Sesame Street
2007-11-21 02:03PM PST/Home
I hate to admit it, but I use Sesame Street like a pacifier. When one of the kids wakes up at 5am, and with three, that's pretty much each and every single day, we'll pull the kid into the bed, put on Sesame Street and pass back out. Our computer keeps a stream of recorded shows just for this purpose. So Sesame Street news is important. Without Sesame Street I'd be a zombie.
But apparently, back in the 70s when I grew up, it was adult content. It saddens me to think that characters like Oscar the Grouch wouldn't get made today.
Sweeping the Clouds Away, NY Times Magazine.
Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.
And who knew, but there's a new muppet on the block named Abby Cadabby. What a great name. The arrival of a girly-girl muppet on Sesame Street reminds me of a conversation I had with my wife about her generation of women. She's a nurse, my sister is a chef for Martha Stewart. Both grew up in feminist households, and both chose somewhat traditional women's careers, nursing certainly. But that's the rub isn't it, they chose.
A Girly-Girl Joins the ‘Sesame’ Boys, New York Times.
The Muppet that after nine months of research was selected to embody those characteristics is not technically a girl: she is a 3-year-old fairy named Abby Cadabby. Neither monster like Zoe nor humanoid like Prairie Dawn, the calico-wearing blonde who first showed up in 1970, Abby is a purely magical creature, complete with tiny wings, a magic wand and sparkles in her hair.