A grown-up’s guide to Sesame Street for grown-ups
Oct 14, 2008 | Filed under Misc., TV
Sesame Street is a wonderful educational program that’s been entertaining and informing small children for years. For parents of young children, it can be a great educational tool. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a children’s program that won’t make you want to throw your TV out the window, either. Chances are, though, that it’s been a long time since you watched Sesame Street — or your parents didn’t love you enough to let you watch it when you were a kid — so you may not be as familiar with the characters as you think. With that in mind, I happily present Random Rage’s grown-up’s guide to the characters of Sesame Street, just for grown-ups.
Elmo – Elmo is a 4 year-old monster who has become one of the most popular characters on the show. At first, Elmo may seem a little grating, but his charm and enthusiasm should quickly win over even the most black-hearted and jaded parents. Elmo has a habit of referring to himself in the third person; this is commonly mistaken as behavior befitting his age; in fact, it’s actually so young children can more easily identify him when it comes to asking for toys.
October 14th, 2008: Judgement Day. The day the Elmos went Live.
Children of working families can easily identify with Elmo, because he gets left alone in his room a lot. So much so that the last quarter of the program is now a segment targeted at toddlers and preschoolers called “Elmo’s World” featuring the lonely little guy. In these segments, Elmo tackles a different subject every day in a similar fashion, helping children learn through repetition, with the help of Dorothy, his racist goldfish, and the Noodle family, a strange mute family that spends a lot of time outside his bedroom window.
Would you leave your four year-old child alone with this guy?
Abby Cadabby – Abby is one of the newest characters on the show, introduced to help kids understand when they meet someone new from outside their neighborhood. Abby is a Fairy Godchild, and as such is very familiar with the stories and characters from fairy tales. Abby’s wonderment and awe at normal, everyday things like playing make-believe make her a charming character. Of course, when she grows up and gets older, she’ll probably end up like that one girl you knew in high school with buttons of bands nobody had ever heard of all over her backpack, who was constantly passing out fliers for concerts or trying to get you to support the school chess team or something like that.
Bert & Ernie – Roommates and best friends, Bert & Ernie are constantly the targets of juvenile humor declaring them secret homosexual lovers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ernie is a simple man-child, whose development is so arrested he can’t even be bothered to think of anyone but himself (and his duckie), and Bert has a well-documented pigeon fetish.
True story: I know a couple of guys who bare more than a passing resemblance to Bert & Ernie (one short, stocky, and goofy, the other tall and thin with a deep voice) who lived together in a one-bedroom apartment for years despite both of them being able to afford their own place. The tall one is now happily married, and does not share the real Bert’s unhealthy attraction to the flying rat…as far as I know.
Co-habiting with Bert and Ernie are the Twiddlebugs, a family of retarded bug things that talk like aliens from a terrible movie and live in an old Chinese food box in the window. Seriously.
Rosita – Rosita is a Mexican monster apparently brought to the show in an attempt to teach children to embrace cultural stereotypes. Rosita is loud, irritating, frequently gets into trouble by doing something she knows she shouldn’t, speaks with an accent and often slips into Spanglish. Not much is known about Rosita’s family, but if I had to venture a guess based on what we know about Rosita, I’d think her mom was 22 years old, owned several pair of large hoop earrings, wore heels with everything, and worked at the same job as her boyfriend.
Zoe – Zoe is Rosita’s slightly less irritating, slightly stupider sidekick.
Telly – If you learn one thing from this article, one measly little thing, let it be that Telly loves triangles. Loves them to death. Borderline obsessed with triangles. He loves triangles so much that he went out and joined a fan club for them. A fan club. For triangles. Have you ever loved something so much that you sought out an obscure group of people dedicated to celebrating that thing, met with them in public despite fear of shame or persecution, and started a fight over it when a friend tried to show you up over knowledge about that thing? I didn’t think so. Telly. Loves. Triangles. Got it? Good.
Oscar the Grouch – Oscar is a veteran of the cast and a particular favorite of mine, although in today’s politically-correct everyone-be-nice-to-each-other times, he doesn’t get as much screen time as he used to. Oscar is a Grouch, so naturally everything ticks him off. He does have a soft spot for his pet worm, Slimy, and his on-again, off-again girlfriend Grundgetta, and of course, trash.
Baby Bear – Fuck Baby Bear. Fuck him so hard. Baby Bear is the worst fucking character on the whole fucking street, and I’m including the ugly fucking elephant that always gets stuck in stuff. Baby Bear is so fucking irritating, I hope he goes to visit the South African Sesame Street, gets a sloppy blowjob from the AIDS Muppet and dies a slow, painful death. Baby Bear is supposed to be the “baby bear” from the Goldilocks story, although he’s almost assuredly lying about his age since his voice sounds like a fucking 40 year-old’s. To try to disguise the fact that his balls have obviously dropped and he’s probably dealing with prostate issues, he speaks with a speech impediment that swaps “R’s” for “W’s” — as in, “I weally want to fucking stwangle Baby Beaw evwy time he’s on the fucking scween.” In a child, this can be endearing, but not when it comes from a voice better suited to someone with a five o’clock shadow, a mortgage, and a job that keeps him too busy to worry about some blond bitch stealing his fucking porridge.
I HATE YOU SO MUCH
God only knows why Baby Bear would pretend to be a young child and hang around Sesame Street. Let’s just hope Elmo makes sure it’s a Noodle out there instead of a marauding pedo-bear before he opens his window shade. Oh, and Baby Bear’s Jewish, too. I fucking wish that were a joke. So if one of the adults on Sesame Street were to pay attention to this creepy fucker for one second and call him on his bullshit, he could easily get around it by accusing them of being anti-semitic. Trust me, if you could choose any fictional character from a kid’s show to horribly dismember, Baby Bear would be number one with a fucking hollow-tipped bullet.
Grover – Another classic Sesame Street character and a personal favorite of mine, Grover is a well-intentioned blue monster who frequently blunders, despite his desires to help. His waiter sketches are the stuff of comedy gold, no matter how old you are, and he’s recently expanded his resume to include other jobs such as an airline flight attendant and home makeover host. Of course, he always ends up annoying the same customer, no matter what! Grover is frequently seen as his superhero alter-ego, Super Grover.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
CLASSIC!! HAHAHAHA!! Great job man.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Even if i don’t comment all the time, I always enjoy new posts. You post, i’ll read it, no doubt.
I will be back for a lot of december and january, we will be hanging out.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:34 pm
My kids watch Sesame Street, and for the first tim i happened to hear that damned baby bear. I couldnt believe they are subjecting kids to a retarded sounding bear. I now no longer allow my daughters to watch Sesame street for the fear they may attempt to imitate the way in which that retarded character speaks.