Sesame Street Season 44 Reviews, Part 3

Shane Keating - Hello folks, and Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! The latest batch of Sesame Street episodes we’ll go over today isn’t too big, but since the next new episode won’t be airing until next week, I’d rather not wait. So, let’s dive into these three episodes.

STREET STORIES
“Gotcha!”: A not-very long street story, but pretty good. Oscar and Big Bird were in it, so that’s awesome. Mando was there too, which is great. I’m hoping there’s at least one more scene he’s in this season I haven’t heard about yet. And Tom Bergeron was quite funny as Johnny Gotcha.

“Big Bird’s Nest Sale”: A repeated storyline from season 39. Oh well, it’s still nice to see a street story starring Big Bird and Snuffy, as well as heavy amounts of the Count. There were a few edits made when compared to its original airing, however.

“The Wild Brunch”: A storyline starring only Snuffy! What an age we live in! There were funny moments, especially when the tiger was *this* close to eating the monkey. It’s kind of a shame they didn’t have a song for Audra McDonald (the zookeeper) to sing, what with that being her big skill and all.

INSERTS
So, of the two new Word of the Day sketches, I liked the one with Cobie Smulders more, mainly because of Grover’s classic and funny misinterpretations (thinking “courteous” was a curtsy, corsage, cretaceous...).

The Internet was abuzz over the new Cookie’s Crumby Pictures segment: The Hungry Games: Catching Fur. It was great putting Cookie in drag again, the “Peeta/Pita” joke was classic Muppet humor.

Some new song segments debuted: “The Sesame Street Alphabet,” a catchy song with virtually the entire cast, which was great because we got some Ernie and Bert, who’ve barely appeared this season. Mando debuted his new version of “I Love My Hair,” which was also nice (Ishmael Cruz Cordova, who plays Mando, actually wrote the Spanish lyrics for his audition). Cookie Monster’s “Me Want It” also aired, which I wasn’t expecting (I assumed it was an online original, like “Share it Maybe”).

My favorite segment from this batch of episodes (and of the overall season) has to be “Good Things Come to Those Who Wait.” Not only does it have another new appearance by Guy Smiley, but it’s one of the catchiest songs in the season so far. Cookie Monster is really perfect for teaching these lessons on patience, memory, etc.

So, that does it for this batch of episodes. Keep an eye out on the next few episodes and I’ll be back soon to go over them with you. Until then, peace!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com