. The history of Sesame Street coming in like a meteor into 1969 and just changing the life of America's children ever since. So we wanted to know how this whole thing started… well before us. Therefore, we went back, we watched a couple of episodes of Sesame Street. We watched the very first episode of the show from November, 1969, and an episode that aired just a few weeks ago. So to start, let's go back to that original episode, which is called Gordon Introduces Sally to Sesame Street. Take it away, someone who wants to tell us what goes down in this episode. Nomi Fry. Well, Naomi Fry: okay. so the way the episode goes is Gordon, who's a teacher, comes back early from work he brings with him Sally, uh, a young girl. She's maybe like five or six, I would say. Um, and, uh, he walks around and introduce her, introduces her to Sesame Street, um, to the people, the actual people who live on the, on the block and the Muppets who live on the block. CLIP - SESAME STREET INTROS Mm-hmm. Oscar the Grouch, he lives in the trash can. Ernie and birder there, big bird. Mm-hmm. And by way of this introduction of Sally to these things, of course, and introduces the viewer to. These things for the first time, but then there are clips, there's animations there. It's the letter w remit, the frog introduces the letter w with Cookie Monster. Uh, the numbers two and three are introduced There's an explanation about how milk comes, about, how a cow gives milk and you know, how it gets to the supermarket. Mm-hmm. So it's a variety of kind of like educational and, and kind of relational clips in a variety of formats that is introduced to, to the, to the viewer. Vincent, what did you think of the episode? Vinson Cunningham: Um. I thought it was beautiful. It's just so much fun. the level of just like, respect. It's not holding your hand from one segment to the other. They're sort of, um, not jarring, but just like, okay, we're going to a clip. You know? It's just like, it's moving along at an unhurried pace. I believe the episode's about 55 minutes long and, uh, it's just enchanting from the beginning. Naomi Fry: Oh, it's so amazing. And Vinson Cunningham: you just, like, you as an adult, you watch it. You're like, okay, I'm kind of into this. it's kind of a televisual representation of what you want your child's pre-K teacher to be like. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. I just wanna explain that. I raised my eyebrows in shock just now. You did when you said kind of into this. Because I was riveted by every frame. It's so good. It's so good. As an adult, not only was I kind of into the first ever episode of Sesame Street, I ate it up like candy. It made me proud to be an American. Question mark. What the fuck? A hundred percent. My child I know was not at home. Yeah. I'm sitting there watching episode one of Sesame Street thinking. I have a question. This Naomi Fry: is genius. Did you cry with the song, you know, the, the theme song and the, because I haven't, so I have a, you, you haven't heard that Sweet. Sweet. Haven't hit. Yeah, because I have, can you tell me how to get Yeah, yeah. I have a, I have a 14-year-old. It's been a long time since we watched Sesame, but you know, seeing that old opening and hearing that song, Alex Schwartz: [singing] “Sunny day… sweeping the crowds away!” so I didn't cry hearing that. But I will tell you something. So I did cry. So glad you did. I'm so glad you did but just to talk about the first episode, one, a few things really, really struck me. One was the fundamental respect for children. The not talking down to them, the belief that they could catch something a bit funny or a bit weird. Mm-hmm. That they'd be cool with it. There's a little segment where they're discussing number three and they're counting things. 1, 2, 3. But funny things start to happen with the number three, like a fancy waiter lifts one of those silver covers off a dish in front of a child, and they're only three Ps. CLIP: THREE PEAS It's weird. It's odd. It's a bit, honestly, Monty Python, which is another thing that the show reminded me of. Mm-hmm. Just stuff flying at you. Um, and the combination of animation and Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And animation. Being a portal, not into something cutesy, but into something that isn't gonna be accomplished in real life. Surreal. Surreal. Exactly. And the other thing, yes. It's certainly striking to see the ease with which Gordon just puts his hand on Sally's shoulder and leads her around the neighborhood. And no one thinks this is weird or bizarre, and her parents are not just like tracking her every move with the device. Yeah. Alex Schwartz: That is not, you know, gonna happen in our time. No, it's definitely a before the milk carton situation. Yeah. Yes. But also you really get a feel, and this is something that does make me feel, if not exactly nostalgic. 'cause I don't think I ever experienced this then. Well, I guess nostalgic for something I've never known. Oh my God. What's more romantic and poetic than that? Yeah. A relationship with the city itself, where there is a kind of civics that's being performed totally on a screen. Mm-hmm. And it's not in your face and it's not shaking its finger at you and telling you this is how you do it. It's just embodying it. Yeah. It's where neighbors pass each other in the street. And say hello and stop to chat. It's where a woman might be sitting knitting just because that's what she feels like doing. And she's not doing it at home in front of her television. She's doing it out on the street in the open. Even the opening segment, um, the Sunny Day theme song, they're showing clips of city kids, New York City kids Yeah. Who are playing and hanging out and running around. Vinson Cunningham: Sometimes they're in a, a field of grass. Sometimes they're like in what looks like a school yard. There's graffiti around. It's not like a manicured version of a city either. It's just like a real play. Alex Schwartz: Yeah, for sure. I mean, and yeah. And there's just something that is very appealing about that kind of freedom. And I would say that's the, like main, mainly the word I would label to the first sesame is freedom. There's a kind of freedom in creativity and expression. Um, the weirdness of Jim Henson is coming out. There's a great moment also where, um, Gordon is just like putting faces on puppet characters, turning them into little characters, which demystifies for kids how these puppets might be made, but also makes it it magical. They're anything It's, they're anything. They're anything people, yeah. There's real charm and magic happening. Yeah. And you can see that they had hit on something. Um, yeah. I, I like loved going back to that. Um, you know, one question I have is because The show really was designed to be this research backed educational programming, and it was definitely for urban kids. Mm-hmm. It was for kids who might just be sitting in front of their TVs and not going outside to the playground. Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Um, you know, it had a pretty clear point of view about what it wanted to do and, and how it wanted to help its audience. Does it feel political to you or progressive to you that first episode? Vinson Cunningham: Well, it's given its time. The sort of marked non segregation, I think matters. Huge Television had only recently been desegregated. Um, the market, non segregation between, uh, humans and puppets. The ontology of being between, like, these guys are just walking around with their fuzz or whatever. Um, certainly, um, but I like the word that you use. I think it's more a civics than a politics, um, in that. Yeah, everything in the show, and maybe this is what we mean by freedom feels natural. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: It's, um, the sort of gift economy between equals is totally active and everybody seems, um, I think the word is like comfortable or something. Naomi Fry: Yeah, totally. It's, it's interesting Alex, because we were talking about how in fact the kind of, in the quote unquote inclusivity of, of the show was in some ways the product of a political push. So it's not as if it was completely divorced. The creation of the show was completely divorced from what we might now recognize as a, kind of like DEI politics or, or whatever you wanna call it, a kind of like thought out seeking of, of diversity and a representation. And yet. Vince and I, I agree with what you're saying. It never feels like spoonfed to you in any way. Like it doesn't, you don't feel pandered to by some sort of like well-meaning. Liberal authority or something. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Even though let's be real well-meaning liberal authorities made this thing. That's what Im saying. Thank you. Well-meaning liberal authorities. No, you guys, you can do it without pandering. You know, I think Sesame Street felt like it was supposed to be for everyone, and that is actually precisely why people protested when they didn't see themselves reflected. Right. it takes the meaning of representation seriously. Which is that, um, not just for the sake of it, but like the, we all share a world, let's put 'em in the world. Right? Yeah. And that is what makes you wanna hang out on Sesame Street. Yeah. Okay. Let's speed up, shoot through 55 years. Mm-hmm. Oh my God. We will come back to some other things that happened in those 55 years, but let's go right to the present because to contrast that first episode, we also watched an episode called Lights Camera Share, which aired earlier this month. On Max. Mm-hmm. Um, does anyone wanna just quickly synopsize what's going on? Vinson Cunningham: Sure. Alex Schwartz: In lights, camera share. Vincent, take it away. Vinson Cunningham: Ab Absolutely. In short, and of course even the setup of this is reflective of vast change from the beginning. Suddenly there is a, uh, diminutive red monster named Elmo, and he is like the ringleader of everything that's happening. Alex Schwartz: You may have heard of him, Vinson Cunningham: uh, you may have heard of him. He starts, there's a, like the cold open is him standing next to Cookie Monster and talking about different things that you can share. Elmo is talking about different things. Cookie monsters. Of course, mono maniacally focused on cookies or cookies or cookies. And then Elmo and uh, cookie Monster do in fact share some cookies. Hard cut to a situation. Naomi Fry: Smash, cut, smash, cut Vinson Cunningham: Elmo. And some of his friends are like trying to make, uh, a movie, I guess. Yeah. And they want, um, they need some airplanes for the making of their film. And there's a guy named Rudy, a sort of red orange, auburn looking creature who's got two airplanes. And would he, Emma asks, like to share Now I have a problem with this episode because first of all, justice for Rudy, the whole rest of the episode is about getting Rudy to share one, one of his of. Airplanes. He tells them in plain fucking English and he iss polite. He's, I'm, he's very polite. He's polar. I'm polite. He's Naomi Fry: like, no, thank you. Vinson Cunningham: I'm getting mad right now. Yeah, I'm playing airport. No, thank you. I don't wanna share. Thank you. They're well, I'm okay on my own, but you've got two airplanes. I'm playing airport. You need at least two airplanes to play fucking airport. He's 100% right. So children need to be taught, yes, sometimes to share, but also to respect the boundaries of a child who is working with his own property and would like, oh my God, it's once again, Naomi Fry: we're going libertarian mode. Or just, or just, or just liberal. Let's be human beings. Vinson Cunningham: Or just liberal democracy. We believe in private property. Sorry. Um, joking. It's about boundaries. It's, Naomi Fry: it's about, I'm more Vinson Cunningham: of a social democrat. Yeah. It's about boundaries and it's about like. If someone says, I don't want to share, leave him alone. And maybe later when he's done playing, he'll let you use the air. Anyway. Elmo and Friends, stage a fucking intervention. First in words. Are you sure? Are you sure? Nudging this, nudging, insistent, barely consensual falsetto. Dude, don't you want to, could you please? And, and then they're like, oh, it looks like somebody from the, on the other side's like. Oh, now they're fucking trolling him. Oh, Rudy looks like he's getting a little bit upset. Oh, Rudy's kind of shaking. How do you feel, Rudy? Would you say it's anger and Rudy's like, yeah. You don't know anything that's going on in Rudy's life. He could be overrun by siblings and this is the only time he ever gets to play with these air. And now you're trolling him asking him about his physical affect because he doesn't wanna share. Alex Schwartz: You do know what's going on in Ray's life if you've been watching Sesame, but that is not to say that your point is not a hundred percent solid, which it is. Oh my God, you nailed it. Vinson Cunningham: Leave so fucking annoying. Rudy. Get Rudy alone. Alone. They gotta do song and dance. They gotta now they want to, they, they're showing him the inside of their film and there's a little funny, kind of like parody of, um, the Twilight Zone happening and the whatever. That Naomi Fry: was the only part I liked. That was funny. Yeah, I have to say, because it seemed a little bit like to, you know, harken back to the spirit of DIY or seeming DOIY, at least, that made the original sesame. Mm-hmm. So magical. But I, I, I wanna say also that the technique with which to deal with anger after they aroused the beast of Rudy's anger, Vinson Cunningham: pushing him, pushing him, pushing Naomi Fry: him, pushing him. They pull out a glitter jar. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: And they say Alex Schwartz: they treat him like an Naomi Fry: animal. And they say, when you feel angry, take a deep breath and shake this glitter jar. And the way the glitter swirls in the jar is like your feelings of anger swirling inside you. But then they settle. Don't you feel better, Rudy? And Rudy says, I guess so, Vinson Cunningham: but harassed by a, a mob you know what, how about you if you are feeling upset because somebody won't share with you. How about you do a little thing that everybody needs to learn how to do, which is fuck off. I'm sorry. I was enraged. Vincent Naomi Fry: is mad as hell and he is not gonna take it anymore. Rage. Vincent, have you tried a belly breath? Have you shaken a jar of glitter? Do you love me? Alex Schwartz: Produce my jar of glitter. Naomi Fry: Yeah, Vinson Cunningham: So the, the lesson was suspect the production values high, super high, high production values, high and yet angles, camera angles that you never saw on the, I mean, there's some over s the shoulder stuff happening. Slum. The slum is, is no, we don't Naomi Fry: do slums anymore, but also Brooklyn Heights. I'm trying to parse whether this is just the classic, you know, when we talked about this, when we had our SNL episode, like are the best seasons of SNL the seasons you watch when you were in the correct age to watch them? Is it the same with Temi that I remember like the eighties as a kind of like beautiful mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: Uh, time of, of the perfect version of Sesame and, but were I like, whatever 15 right now, I would be like, oh yeah, the mid aughts were like amazing. You know what I mean? like. Do I not like it because it's not good? Or do I not like it because it's just like I'm too old? Alex Schwartz: Well, I have a few things to say. Yes, please, on this count, because I've watched a lot of recent sesame. First of all, Vincent, you couldn't be more right. That was some nonsense, and I feel sad about it because I don't feel that all recent sesame is as degraded as this particular concept was. Okay, so this was, Naomi Fry: so this was particularly. Not great that. Well, I do think that Alex Schwartz: something has been going on. So one thing that's going on here is that Sesame, since it was acquired by HBO Max, has shrunk the length of its episodes from an hour into 30 minutes, and the attendant. Time pressure that that's put on Sesame, I think has made it much more like driven around message. Like, yeah, here's the message we're gonna get through and this is really the note we wanna hit. You can kind of hear them in the writer's room being like, all right, all right. This whole episode is about sharing. We're gonna just push that. We're gonna push sharing here. We're gonna, we're gonna get these kids to share, which is of course not how, first of all, you do teach someone to share and it makes it feel less fun in those ways. you know, in some ways I'm like, I wish we hadn't watched this one. But in other ways it really nails what's wrong here. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. That Naomi Fry: was not good. I needed to see it. I needed to see where we were. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I, I, I didn't think, the way in which it's not just, not just pedagogy, but is also a form of entertainment for children was still there. Like at one point Rudy just like breaks out into to song as if he's in the middle of a recent musical. Or like, there's a lot of, like I said, the, the sort of parody within the film that was happening. There's a lot of fun stuff that I think that kids, I could see a kid sort of, uh, repeating and carrying into their own day and sort of making their friends laugh, which is always was the point of TV for me. It's like, what's a new way to be funny, say things, whatever. Um, so I don't, I, I don't wanna be totally declines, especially since I don't have all the relevant context, but um, yeah, there were, there were things there and maybe they just reflect different ways of child rearing. I feel like the kids on the old Sesame Street were more kind of like latchkey kids. Yeah, a hundred percent. You know what I mean? They're just like kind of hanging around and. The fact that that is not a feature of the show is a reflection of the reality that no kids are just hanging around and if you see a kid just hanging around, you are alarmed and, and you know, try to find out where's their adult and all kinds of things. So that might just be very similar to Alex Schwartz: Sesame Street has been a constant in the culture for over 50 years. Today though, there are more options for kids entertainment than there ever have been. So do we still need sesame stick around? :: MIDROLL 2 :: Okay. So we've been talking about Sesame Street Old and New and some of the new turns that it's taken in. Its HBO era and now that ERA is ending. We have just been. Whipping our heads back and forth watching the craziness of what's been happening with Sesame, or at least I have. So let's just go over some of what's recently gone down. Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street, laid off 20% of its stuff earlier this year. The federal government has cut public funding for PBS. Um, there was concern because the HBO deal was already running out, that SESAME would have nowhere to go. Someone made a LinkedIn post Yeah. In the voice of Elmo to bemoan being laid off, uh, which caused great concern. Um, it wasn't an official, it was not, it was not Elmo himself. Exactly. Vinson Cunningham: It was an imposter. Alex Schwartz: And then it was announced, woohoo, Netflix is actually going to be distributing. Sesame Street, it's not over yet. Season 56 is coming up. And one thing I will say that I think is very good about that mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: Part of the deal with the HBO situation was that HBO would get to premiere the episodes nine months before they aired on PBS, which felt very much like rich man, poor man situation. Mm-hmm. And totally to me, against the ethos of what SESAME stands for. And that is gonna be rectified in the Netflix era. They are gonna air them at the same time. Um, there's also gonna be another new format, which of course we can't evaluate yet, but apparently it's going to be, it's getting rid, Sesame's gonna get rid of what has been called forever, it's magazine format, that nice variety of different things mm-hmm. That you see, especially in the hour long episodes. Right. Where you get a bit of story and you get the Muppets doing their thing and you get this one and you get a little bit of animation and you get clips and you get, and now they're going to, I think. Be like telling more of a story as other kid shows do, including more animation. So what do you guys make of all this chaos? Vinson Cunningham: Um, as a noted lover of magazines and things made in the style of magazines, the Democratic, what we call the mix, you know, Naomi Fry: front of book, Vinson Cunningham: front, front of book, back of book, book, back Naomi Fry: of book Vinson Cunningham: the, well, anyway, um, I, uh, Alex Schwartz: it's a little shop talk for you. Yeah, Vinson Cunningham: sorry. Um, I, that, that I, you know, that makes me feel sad. Um, but I do think that, uh, the sort of recapturing of the, uh, whatever you want to call it, franchise, the property, the IP for, um, something that we can broadly construe as the public. Something that you can depend on being available, as I said before, as a kind of utility, I think is good. Number one, there ought to be things that exist within a sort of. Widely available commons, you know, it's good for kids, I think, to have that kind of education, a cultural education. There was certain kind of American songbook stuff that I only learned because of Looney Tunes. The way that Bugs Bunny sang. He was this kind of, sometimes it was like racist. I don't know. It was like, but it was also like, um, he was a repository of. Um, styles that would one day like ramify forward toward me and would matter to me. I think, um, that's what I hope at least the, the show continues to try to do. Um, and, uh, 'cause there is a way that, again, we are all inheritors of something and so, um, and we usually need artworks, forms of media, whatever, to sort of convey those things to us so. Alex Schwartz: Well, what I love about your saying, what you're saying, in part, I love many things about it, but one thing is we've been talking about the progressive bones of Sesame Street and, um, what it was trying to do in terms of just bringing some of those values to children more widely and now you're making the conservative case for that tradition. Yeah. A common culture. That's true. And I think that's legit. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Here certainly, I mean, I'm definitely feeling like, yeah, I'm feeling my age. In the sense of like, Hey, what about all of these wonderful things that we grew up on? Yeah. Naomi Fry: And how can we keep them going for the next generation? You know, like, what am I, like, some sort of like whatever Republican. Yeah. Like Archie Bunker, like see sitting screaming at the tv, like, look at these. But you know, when the values that I feel like were at play when I was growing up on sesame are, are progressive values, then is that still conservative to say, like, I, I want these values to still remain. And there is something about, um, as you said before, Vincent, kind of like the, the, yeah, the, the style of joke, the pattern of jokes, You know, like the first episode of Sesame from 69 that we watch, you know, like I. Ernie is sitting in, in, at the store and, um, drinking a glass of milk Naomi Fry: Um, he takes a sip and he says, you know, like, excellent milk, my compliments to the cow and like that my compliments to the cow thing. Yeah. Like I would love to retain some of, of that spirit, you know, instead of just saying, Hey, can you learn to share? Yeah. Naomi Fry: I'll learn to share, you know, or, or, or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like a little bit of a flourish, a little bit of like a, a beyond messaging, let's say, you know? Yeah. A personality and character. Yeah. Yeah. I Alex Schwartz: do think Sesame at its best still has that. And, um, and is it risk of losing more of it than we'd. Like to see, let's, let's put it that way. And I think, I do think it has something to do with the modern era of parenting. Um, yeah, a lot of things have gotten better in parenting in general than I think they were in 1969. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think Sesame probably is at the forefront of a lot of that. Like we're parents, parents have been raised on sesame now for success of generations. Yeah. A lot of things having to do with listening to kids, respecting what kids say, respecting kids' feelings. Um, all of these things are baked into what Sesame truly is about, and I think it's done a lot of good. I do think there's a trend in parenting right now that has a lot to do with scripts. What do you do if your kid does X when your kid is having big feelings? What do you say? There's a lot of Instagram content around this, like Dr. Becky and stuff. Yeah, there are a lot of exactly who's, who's, um, a psych child psychologist who, um, is very, very big on Instagram. There's a lot of stuff around that, and I think some of that has crept into sesame. I think that's what was going on with the Rudy episode. Mm-hmm. For instance, in part, um, here's what to say when, and it, I think it can be a useful resource definitely, but it also can be really depersonalizing and that side of it came through in this sesame episode for me It's feeling very adult directed. Yeah. In terms of messaging and what we wanna get across. And again, some of that great, like they're talking about inclusion this season and they're talking about this and that holiday and Yeah. But to me it all feels pretty phoned in at the moment. So Ted Sarandos, if you can hear me, give the kids power, give them back the power, the imagination, the weirdness. This thing about, Vinson Cunningham: one thing that I do think is so interesting and I. Also why adults should, maybe not just in the course of being parents themselves, but generally like, know what's going on with children's programming is that it does, the way that a children's program proceeds does give us a hint into the kind of like subjects or just people that society is producing, like what it takes to, um, function in a society. So maybe it was a uniquely mid-century thing that like, you know, progressive meant a kind of, um, not economic libertarianism, but like a libertarianism of the spirit. Just like you do you I do me And we can get along. Yeah. And maybe, you know, um, hey, here's what you say. So that like. Nobody gets mad and everybody feels better. And you know, maybe this is like the HR department era of Naomi Fry: it's totally that Vincent of like, you don't Vinson Cunningham: get in, you know, you say this and then you this. Here's how you get outta the situation. Um, you never compliment someone on their clothes. And also it's like, yes, these are things that make us feel strange, but maybe that's just because it is a verisimilitude that reminds us that actually childhood is not the same as it was when we were kids. So, I don't know, like maybe that's just me. Alex Schwartz: So with all this in mind, guys, do you still think Sesame Street is of value? What's the consensus here? Vinson Cunningham: Yes. Long may it live and yes, long may it live. And the moment I think, um, my sweet little girl is ready for it, I'm gonna, she's gonna be a watcher until, you know, until it runs its course. Um, that's how I did it with my older daughter. That's how I'll do it again. Alex Schwartz: And you can go to the past. You can, you can watch the past episodes too. Well, I, I was Vinson Cunningham: gonna say, my goddaughter, um, shout out to Zinzi. I love you. Um, her parents on purpose, uh, like gave her via HBO max the first season, like the early episodes, um, as opposed to the current ones. And it's, I mean, this is the, one of the values of, of streaming. It's like you can go back and back and back. Alex Schwartz: I do feel that once they're aesthetically programmed for the bright colors and the fast pace, it's hard to go farther back. So that's smart. To begin. You gotta start back. Yeah. Start in the sixties and the seventies. Naomi Fry: Um, no me, tell me. Yeah, I, I mean, absolutely. I don't wanna live in a world that doesn't have sesame, even if it's just from that conservative impulse. What, you know, we've been calling the conservative impulse of legacy and tradition and, and what I learned, I would like my children to learn and their children and so on, you know? Alex Schwartz: Well, Naomi Fry: it's concern with adjustments, obviously, for contemporary developments, but yes, I, I think so. Alex Schwartz: No conservative little C is it? It can be cool guys. Little can be good. Little, little C civilization. The letter of the day is little CI mean, it's, we're, we're talking, we're talking about, I'm talking about the fact that we believe Naomi Fry: conservation, Alex Schwartz: well, we believe certain values are important and endure Vinson Cunningham: continuity. Yeah. Another C word. Alex Schwartz: Yeah, exactly. Vinson Cunningham: Community Alex Schwartz: inclusion. Communism. Community. Vinson Cunningham: Communism. Civics. Alex Schwartz: Long. May they live Vinson Cunningham: long. May they live. ________________ Alex Schwartz: This has been Critics at Large. Our senior producers are Michele O’Brien and Rhiannon Corby, and Alex Barasch is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Condé Nast's head of global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Cuadrado composed our theme music, and we had engineering help today from Jake Lummus, with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of Critics at Large at newyorker dot com slash critics. [a]@michele_obrien@condenast.com this second "they took something that was very real" maybe we trim it? We don't get Alex's point - don't want to mess up the pacing.. we would need a comic space for Vinson to come in with "that would be a bad show." @bdalton90@gmail.com [b]+1! [c]@steven_valentino@condenast.com do you want me to cut Alex’s second “they took something that was very real” altogether? Or put a beat between that and Vinson’s next line? [d]This works for me! Thank you! [e]@bdalton90@gmail.com - since we cut the earlier mention, we should cut this as well if it cuts cleanly! _Assigned to bdalton90@gmail.com_ [f]+1 [g]@bdalton90@gmail.com - did this not cut cleanly? [h](it's at 27:52) [i]possible to smooth this cut? @bdalton90@gmail.com _Assigned to bdalton90@gmail.com_ [j]+1