The Muppet Mindset: Season 41 Episode Recap, Week 4

Sesame Street Season 41

Episode Recap, Part 4

Shane Keating – Let’s look at the next few episodes of Sesame Street’s 41st season. Oddly enough, episode 4226 aired last Friday, earlier than the episodes before it. I guess since it was about spiders, it would fit in with PBS Kids’ “Halloween” day theme (just barely, mind you).

EPISODE 4226 – WHERE’S THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER?

Telly, Rosita, and Elmo are waiting for the Isty Bitsy Spider to appear at the water spout, but she doesn’t show up. They decide to go looking for her. They find a bug in the garden, who says he’s a beetle (not a spider) and tells them spiders have eight legs (making them arachnids). They look some more, finding a grasshopper (who tells them to look for the spider in her home) and an ant (who tells them to look for a stickier home). At the end of the street, Telly is caught in a sticky string, when the look up and find the Isty Bitsty Spider in her lamppost-web. They watch as her egg sack releases many baby spiders.

We’ve seen many of these kinds of “find the animals based on the clue” episodes these past two seasons. This was alright, made better by the funny bugs.

New Segments:

Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) doesn’t know what an “arachnid” is and is frightened when a spider follows him.
The Count sings a short song about the number 8. The beat is nice, but it’s a pretty “meh” song.
Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: The duo are in the Australian outback with a Kangaroo.

EPISODE 4223 – SNUFFLE SNEEZE

Big Bird finishes up his dust bath before meeting Snuffy for a play-date. When they get together, Snuffy starts sneezing uncontrollably. They think Hooper’s will be safer, but Snuffy’s powerful sneeze blows away Alan’s newspaper rack, then Alan himself. They go to the Laundromat, where Snuffy sends Leela’s working table sliding away and throws laundry everywhere. Gina comes by and inspects. She discovers Big Bird’s the problem, because of his dust. Snuffy sneezes all the dust off and they continue their play-date.

I really liked this one. Elmo centric-episodes don’t even compare to ones like these; they have a plot, emotion, comedy, and a good lesson.

New Segments:

Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel explain what it means to be “allergic”, but the animals recruited to help them cause the couple to break out. Joey Mazzarino's shrimp and Leslie Carrera Rudolph's chicken are particularly funny.
Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: The duo work as “Dustbusters” and try to clean a woman’s living room. Ernie’s high-tech methods make the problem a lot worse than Bert’s old-fashioned broom and dustbin.

EPISODE 4224 – THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

Telly is trying to do a perfect “Boingarooni” on his pogo-stick, when a salesman named Mack offers him a new iPogo, a pogo-stick that can do many different things with the use of “apps”. Telly trades his old, beloved pogo-stick for the iPogo, while Baby Bear reads the large instruction manual. They go through several apps, finally finding one for boinging. Telly thinks it bounces to slow, but the “faster” setting makes him bounce of out control. With the right app, he is able to do a perfect “Boingarooni”, but he wants to do it on his own, without the help of the iPogo. Mack tries to give him the even newer model, the iPogo 300, but Telly wants his old pogo-stick instead. Back on his trusty pogo-stick, he does a perfect “Boingarooni” by himself!

This was such a funny street story! The whole spiel about the iPogo being useful for everything but bouncing is so true to life. The only thing I would’ve put in is a brief explanation of what an “app” is. Sure adults will get it, but kids probably won’t.

New Segments:

Ty Burrell tries to explain what a “hexagon” is, with some magical “assistance” from Abby.
Cartoon: A song about the Lonely 11, one of the finalists in the aniBOOM contest. This bit was my favorite entry and I’m glad it made it into the show, but I don’t really like the modifications they made to it.
Super Grover 2.0 – Grover helps a family of robins get a heavy grand piano into their nest.

EPISODE 4225 – ‘A’ TEAM

The Big A (Ryan Renolds) recruits Elmo, Abby, and Telly to join “The A Team”, where they’ll solve problems using the letter A. They first find Baby Bear, who can’t get Curly to sleep. The A Team helps by showing her an astronaut doing aerobics while reciting the alphabet, which somehow puts her to sleep. Next, Gina has a letter that has been blown into a tree. The A Team brings in some animals with apricots on their ankles to sneeze it out (they have apricot allergies). Finally, two pigs are pestering Oscar by his trashcan. The A Team brings in Alan with an afro, getting chased by an alligator with an attitude, but the pigs don’t leave. They then try showing them an ape dressed as an angel singing about acorns, but they still don’t leave. Simply asking them, the pigs stop their game and the A Team rejoices.

This episode was nuts! Their ‘A’ solutions were so wonderfully crazy. And Telly as Mr. T? Hilarious! Especially when he quoted him, going “I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!” The only thing I didn’t really like was their song at the end; it seemed so lazily written.

New Segments:

Rebecca Romijn and Abby show what accessories are, while Abby makes some magically appear.
Film: From the NASA Space Station, an astronaut shows the letter A.
A short film about the number 9 in some rocks.
Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: The Great Ernesto and his assistant Bertini chase their rabbit through a magic land inside their magic hat.