Street Knowledge (Chapter 7)

 

Chapter 7: Unhealthy Rumors For Life

In the early 2000s, childhood obesity became a big issue to the public and it was reinforced as a cause for concern by data published to the CDC, because no matter what Fat Albert might have made you think, living that lifestyle can be really dangerous.

Of course, health was always something Sesame Street was trying to teach, but for their 36th season, they decided to crank it up to 11, by starting up a new initiative called “Healthy Habits For Life”, where our favorite neighbors would spend episodes, sketches, segments and inserts, stressing to us the importance of exercise, eating healthy food, and just taking care of your body, in general.

It was a great plan, and a great season, but something terrible happened during it, that I don’t think anyone ever actually saw coming.

Now, Cookie Monster, being the muppet known for his love of eating, was a major player in this initiative, learning that while it’s totally okay to eat cookies, he should also try to eat other healthier foods, as well. This was basically what was said in the season 36 press release, and it wasn’t really treated as a big deal, because it wasn’t. There was also a song that Hoots sung to Cookie Monster called “A Cookies Is A Sometime Food”, which basically said the message I just went over, but in a catchier way.

And also, Grover made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s live show to not only promote the 36th season, but also a DVD called “Happy Healthy Monsters”, while doing this, he ad-libbed a joke about Cookie having a cookie problem and going on a diet.

The press/entertainment people saw this, along with other pieces of media like that, and we all know when those people get a hold of something, they love to exaggerate as much as they possibly can.

So, what went from:

In season 36 of Sesame Street, Cookie Monster is gonna learn more about eating healthy foods, and that cookies aren’t the only thing he should eat.

Eventually turned into:

From this moment on, Cookie Monster is going off sweets for good and is now changing his name to “Veggie Monster”. Panic is not advised, although it is recommended.

And mayhem ensued.

For years, (What even seemed like decades) you could not go anywhere without hearing someone mention how they hated that Cookie Monster was giving up cookies and was now the Veggie Monster, and how it apparently “ruined their childhood”. Heck, this rumor got so widespread that even some of my classmates in junior high believed it!

My first exposure to the rumor wasn’t actually an exposure, but more of a set-up, I watched an episode of the Cartoon Network show, MAD where there was a parody the show House, where Mickey is a doctor to Cookie Monster, who reveals that he’s been eating healthy food secretly, and even says. “Me Cookie Monster, not Veggie Monster.”

And I thought to myself: “Heh heh. That’s funny, but there’s no way people are ACTUALLY gonna believe that.”

Oh, how innocent and naive I was.

Now, I’m 90% sure most of you reading this know what I’m about to say, but I’m still gonna say it for the 10% of people who are still confused.

Cookie Monster was not, is not, and never will be the Veggie Monster.

And there is a large amount of evidence to prove this. And I’m gonna go through most of it, right here, right now.:

• As you may have noticed, in the “Cookie Is A Sometime Food” song, Cookie Monster still eats a cookie when Hoots is finished.
• If you’ll remember from chapter 4, I showed a rap that Cookie Monster sang about eating healthy food, which, need I remind you, was in the 80s.
• Also in the 80s, there was a segment where Maria gave Cookie Monster some healthy foods to eat, and he ate them. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_awYVNhTrUU&t=45s)
• In the 70s he was featured eating healthy in both a puzzle AND a PSA.
• Matt Lauer interviewed Cookie Monster in a segment, where he tells everyone he likes both fruits AND cookies.
• There was a whole freaking episode season 43, where Cookie Monster goes to great lengths to disprove this rumor. (And by great lengths, I mean singing this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxDpW8kiBeM)
• Jim Henson himself said this: "Well, we did a commercial for The Nutrition Council with Cookie Monster, mostly to offset all those cookies we forced down his throat!"
• In a Wired video where the Sesame Street characters answer web questions, Cookie becomes exasperated when the Veggie Monster question comes up multiple times.
• And if you look at any piece of Cookie Monster media, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, you’d see that not only does Cookie Monster eat food, he eats almost anything and everything.

So there! This is all the evidence I’m gonna put here, but more of it will pop us as you continue reading this biography, so once you’re done reading this, I should not ever hear you say, “Man, I wish Cookie Monster was still Cookie Monster.”, because he is! OK?! OK?!?!? OK!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

(takes a few deep breaths) Sorry about that. Lost my cool for a second. Anyway, let’s talk about the rest of season 36.

As, I previously mentioned, the characters would spend most of their screen time teaching us about being healthy. Some memorable adventures include Elmo and Zoe playing the Health Food Game Show, Miles using his awesome singing voice to sell fruit at Hooper’s Store, we find out it takes 40 balloons to lift a snuffleupagus, Oscar, Grudngetta and Elmo try out to be apprentices for Donald Grump, (Again, GUESS who he’s parodying.) and for a two-part episode, Big Bird shrinks.

Guest stars this season include Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who hung out on the street for an entire episode, and reveals to Cookie Monster that the moon is not a cookie.

Alicia Keys danced with Elmo.

Lang Lang did some grouch music with Oscar’s band.

And Joe Torre helped Telly catch a ball.

Okay, now it’s time for 2006 and season 37, an even better season, because it included some game changers. The first one I’m gonna go over involves Best Sesame Street Human, Gina. In this season, she would do what Gordon and Susan did 20 seasons ago, and adopt a child.

In episode 4130, Gina would travel to Guatemala, with Maria in tow, and come back just an episode later, with her new baby son, Marco.

While Marco certainly is cute, and the rest of the cast did give him an official Sesame Street welcome, (complete with the alphabet, triangles, Super Grovers and grouches.), he unfortunately never got a chance to grow into a much more memorable character, like Gabi and Miles.

Speaking of Gabi and Miles, they would graduate high school this season in episode 4112. And some of you might be thinking, “But wait, weren’t Miles and Gabi introduced 4 years apart from each other?” And you’d be right. The producers claim that they re-aged and adjusted the two over the years to make them the same age, but I came up with my own theory that I feel makes much more sense: Gabi was a prodigy for the first few years of her life, and was able to catch up to Miles at his level of education. Now isn’t that a better explanation?

This season would also introduce a new muppet. One who would make Sesame Street a lot more magical than it already was.

This is Abby Cadabby. She’s the 3 year old daughter of Cinderella’s fairy godmother, and she made her debut in the premiere episode. Given an outstanding performance by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, she establishes herself as a fairy-in-training, who can fly using wings she has on her back, and a magic wand she can use to cast all kinds of different spells, mainly turning things into pumpkins.

Much like Elmo, Abby really clicked with the kids at home, and in no time at all, she rose up the ranks of popular Sesame Street characters and became a fan-favorite. And speaking of Elmo, while Abby did make friends with practically everyone on Sesame Street, she made a particularly close relationship with the red fuzzy 3 ½ year old. And together, the two would become the duo of Sesame Street characters that kids loved the most.

Also worth noting, with Abby’s introduction the main muppet cast for Sesame Street was finally set in stone. From this moment on, all the characters you see in the picture above would be the ones that stayed on the street the longest and have had the most episodes, shorts, merchandise and promotional material dedicated to them.

Now back to season 37. Other noteworthy episodes in this season include Abby starting school with Baby Bear, Elmo changing his name to Jelmo, Luis and Maria attempting to celebrate their wedding anniversary, a dinosaur named Herb visiting the street for a day, Big Bird unintentionally turning Gordon, Maria and Alan into kids, and Cookie Monster doing a full-on spoof of Elmo’s World revolved around, what else, cookies.

Some of the memorable shorts include Jamie Foxx meeting Jamie Fox.

In an interesting spin on a classic, Mr. Johnson gets served at Russian restaurant, with Grover doing the serving, as always.

And the return of the Twiddlebugs, this time in CGI form.

But season 37 of SS wouldn’t be the only Sesame related thing this year.

There was also the DVD series Sesame Beginnings, which stars baby versions of Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Prairie Dawn, who spent every day in the care of their parents/guardians, and the only reason you should watch it is to see how adorable these baby muppets are, dear god they are so adorable!!!

But anyway, each of the characters were taken care of by a different family member, Big Bird was taken care of by his aunt, Nani Bird, Cookie Monster was taken care of by his grandma, Prairie Dawn was taken care of by her mom, and Elmo was taken care of by his dad.

Speaking of Elmo’s dad, whose name is Louie, by the way, he and Elmo’s mom, Mae, would be featured in the first of many videos made for “Talk, Listen, Connect” a series made by Sesame Workshop to support families who have members in the military, and would probably face deployments, homecomings and of course, changes. All three things Elmo himself went through when Louie got deployed, but don’t worry, he came back, so everything worked out for our favorite little furball.

Now we come to 2008, where the show itself was about to go through a few changes. The first of which being a new intro. This time the theme was given a more funky beat, and the visual aspect was a CGI foldout of the setting, with many of the main muppets making appearances as well.

There was also something new that would happen before the intro. Murray, a monster who made his actual debut 2 years ago, would now appear before every episode began to host a segment known as “The Word On The Street”, where he would interview actual people on what a certain word is, and then said word would be part of the focus of the episode.

Also this season, the human cast would get a new addition of the Robinson variety. In episode 4136, Chris Knowings makes himself known as Chris Robinson, nephew of Gordon and Susan, and in this episode, he lands a job at Hooper’s Store, which he still has to this very day.

Also, you know how all of the episodes from season 35-37 have ended with Oscar reading Slimey, a chapter of Trash Gordon? Well, in this season, he’d still do that sometimes, but other times he’d read Slimey a different book, other times Abby would recite the sponsors, other times Gina would tell Marco a story she made up about her job as a vet, other times Oscar would close the show with his band, other times Abby would read a “Real People Tale”, other times Telly would read a bedtime story to his triangle. You get the idea, right? They had a ton of ending gags for the show, and getting to see a certain one you liked was rather unlikely.

But anyway, onto the actual street stories: Big Bird breaks Elmo’s tricycle, Elmo got to become a Bookaneer, gets to act out his favorite book, gets a pet Shaggy Snufflesaurus, learns how to bowl, and learns that jealousy is normal, Oscar hosts the Grouch News Network, or GNN, and Rosita, Zoe and Abby try to play together. So, some good selections this season.

There were also some shorts/segments that aired in this season, which include Abby singing how much she loves words.

Her, Zoe and Rosita singing about how they’re such good friends.

Gina explains the word windy, with help from the wind.

She and Rosita go through every part of Marco's body through song.

Chris participates in a magic trick performed by Grover.

James Blunt sings to Telly about missing his favorite shape.

Anderson Cooper goes on GNN with two other ace grouch reporters.

And this song right here, that made young, pubescent me realize: Wow. The Human Ladies of Sesame Street are really attractive. Like really really attractive. Especially Gina.

Also, this year would see the debut of the controversial, or at least controversial based on the reviews I’ve seen of it, Sesame Street Christmas special, “Elmo’s Christmas Countdown”, which featured our beloved SS muppets, the usual guest stars, and Ben Stiller as a muppet elf.

Now it’s time to talk about season 39, which also featured some changes.

First off, on the street, the Fix-It Shop was replaced by a laundromat, and Gina’s vet office was converted back to a garage. Where Luis, Maria and Gina did their jobs for the rest of the show, I can’t say for sure.

But speaking of the humans, they would get another addition, this time in Leela, (Played by Nitya Vidyasagar) a young Indian-American woman who took ownership of the laundromat I just told you about.

As for Murray, not only would he continue hosting the Word On The Street segments, not only would he make one of his few appearances on the street in the premiere episode, but he would also be joined by a little lamb named Ovejita in a new segment that debut this season, “Murray Has A Little Lamb”, where the two of them would go to a different school and learn different things.

Our favorite roommate duo also got their own segment this season called “Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures”, where they imagine themselves in different scenarios and pretend to be different things. Detectives, Bakers and Superheroes, to name a few. All while in claymation.

Now, this is about the time where I really started paying attention to the show, and because of that, I pretty much know/enjoy most of these episodes, so to save time, I’m just gonna go over the five ones I think deserve the most recognition.

1. Sesame Street gets infected with a grouch sickness called Mine-itis.
2. In the premiere episode I just told you about, Telly becomes Texas Telly and tries to find the Golden Triangle of Destiny.
3. Elmo, Rosita and Telly become Help-O-Bots.
4. Abby tries to kiss Oscar and turn him into a prince.
5. And Elmo and Zoe see who, between them, can wear the most hats on their head.

Now even though I just went over five of these, most of the others are also really great, too. In fact, season 39 is one of my personal favorite seasons, I recommend you give it a watch. There would also be a change in the format, instead of the usual letter, number and ending segments we saw in the previous seasons, this season would have segments extended from the street scene that aired previously, so it felt more like you were watching a continuing episode.

Also worth noting, Miles, who made his last appearance this season, did the very catchy Forward Backward dance.

And one more thing about this season, from there the show would still be filmed in Kaufman Astoria Studios, but now it would be filmed on stage J, just three floors above stage G.

Now, I wanna go over four other Sesame Street related things that were given to us this year.

Abby In Wonderland, as you probably guessed from the title, is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, with Abby playing the titular character, and the rest of the SS muppets playing the other Wonderland inhabitants. (Elmo is the White Rabbit, Cookie Monster is the Cheshire Cat, Grover is the Mad Hatter, etc.)

Leslie Feist sings a song about counting to a number that's one less than five and one more than three.

The official Sesame Street website got a redesign this year, where I spent a majority of my kid life going on.

And last, but not least, Street Gang, a book written by Michael Davis (and one that I intend to hopefully get for Christmas this year) about the complete, up-to-2008 history of Sesame Street. Basically, what I’m doing right now, except both more and less informative.

And let me tell you guys, this is a good note to end this chapter on, because in the next one, we’re getting to the part where Sesame Street hits the big 4-0.

Chapter 6: https://thomperfan.blogspot.com/2020/10/street-knowledge-chapter-6.html

Chapter 8: https://thomperfan.blogspot.com/2020/10/street-knowledge-chapter-8.html