Sesame Street Saturdays - Season 40: Week 3

Please welcome back our good friend Shane Keating (Oscarfan) for his next installment of reviews from Sesame Street's landmark 40th Season!

Alighty! Another week of Sesame Street shows down, although only two shows aired this week. Episode 4195 from last week is included in this review, if you read my last article you’ll know why. So, let’s begin!

EPISODE 4195 – ELMO FINDS A BABY BIRD

STREET SCENE
As Rosita and Elmo think of rhymes, they hear peeping from a baby bird. With Chris’ help, they leave the bird by his nest, thinking that’s what it wants, but it returns to them like a lost puppy. Big Bird arrives with birdseed and communicates with the bird, discovering he’s hungry. Big Bird gives him some birdseed, but the bird ends up devouring his whole bag. He then runs off, eating Leela’s sandwich, a girl’s apple and Cookie Monster’s granola cookie. After eating, the bird now wants to fly, but can’t. Abby appears, who has wings like the bird, so sings a song to help teach the baby. The mama bird arrives, think Chris is her baby, until the baby bird flies to her and they head off. Elmo concludes he loves nature.

Hidden Gem: Leela is seen reading a book about Placido Flamingo, with Richard Hunt’s name on the book.

HIGHLIGHTS

·    Paul Rudd and Grover explain the word “brilliant”.
·    An animation about W words in the woods.
·    Abby’s Flying Fairy School: Blogg’s Stolen Wand (repeat from the season premiere)
·    A Chris Bermen Muppet interviews Telly, Zoe, Elmo and Baby Bear about the “Cashing the Cheese” event.
·    Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: Secret Agents 00-Bert and 00-Ernie attempt to stop the evil Dr. Bird Whistle from capturing birds.
·    Sesame Street’s Theater in the Park presents Telly, starring in “Romeo and Alphabet”

CONCLUSION
There wasn’t much I cared for in the street scene today. Though, Cookie Monster’s cameo was funny as usual. Grover and Paul Rudd were great and Telly’s sketch was great to see again (especially with the Abbot and Costello reference thrown in).

EPISODE 4196 – GROUCH MESSING MACHINE

STREET SCENE
As Leela shows Elmo a recycled bottle-pig, Oscar arrives to pick up his weekly lint ball. One of her washing machines then beings to make noise and throw clothes out. She intends on throwing it out, until Elmo mentions Luis can fix it. They call him and he tries various methods to fix it (such as fixing a bolt on the back and cleaning out the interior) as Oscar watches in delight as each attempt fails. When all hope seems lost for the machine, Elmo gets an idea to reuse it as a Grouch messing machine. All the grouches rush to the Laundromat and watch as their clothes are dirtied and flung from the machine.

Hidden Gem: Luis finds various things inside the broken washing machine, including the Teeny Little Super Guy (complete a with a music cue from the segment’s theme song).

HIGHLIGHTS

·    Greg Kinnear and a robot explain what a “machine” is, using examples like a clock and an electric nose-hair trimmer.
·    A cartoon featuring army ants looking for foods that start with C at a picnic.
·    Worms in Space form the letter C.
·    Ernie sings “Somebody Come and Play”.

CONCLUSION
Today’s street scene was nice. Elmo was more downplayed than usual. And it’s nice to see Luis and Maria are still in the fixing game since it’s no longer visible on the set. The explanation of “machine” was great, especially the ending (You will laugh yourself silly when you see it!). The rest of the segments were average, but it was nice to see Worms in Space again.

EPISODE 4197 – THE COOKIE TREE

STREET SCENE
Elmo, Luis and Maria are picking apples from a tree. Cookie Monster hears their crunching sounds and thinks they are eating cookies. He rushes to the garden to find them eating apples. Maria and Luis explain they grew the apple tree shortly after they were married. Cookie Monster learns that food grows on trees and thinks he can grow a Cookie Tree. He and Elmo plant a chocolate chip in a flowerpot, give it sun and water, but get no results.  Luis explains that cookies don’t grow on trees. Cookie wishes he had a cookie tree. Abby overhears and grants the wish, making cookie trees appear all over the street. As Elmo and Cookie cooperate to reach one, Alan convinces Abby to make them disappear, since they’re blocking the entrance to Hooper’s. Cookie sulks that the trees are gone, until Maria and Luis bring him some homemade, apple cookies they made from the apples they picked.

Hidden Gem: Forgetful Jones makes a silent cameo during Maria and Luis’ flashback.

HIGHLIGHTS

·    Adam Sandler and Cookie explain the word “crunchy”.
·    Another Sesame Street English cartoon about the letter A, with Cookie Monster.
·    Abby’s Flying Fairy School: Blogg accidentally releases Fairy Dust Bunnies from under the carpet, which causes Mrs. Sparklenose to get an allergic reaction. And her magic sneezes cause trouble for the students.
·    Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: Ernie, Bert and Rubber Duckie enter a treacherous cave to find the Wise Old Duck and ask him a question. (Lots of Indiana Jones references)
·    Professor Grover and Cameron Diaz explain the importance of trees.

CONCLUSION
Man, Cookie was all over this episode! It’s nice to get a street story starring Cookie Monster. Forgetful’s cameo was so unexpected and I loved seeing him! I was hoping the song, “We’ll Do It Together” was going to show up, since it’s about Cookie Monster finding a cookie tree in the park. It was also nice to see a new Flying Fairy School segment, since we got repeats of the same 5 so far. The Professor Grover segment was hilarious too!











The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier.