That's Edutainment!

I am a little obsessed with Sesame Street these days.  Maybe it's the whiff of back-to-school in the air, but I want - need! - my TV to have a little more education value.  It's a show that I remember fondly from my youth, and one which has survived the fickle tastes of TV consumers to become the longest running US television show in history - November marked its 38th anniversary.  With two kids under the age of 6, it probably comes as no surprise that we're all over Sesame around here.  My preschooler loves Play with Me Sesame and Elmo's World.  The Baby, if he could talk, would no doubt say that he prefers the old skool Sesame episodes. 

More importantly, though, I love Sesame. 

I have spent the past two years trying to obtain the vintage Fisher Price Little People set of Sesame characters and playhouse on Ebay.  It's prohibitively expensive to buy them as a set, though, and I just don't have the patience to buy them separately (lack of sleep = lack of follow-through).  I did find a nice set from Learning Curve recently.  Not quite the same, but a fairly good substitute.  New Balance has come out with a super-cool line of Sesame running shoes.  If they came in adult sizes, I would totally be out buying the Grouch runners, for sure.  The Husband never fails to laugh at the Tickle Me Elmo, but I've never bought it *FOR THE KIDS* because I think it would drive me mad eventually.

All this because I want in on the action.  Sesame is arguably the best educational-based children's TV show in existence, and it has survived in no small part due to the fact the writers craftily made the humour appeal to both children AND adults.  Because of this, I want to have a small piece of Sesame of my very own.  And I'm not alone. 

I realized this the other weekend when I was doing some laundry, and my husband and older son were curled up on the couch watching a recent episode.  Who comes on the TV but Neil Patrick Harris as...the Shoe Fairy.  I remember thinking how great it is that a celebrity of his calibre is willing to do a thing like that.  But the more I thought about it, I realized that there have been a lot of VIPs on Sesame.  Over two hundred to be exact - from Carol Burnett to Jesse Jackson to REM.  They realize that Sesame has a cool factor all it's own, and it's no "step down" to make an appearance on the show.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

When Neil Patrick Harris was singing about shoes, the Husband pointed excitedly to the screen and said to my son, "Do you know who that is??!"

My son replied with a huge smile, "That's Dr. Horrible!  Why he's dressed like a fairy?  How did he do that?"

Well, I guess he's got some learning to do. 

(I wanted to post the Shoe Fairy video here so you could laugh along with me, but YouTube has disabled the embedding feature.  So, I found some other great ones that you might enjoy - all involving shoes, of course.  I'm nothing if not obsessed.)

Tying Your Shoelace - Savion Glover

What is Alive? - Robin Williams

A New Way to Walk - Various Guest Appearances

Comments

[kgirl]

my kid doesn't like sesame street, or any show featuring puppets. i feel a bit let down.