TSSR- Season 2 (1970-1971)

 

Sequels, by definition, are published, broadcast, or recorded works that continue the story or develop the theme of an earlier one. To quote The Unlucky Tug:

“A good sequel ultimately shows growth from the previous, raises the stakes a bit, and most importantly, feels necessary.”

And I can say with 100% certainty that a second season for Sesame Street was definitely necessary, since the first season, while good enough on its own had characters and educational concepts that could be changed and expanded on. Season 2 does just that, and then some. How you may ask? Let’s jump right into this installment and find out. This is Sesame Street Season 2.

Production History

So after Sesame Street aired the final episode of season 1, it had already captured the hearts and minds of the public, so it was pretty telling that Children’s Television Workshop was going to be back for more. And they were. Most of the main team was back. David D. Connell was still the executive producer, Joe Raposo was still the music director, and Chet O’Brien was still the stage manager, but there were also quite a few new faces this time around, and many of them were handling jobs previously given to other people.

Jim’s team had also gotten noticeably larger, as well. Whereas in the first season, it was just him, Frank Oz, and Caroll Spinney, this season brought in Jerry Nelson, and Fran Brill, the first official female Henson puppeteer that wasn’t his wife.

I can’t find any production dates anywhere online, but the first episode of the season debuted on November 9, 1970, just a day before the first season made its premiere a year prior.

Overview

The second season of Sesame Street does what any follow-up of anything should do by keeping the stuff that works and fixing the stuff that needs improvement.

First, let’s talk about the lessons it focused on teaching. For starters, it took the letter and number lessons from before and expanded on them going to more difficult concepts. So instead of just focusing on numbers 1-10, they added numbers 11-20 to the mix, and instead of just going over what letters start which words, they focused more on how to break words into syllables and how to sound them out. (They even made a song to try out different word family combinations, like at, op, and an.) And it wasn’t just English they went over, they actually incorporate some Spanish lessons that would continue to be a facet of the show going forward. Sesame Street actually felt like it was evolving with the type of lessons it taught its audience. Speaking of which, another sign of evolution for the show moving forward, was its set design.

In the first season, the sets were very minimal with their detailing, such is not the case with season 2. For example, instead of going in a straight line, the street set now has a curve area where an arbor is located, where we frequently see the kids playing, and Big Bird's nest, located behind the colorful doors is now being shown on-screen. The same thing goes for the settings in the muppet segments. They started out as just brick walls and single-colored backgrounds but morphed into still those, but you also get places like dark forests, inside of buildings, and on city streets, even with there being more variation with the colored backgrounds featured. It’s clear more effort was put into making these worlds feel more real than they were.

One more aspect that was significantly improved was the storytelling segments, which in the first season, consisted of the human cast reading actual books to either the audience, or the audience and one or two kids that happen to be there, but for the second season, the human cast were still the storytellers, but they were now telling made-up stories while having the muppets act each story out, and I gotta say, I prefer this style of storytelling much more. While all the books being read in the first season were all interesting to some degree, (Mostly due to the cast’s great reading skills.) not only are the stories that the writers made more interesting and engaging, it gives the muppet cast more to do, and honestly, they help make the stories funny and enjoyable, and I’m glad it stayed a part of the show afterward, for as long as it did. Speaking of which…

Characters

The characters themselves, specifically the muppets, are also a great sign of the show’s evolution. At least, the ones brought back from the first season, anyway, because they start to act more like the characters we know them as nowadays. We’ll start with Big Bird and Oscar since they’re still the street MVPs.

After the first season, Caroll Spinney and the rest of the crew agreed that portraying Big Bird as a dumb and goofy adult probably wasn’t the best way to go about his character. So, starting with this season, Big Bird became an actual stand-in for the kids watching at home, canonically being the same age as they are, and you can notice that with many of the episodes he appears in. He looks less like a pinhead, his voice is less dopey, and the situations he gets himself into are more in line with what kids most likely experience in their everyday lives. Though, that’s not to say his dopey personality doesn’t come out every once and a while. Also, remember how I said in the previous installment how season 1 seems to be the only season where we learn about Big Bird’s other family members? I think his character might’ve been the reason why we never heard from them again, afterward. Since Big Bird was now more or less the kid of the show, the writers probably realized, they didn’t need to write new parent characters for him, since they had the humans to fill that role, so they hyper-focused on the grownups of SS being Big Bird’s surrogate parents, and kinda swept any trace of Big Bird’s blood family, aside from a few exceptions, under the rug. Now, after thinking about it for a while, I do think this was the right direction for the show to go in, and it did lead to some really great things further down the road that we’ll get to later on, but it is rather interesting how rewriting a character can cause such change.

As for Oscar… Well, he’s a bit harder to talk about. The first thing to mention is his new fur color. You know the deal. Oscar went to Swamp Mushy Muddy, didn’t wash off the slime, and he’s been green ever since. In terms of his personality, he still wasn’t as grouchy as he cement himself to be, as he still had a few friendly discussions with the grown-ups and even had two segments, where he was particularly friendly to Ernie and Bert, giving them chocolate ice cream cones, and a new rubber duckie for Ernie after he lost his original one. But that’s not to say there wasn’t a notable rise in his grouchiness, since he also had a few angry outbursts, a few active attempts at getting people to scram, and we even got to witness some of his family life when his grandma came to visit.

Now I want to quickly go over something noteworthy. In the first season, Big Bird and Oscar were really the only two muppets you’d see on the street, other muppets did appear, but only in one or two episodes, at least from what I’ve seen. But for season 2, the muppet population of Sesame Street went up a significant amount, as we were seeing other muppets make frequent appearances alongside Oscar, BB, and the humans. The larger puppeteer cast probably helped with this, as Fran and Jerry could fill in for the times Jim and Frank couldn’t be on set. Speaking of which, Jim and Frank’s four main characters also had their share of changes going forward.

For the basement-dwelling duo, aside from receiving their iconic sweaters, they now have their true personalities set in stone. Ernie gets many opportunities to show off his versatility, switching between an innocent nuisance, a voice of reason, and a naive youngin, depending on who he interacts with, and he interacts with a LOT of characters this season. On the other side of the coin, Bert is now starting to grow into his lovable square personality, gaining a few of his most-known interests, like paper clips and bottle caps. And together, in this season the two spawn some of their most iconic moments in Sesame Street history. Such examples include the bedroom segments, the one where Ernie has a banana in his ear, the one where Ernie opens Bert’s Aunt Matilda’s present, the one where Bert tries to show Ernie what anger looks like, and my personal favorite, the one where Bert shows Ernie his bottlecap collection.

Cookie Monster is now consuming cookies on a more frequent basis, is still scheming up ways to get said cookies, and though it takes a while, the others do start referring to him as “Cookie Monster”. The only thing still in development is Cookie’s caveman speaking style, but that may come sooner than you think.

And Grover? After this season he’s pretty much set in stone. Blue fur, pink nose, always willing to help people or demonstrate something, tires himself out every time, this is the Grover we’ll be seeing from this point onwards.

You might have noticed that I didn’t mention Kermit yet, and that’s because he wasn’t present for any new material made for season 2. As he was making appearances in other muppet productions, people thought he was “too commercial” for the street, so he was replaced by a guy named Hebert Birdsfoot. Now Herbert wasn’t bad, by any means, and his appearances were funny enough, but he has the same problem as Joe from Blue’s Clues, in that he’s just not as enjoyable as the guy he was replacing. Kermit’s straight-forward and snippy personality, his unlucky streak of lectures gone wrong, and the mere fact that he was a frog were enough for him to leave an impact on the audience, and it’s no wonder why he was brought back the next season, while Birdsfoot fell into obscurity.

Season 2 also introduced a plethora of new muppets, many of which, are distinct, memorable, and enjoyable to some degree. I don’t have time to go over all of them, but I do want to mention two of the biggest standouts.

Prairie Dawn and Herry Monster are two characters who started out as a generic little girl and a less-scary version of the Beautiful Day Monster, respectively, but would soon become their own characters.

Moving on to the humans, all four of the main human cast members came back, and they’re just as good as they were last season, if not better. But they’re not the only humans this time around. Season 2 would introduce Tom, (Played by Larry Block) the first-ever Hooper’s Store employee, and Miguel, the show’s first regular Hispanic character. Though, I’m sorry to say neither of them made as much of an impact as their co-workers did. Fortunately, two other cast members would debut this season who would leave much bigger impressions down the road, but we’ll talk about them in the next installment.

And then, there’s Larry and Phyllis, (Played by Alan Arkin and Barbara Dana, respectively.) who were two new characters made to replace Buddy and Jim from season 1, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t really find them that entertaining to watch. I mean, with B&J, it was genuinely funny to see these two nincompoops fail to face the right way to play Checkers, use an umbrella properly, or get an ironing board through the door without breaking it. Plus their dynamic of dumb guy and dumb guy who thinks he’s smart was a unique one and made for some great interactions between the two. With L&P, from what sketches I’ve seen, it’s just these two doing different things and then at some point, deciding to do them together, and while they did teach cooperation to a degree, I just don’t find them as funny or engaging as the guys who came before them.

But overall, Season 2 did a pretty good job of building upon its old characters and making enjoyable new ones. If I had to pick the MVPs for this season, for muppets, it would be Big Bird, since he gets most of the street scenes and plots to show off his new personality. Mr. Hooper wins MVP in the human category for this season since the episodes focusing on him and his store were the most entertaining.

My Top 5s

Okay, just a heads up, there are scarcely many full episodes of season 2 available online. I was only able to watch five. So, for my first category, I’m gonna have to pick certain street stories that I haven’t seen but sound the most interesting.

My Top 5 Favorite Street Stories

#5: (Episode 227) The One Where Cookie Monster Looks After Hooper’s Store: This is one of those episodes that I couldn’t find a video of, but after reading the premise, it seemed pretty cool. It reminds me of an episode further down the road that I enjoy very much, but the synopsis makes it stand out and feel different. Among his episode antics, Cookie Monster gives Bob a ukulele split, and near the end, orders 200 boxes of cookies that pile up like a landfill. Definitely stuff I’d be down to see from my favorite furry blue glutton.

#4: (Episode 158) The One With Oscar’s Wet Paint Sign: Now here’s one I actually did watch on YouTube, and it’s actually pretty funny. Though I do really feel sorry for Oscar, the man just wanted some sleep. The scene with Big Bird is also pretty funny as well.

#3: (Episode 138) The One Where Gordon and Mr. Hooper Argue Over Who Owns The Garage: Another one that wasn’t available, but one I find very interesting. We rarely see the grownups argue about who owns what property on Sesame Street, so to read about it done here feels very surreal.

#2: (Episode 142) The One Where Oscar Is Different: Another one not available online, but it's also an interesting one. I like the notion of Oscar just choosing to act differently because he wants to see what it’s like. And it has good continuity by having Oscar’s friend from season 1, Melvin Meanie, be the one to remind him who he is again.

#1: (Episode 265) The One With The Ice Cream Machine: One of the only two season 2 episodes on HBO Max, and my preferred one of the duo. I like it because of how it shows how important Mr. Hooper is to Sesame Street, and how advertising something everyone will love is a very flawed way to advertise it. Moe only had two flavors in his ice cream machine without considering the possibility that everyone in the world has different tastes when it comes to ice cream, or anything for that matter. But that’s where Mr. Hooper excels. While it was a little silly for him to worry that Moe’s machine would run him out of business, (Since he does sell more than just ice cream.) he’s shown to know exactly what his customers/neighbors like and want, and he has a variety of different ice cream flavors, so everyone is bound to end up with something they enjoy. This is why Hooper’s Store is vital to Sesame Street. It usually has whatever you need, and Mr. Hooper is very hospitable and an all-around great guy.

Honorable Mentions: Episode 131, Episode 137, Episode 168, Episode 202, Episode 204, Episode 243, Episode 244, Episode 249, and Episode 264

My Least Favorite Street Story: (Episode 268) The One Where Mr. Hooper Makes Oscar A Sundae: I haven’t seen this episode, but it seems like a remake of episode 56, just shorter and in a different location. And considering how much I like that episode, a remake just doesn’t sound that appealing.

My Top 5 Favorite Songs

#5: Count to 20: Listen My Brother is a group that I was not aware of before deciding to do this series, but I’m glad I did, because they’re pretty great. This song in particular is my favorite because of how catchy it is.

#4: Over, Under, Around, and Through: I feel this is a precursor to arguably Grover’s most iconic moment from the show further down the road. What with him assuming the audience didn’t get the concept he demonstrated the first time he did, and then constantly repeating it until he faints. Because of that, I felt this song had to make the list.

#3: Mad: For their first-ever song, Little Jerry and the Monotones sure made one to remember. And it gave us an accurate representation of what angry people look like.

#2: Everyone Makes Mistakes: This was the first song Big Bird performed this season, and it’s quite a catchy little ditty, with a great message. I often think back to it whenever I or people I love make mistakes of our own, as a friendly reminder that mistakes are just experiences we can learn from.

#1: Sing: I bet not many of you knew this song debuted this season and was partially sung by Miguel of all characters, but it did. It’s really no wonder why this song became as popular as it did. Sing has to be one of the most beautiful, feel-good songs in the entire universe. Telling everyone that it doesn’t matter who they are, what they sound like, or how they feel about themselves, everyone’s voice deserves to be heard. Especially today, that’s a message that people need to hear. It may be a cliche and predictable #1 pick, but it is 100% deserving of it.

Honorable Mentions: Up and Down, Circles, I Whistle A Happy Tune, The Word Family Song, and Adding

My Least Favorite Song: First and Last: This song isn’t bad, it’s just the one I like the least out of all the songs this season. It does do a good job of showcasing first and last, at least.

My Top 5 Favorite Segments

#5: Peanut Butter Factory: While I’m nowhere near as much of a peanut butter consumer as I was when I was little, it is cool to see how it gets made.

#4: Number Three Ball Film: A ball rolling down its own rollercoaster and then turning into powder is too cool not to include.

#3: Penguin Rhythms: It’s a tap-dancing penguin. Need I say more?

#2: I Am A Letter: Aside from being a good showcase of how the mail system works, the song that plays over it is so soothing and catchy.

#1: The King Of Eight: Again, this was a pick that was too obvious not to choose. I hadn't watched this segment for quite some time, but when I did, I remembered almost all of it word for word. The beat is illegally ear-wormy, the segment itself is great to look at with its cool designs, and it even has a funny punchline at the end. This is THE segment of season 2.

Honorable Mentions: Queen of Six, New York Knicks, Bill Cosby Says The Alphabet, N Interview, and George the Farmer

My Least Favorite Segment: C is for Carrot: The only thing that really happens here, is a man says the letter C, then the word carrot, and the rabbit eats the word. You’re not missing anything, really.

Conclusion

I’d say the best word to describe season 2 is: Improvement. Season 2 is an improvement of season 1. It improves on most of its characters and molds them into who we know them as today, the lessons and concepts are slightly more advanced, and it makes more catchy and memorable in-between material for its audience.

Season 2 did what any good sequel would do and gave its fans more of what they wanted, and also what they needed, as well. And it was a sign that Sesame Street was just going to continue to pick up steam. But what exactly would they do next? Well, we’ll just have to find out. Won’t we?

Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed the second installment of The Sesame Street Retrospective! I know I sure did. This series is a lot of fun to put together, and I can’t wait to see how it’ll turn out as we get to the newer seasons. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time as we get into season 3! Adios!

*(Images from Tony Whitaker, Muppet Wiki, and Google Images)