Mamacita says:  Last night in class we were discussing the original (excellent) Sesame Street and the present (sissy) Sesame Street, and the old seasons won, hands-down.

General consensus among twenty students, ages 18-56, was that Cookie Monster is SUPPOSED to be greedy and eat improperly, Oscar is SUPPOSED to be grouchy, the Count is a scary VAMPIRE, Bert and Ernie are little boys, Grover is cute and shares his voice with Yoda, and that Mr. Snuffelupagus is SUPPOSED to have a very, very deep, sonorous, sad, kind of creepy voice.  He’s also supposed to be invisible to everyone except Big Bird.  The new Sesame Street is toned-down, stuffed so full of euphemisms and political correctness, and so afraid of offending someone that it’s become bland and silly instead of vibrant and contemporary.  Condescending to children is NEVER wise.  Children always knew that some of the characters behaved in ways that nice people weren’t supposed to behave; it was a learning device.  Too bad so many adults don’t have the same contextual skills.

My contribution?  Elmo needs to grow a pair.

The summary?  Bring back The Electric Company.  And don’t anyone DARE dumb it down.  Sesame Street has been spoiled, but it’s not too late for some of the others.  And you know the others will be dumbed down too if the Political Correctness Monster (currently in charge of all the other SS monsters well as our government) is given his/her way.

Ah, dumbing things down.  It’s the American Way.  And it’s so much easier than requiring everybody to read and comprehend well!

Dear Political Correctness Monster:  you need to grow a pair, too.