The Muppet Mindset: Sesame Street Sesaon 42, Episode Recap: Week 2

Oct 8, 2011

Sesame Street Sesaon 42, Episode Recap: Week 2

Sesame Street Season 42

Episode Recap: Week 2

by Shane Keating

EPISODE 4262 – THE LATINIZATION OF MARCO

Gina is teaching her adopted son Marco some Spanish words, to help him learn about his Guatemalan origins. Rosita finds out and provides some more lessons, including the ideas of musica, baile, comida, fiestas and amigos.

I enjoyed this one today. It's always great whenever we get the full cast involved. I really liked the "Musica" song (which had Lin-Manuel Miranda in it!)

New Segments and Other Highlights:

Sofía Veraga and Elmo explain what the word "baile" means. I think it's a good idea to use some Spanish for the Word on the Street bits.
Today's episode returns to Murray introducing the letter/number of the day. I liked these better than the previous seasons.
Film: A group called Pilobolus forms an octagon.
Cartoon: Counting 9 Spanish dancers. I think the same people who made the Indian 19 counting segment from last year did this.
Super Grover 2.0 finds two pigs up a creek without a paddle. They already taught the idea of a lever in a different segment, but I like the idea that the tool they teach can be used in different situations.
Juanes sings about some parts of the body in Spanish. I'm not sure why they went with the blurry, almost sepia tone look for this, but I think it makes the segment more interesting to look at.

EPISODE 4263 – HUMPTY DUMPTY'S BIG BREAK

Telly tries his hardest to keep Humpty Dumpty safe while playing the Kings Horses vs. Kings Men football game. When a cushion and bunch of sponges won't work, Telly finds that covering him with egg cartons keeps him from breaking.

There were some pretty funny lines in this one and we got Jerry Nelson as the voice of Humpty Dumpy. Some people might be upset they used a different puppet for him, rather than Frank Oz's original, rather-creepy looking version. One more thing: the "charlie-horse" pun got the biggest groan from me.

New Segments and Other Highlights:

Jesse Tyler Ferguson tries to keep his "fragile" cookie jar safe from Cookie Monster. I wish all the Word of the Day bits were this funny.
Murray's experiments are back, this time learning how to make a kite fly. Again, I wish Ovejita were more involved in this one.
Film: The letter A is hidden in a pile of items. This, along with the "Cookie Monster–Apple Song" cartoon, means we got two letter and number segments this episode; a first this season!
Among the various other re-used bits are the first Super Grover 2.0 bit (with the penguins), a cartoon about the number 0 and a poem by "Mr. Shoe."
Film: A song describes how kids designed cars from wood blocks. I like seeing more non-letter/number film inserts.

Also this week, the "repeat" episodes debuted. 18 extra episodes from Season 40 are being shown this year in addition to the 26 new episodes. HOWEVER, unlike last year where the season 39 episodes were re-formatted and featured new segments, these repeat episodes are exactly the same, except for a different episode number. I had a fear this would happen and I'm very displeased with it. Oh well. Tune in next time!