Letters and Numbers (Part 1 of 2)

If you've EVER watched Sesame Street, you've probably noticed that letters and numbers are emphasized quite regularly.  In the first half of this blog, we will focus on letters.

Click to view... All of the letters.

Traditionally, an oldschool episode of Sesame Street would feature two specific letters and a number.  "Brought to you by the Letter D, the Letter G, and the Number 1."  Some random combination like that.  No letters or numbers were ever frowned upon.  They were ALL considered good.  You would never catch Cookie Monster saying "Me no like Letter X.  No Cookie start with that."  Even Oscar the Grouch himself would never say "The Letter E is BAD!  Heheheh."

But it was definitely okay to LIKE certain letters.

and beyond that, you could even be OBSESSED with one.

Click to view... National Association of W Lovers.

(Hey, now we know what "Mr. Johnson" does in his time away from WORK!)

I always had my own favorite letters, for various reasons.  Every kid should.  Every ADULT should.  Every puppet should.

Were certain letters given favoritism?  I would say yes.  More attention given to B than V.  The letter Q was almost ENTIRELY ignored, even though that's the letter that usually needs the MOST attention.

I can't complain though, and rarely do.  The alphabetical order itself was easy to learn, it was always so consistent.

Click to view... All of the letters.

Herry Monster goes away

Most longtime Sesame Street fans are familiar with Herry Monster.  He was known for being fit and strong, but also carried a stuffed doll.  His beloved Hercules.

Herry's strong-but-sensitive nature made him a natural communicator with children.  He had a definite "no nonsense" approach with kids, but was also very encouraging.  He would have made a good school teacher.  Way better than Roosevelt Franklin.  Gordon himself could have mentored him.

Click to view... Count to 20.

No such thing would ever happen, however.  Instead, Herry Monster was basically PHASED OUT.  Not entirely, of course.  To this day he is still occasionally featured.  But it's been a lot of years since he was a major player on the Street.  He did not enjoy the surge in popularity that some of his monster buddies did.  Grover and Cookie Monster rose to prominent puppet fame, whereas Herry just kind of got lost in the shuffle.

So how come?  Well, I have one theory.  One of the luxuries with puppets is that you can make them as colorful as you want.  The Sesame Street gang has always nicely incorporated the full spectrum of rainbow colors.

Yet for some reason, in the early years, most of the "monsters" were just different shades of blue.

Over time, a vast assortment of new puppets as colorful as they were diverse would be introduced to the mix, and Herry would eventually be all but forgotten as just another blue monster.  Too bad.  Sesame Street has always used the term "monster" rather loosely.  Herry really looked like a monster.  Grover did not.

(Sorry, but you know it's true.)

So hopefully nowadays Herry is enjoying his semi-retirement and not feeling too "blue" about what was essentially a very public demotion.  a lot of people would enjoy being a blue monster.  At least you fit in.

Click to view... Not fitting in.

Slimey the Worm

Since worms have no arms or legs, it's understandable that they might need a little help now and then.  What's NOT so easy to understand is why Oscar the Grouch himself would offer so much aid and affection towards a happy, good-natured worm.

Worms live in dirt, and dirt is "dirty," but it's not dirty in the same way that trash is dirty.  No germ factor.  Have you ever found a WORM in your GARBAGE?  Probably not.  a worm is not a fly, a worm is not a maggot.  a worm lives in a garden, not in a trash can.

So basically Oscar adopted a pet in general, not a pet related to garbage.  Nobody likes garbage, but people like worms.  They're neat and don't hurt anybody.

Sesame Street seems to have a cultural divide when it comes to names.  How come Slimey the Worm is named that?   I GUESS because he is a worm that is slimey (he never really looked very slimey).  Big Bird is a bird that is big, Cookie Monster is a monster that likes to eat cookies.  But then how come puppets like Kermit and Grover get to have human hippie names?  There's no "Hoppy the Frog" or "Screamy the Incompetent Waiter."  It's just Kermit the Frog and Grover.  Very inconsistent.

What was Big Bird's relationship with Slimey the Worm like?  Don't birds eat those?

Big Bird was always nice to Oscar the Grouch, whereas Oscar was pretty nasty to Big Bird, calling him names like "bird brain" and "big canary."  So imagine if Big Bird was secretly plotting to EAT Slimey.  That could set up a VERY emotional power triangle, but Slimey would have to do his part to complete it.  He's such a naturally happy worm, it wouldn't be much of a problem to establish that he likes Big Bird a lot.  Just his usual smile would do.  But to complete the picture he would need a reason to really resent Oscar.  Maybe Oscar couldn't afford to send him to worm college (Oscar doesn't have a lot of money, he lives in a can).  Maybe Slimey would someday like to know who his real parents were.

Probably not, though.  He's a worm.

There are unfortunately no good youtubes available of Slimey the Worm, so here is Telephone Rock again.

Click to view... The Telephone Rock.

Spanish

Anyone who watches Sesame Street regularly is going to pick up at least a little bit of Spanish.  You'll learn numbers, some important nouns and verbs, and how to say the names of your body parts.  Luis was introduced in the show's very early years, and Maria would move onto the Street a short time later.  They both enjoyed assisting all of their amigos in becoming bilingual.

Other than English and Spanish, the only language anyone really tried to teach was sign language.

(Linda.  She didn't always dress like that.)

Bob was very enthusiastic about the sign language, and about Linda.  He was a music teacher that liked to sing, but I don't remember him ever singing in Spanish.  He was too busy interpreting the deaf signs.

Click to view... Hola song.

Didn't ANYONE on the Street have an interest in speaking something besides English and Spanish?  Imagine Oscar the Grouch teaching kids the French word for garbage.  The Count should have wanted to learn to count in EVERY language if he liked counting SO MUCH.  "Eyn...twey...drie...vier...vijf...zes...zeven..."  (That's Dutch.)

Even when it comes to English, there could have been a British neighbor guy that taught some of the subtle differences.  Imagine Big Bird being confused to hear a British guy refer to Maria as a "bird."

Speaking of birds, they did invent a character once to help teach a language, but guess which one?  Yep, Spanish.  The Street used to sometimes get visits from Poco Loco the parrot.

He disappeared after awhile.  Not sure why, parrots usually live a long time.  I guess he could have been secretly old ("viejo.")

Adios, Poco.

Click to view... Somos Hermanos.