Friday, November 06, 2009

Sesame Street

I've been enjoying all the media coverage given to the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street which, I happily confess, I used in loco parentis   when both my sons were little. It was so different than other children's programming and I counted on SS so heavily to entertain the boys that I religiously taped shows just in case it wasn't renewed.

We didn't go overboard in the consumerizing department but Jake had the large talking Big Bird that came with a cassette player in it's belly and books that went along with the taped stories. His mouth and eyes would move as the story was told in his voice.Jake tired of those book tapes pretty quickly and we discovered that you could feed Big Bird any cassette tape. Strauss waltzes were a favorite and one Frank Sinatra tape would cause Big Bird to open his mouth wide and roll his eyes up in his head gruesomely. One day when Jake was about three I came upon him in the living room feeding  Big Bird a bottle of Robitussin cough syrup. Jake had enough on his own face and clothes to make me call poison control. Big Bird was never quite the same.


8 comments:

Beth said...

I love the Robitussin story! My almost two year old loves Curious George and Sesame Street roughly equally. We just bought her the new anniversary dvd with clips from all 40 seasons and it's been fun hearing things fromm my childhood or realizing how they're still reusing some of the clips from the first couple seasons in the newer episodes we see when we watch the actual airings on tv.

Harmony Hopes Studio said...

Only having had 1000000000 parrots, dogs and no children, I love it when Moms come out with their wonderful family stories about what their kids did that cannot be duplicated exactly the same by anyone, anywhere. Thanks for sharing Deb!

arlee said...

My son learned to count in French before anything else because of Sesame St :}

jude said...

my son wasn't much for sesame street, but he used to let me watch it.

Mary Fincke McBride said...

My 45 yr old son bought the SS CD last year that had Harry Belifonti singing "We come from the Water" and we sang it often. Now he's lent it to a 7 year old who won't give it back! Christmas is coming.

Terry Grant said...

My son learned to read at age 3 by watching Sesame Street. I have rediscovered Sesame Street with my 2 yr old granddaughter. She is in love with Elmo, and Mr. Noodle makes her laugh out loud--me too.

Greg Delaney said...

After all these years Sesame Street is still going strong - of course the world can't be without Big Bird and the Cookie Monster...

Natalya Khorover Aikens said...

that is a hysterical story! we love Sesame Street here, Cookie is our favorite!