This is the worst man in the world.

I love how it even fits the color scheme of the site. Thanks, Ralph!

Perhaps you have not seen the show in ten+ years. Well, I have, and I am sorry to have to report: Sesame Street is a mere shadow of its former self.

Sesame Street is probably the single most influential children's television show of all time, with its impact spreading out internationally. It is the landmark kids' show that all others look toward. So why oh why, Sesame Workshop (née Children's Television Workshop), do you feel so insecure about your own relevance that you feel compelled to "keep up" with the changes in children's programming you perceive happening around you?

So what am I talking about? What happened?

Well, a lot of things. One you can't really blame anyone for, which is the loss of key personnel. Obviously, no one could ever really fill Jim Henson's shoes after his death - though to their credit, I think the staff did a tremendous job for a long time. Henson passed when I was four years old, so right in the middle of my prime Sesame Street viewing period, and I certainly didn't detect any drop in quality at the time. Frank Oz has moved on to bigger things, which is his right, only stopping by about once a year to tape new segments. I have no doubt that there are still talented writers and performers on the show, but it's still a legacy show. They just can't possibly share that same energy among that magical group of individuals who made the show so exciting back in 1969, anymore than the current writers of, say, a comic strip like Gasoline Alley can never hope to imitate Frank King's gentle charm.

The music has also suffered. I don't think there's anything offensively awful about the songs produced on the show now. But they are not Joe Raposo. They are not Jeff Moss. When was the last time the show produced something as infectious as "Rubber Duckie?" As devastating as "Somebody Come and Play?" As danceable as "A New Way to Walk?" As melancholy as "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon?" The era of classic songs is over, I'm afraid.

But if there's one simple turning point to mark where the series went downhill, it's Elmopocalypse. Elmo is perhaps too easy of a scapemonster. But I think perhaps in this case it's warranted. Now I think Elmo is cute. I think Elmo is a fine character to have in their repertory. But all of a sudden, Children's Television Workshop discovered that some people reaaaaaaaaally liked Elmo. And they spent a whole lot of money on Elmo merchandise. Remember the Tickle Me Elmo insanity of 1997? Since then, Sesame Street has become The Elmo Show. Almost literally. If you haven't watched the show recently, you might be shocked to find that Elmo has his own 15-minute segment in every single episode, called "Elmo's World." And all this comes at the expense of so many other great characters who now struggle for screen time, like Cookie Monster, Prairie Dawn, and my spirit animal - Grover.

That's not the only change in format they've tried. In 2002, at the height of the popularity of Blue's Clues, Sesame Street introduced another weekly segment, a blatant rip-off called "Journey to Ernie" where viewers were asked to help find Ernie in a CGI landscape. Sesame Workshop was also duped into the (highly profitable) scam perpetrated by Teletubbies and Baby Einstein, creating television for infants despite a total lack of evidence that it benefits them in any way, or that they even have any idea what the hell is going on with that box emitting light. But the market demanded it, as parents now need technology as a substitute for babysitting and parenting even sooner, apparently, and so - Sesame Beginnings.

I suppose it's logical to some degree that the show would become so obsessed with following market trends. Sesame Street's success was largely due to an innovative approach co-opting the techniques of the advertising world to teach the basics of reading and counting. Each episode famously has a pair of sponsors - one letter and one number - which each show up in brief short films that appear as commercial breaks in between narrative segments. These slots also allowed for charming segments with some of those other wonderful characters, and for trippier animations which served for millions of children as their introduction to Philip Glass.

But now, there's less and less time for any of that. There's also just less Sesame Street in general. Up until 1998, 130 episodes of the show were produced each season. And last year, in Season 39? A grand total of 26.

As much as I'd like to, I'm not able to spend a ton of time watching daytime children's programming these days, so I can't say with certainty that there aren't new worthwhile shows on TV now. But I haven't seen or heard of any. I find it hard to imagine something new coming in to adequately fill the holes that the diminishing value of Sesame Street and the loss of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (which I've spoken about before) leave. I find it hard to envision some sort of 21st century internet-based children's educational programming revival, either. These shows, in their prime, I think really represented the pinnacle of television's use as a medium. They offered a regular solace to children that they knew they could always count on. You don't know how much comfort I took knowing that I'd be able to enter that world every morning at 10 a.m. When I was living abroad as a child, I had so much separation anxiety from American children's television that I had my grandparents tape weeks worth of Mister Rogers and Sesame Street and ship it over to me, which I would watch over and over again.

I'm running out of steam here, so I'll just end with the most perfect moment in the history of the show:

There are countless examples of these, but I've been recently introduced to a couple really bizarre ones that I like a lot. One is the 1957 film Bop Girl Goes Calypso, which is about how a scientist with some fancy machine is "proving" that rock 'n' roll is on the way out, predicting that calypso will be the big new craze! There were a few films that came out at this time all with the same hypothesis, including Calypso Heat Wave which features Maya Angelou(!)

And in the music realm, how about this great song performed by Eddie Hodges, the child star best known as Huck Finn in the 1960 adaptation directed by Michael Curtiz? "Mugmates" suggests that what "everyone does" now to indicate they are going steady, instead of giving someone their pin, is simply have... matching coffee mugs.

Eddie Hodges - Mugmates [mp3]

Collaboraction and the G.I.F.T. that keeps on taking

There is much computer-aided mumbling about present-giving in "G.I.F.T.," Collaboraction's typically ambitious seasonal offering performed, both indoors and outdoors, in a 7,000-square-foot warehouse space at Firehouse Square on Chicago's West Side. But the greatest gift of all arrives when a big overhead door whirs and opens, revealing that this insufferable show is over.

Actually, not quite over. "G.I.F.T." ends around a big outdoor bonfire. But some communing around flames is, compared with what has gone before, positively cathartic.

Collaboraction, which long has favored experimental performances in a variety of urban spaces, always has had a high failure rate. So it goes when you try to do something different. But "G.I.F.T." is surely the worst thing the theater has produced in its 13 years of existence. This piece is so grim, you keep waiting for the actors (who are dressed as slightly funky Pilgrims) to step out of their stark, computer-aided environment (they work in front of projected text) and declare the whole enterprise an elaborate, "Waiting for Guffman"-style parody of bad performance art. Sadly, that moment never arrives.

In essence, this piece (designed and directed by Sam Porretta) is a study of the nature of gifts. It begins in a little interactive chamber, where patrons and performers exchange objects of unfathomable definition and viewers are asked to visit little grottoes, wherein meek performers (apparently) try to discern your emotions and reveal your stories. Yes, you pay them for this stuff. They don't pay you.

From there, you head to the main performance space, where these actors engage in a deadly dull series of exercises about what gifting means. It is as if one has happened upon freshmen at a theater school improvising on a teacher's truisms. We arrive at such staggering conclusions as gifting means more than materialism.

Yes, the holidays are more than a new blender. Now you don't have to waste an evening.

There is, I suppose, a certain trippy quality to the proceedings. And the building (an old firehouse) is a beautiful, atmospheric space. Thankfully, there is a bar. If you find yourself dragged to this show, I suggest plunking yourself there until you hear the lick of the flames of freedom.

Beulah - Emma Blowgun's Last Stand [mp3] (at 2:25)

In the meantime, we're left with this sign that fails to use either of the two acceptable spellings of "thru."

Was I the only person not to see goofiness in the story, but instead saw it as mysterious and beautiful as it unfolded? To me, this wasn't just a stunning example of bad parenting, but represented supreme wish-fulfillment. A six-year-old boy untethering the mysterious flying machine behind the house, embarking on a tremendous adventure, escaping from a drab family life into the air. It was as if an ocean had tumbled by with a private airship for Falcon.

While watching the live feed of the balloon rapidly descending, I was filled with concern for his safety, but my concern really more closely resembled the feeling of exhilaration I get in a falling dream moments before waking up. And when the realization came that he was not in the balloon and could be seemingly anywhere in a large area of rural Colorado, my imagination continued to run wild. After it was suggested he might be hiding in the neighborhood for fear of retribution, the efforts of officials on the ground to find him no longer seemed like a "search,", but instead became a "chase" in my mind. Falcon was a fugitive from a world threatened by his imagination and his desire to fly away to something better.

The whole incident invites obvious comparisons to so many cultural touchstones, but I'm shocked by how everyone is comparing it to the wrong ones. This isn't about Up or Danny Deckchair! Have people forgotten Le Ballon rouge? Brewster McCloud? And, most importantly, the story of Daedelus and Icarus, of the tragic consequences of a father's attempt to give his son flight?

By this time Icarus began to feel the joy
Of beating wings in air and steered his course
Beyond his father’s lead: all the wide sky
Was there to tempt him as he steered toward heaven.
Meanwhile the heat of sun struck at his back
And where his wings were joined, sweet-smelling fluid
Ran hot that once was wax. His naked arms
Whirled into wind; his lips, still calling out
His father’s name, were gulfed in the dark sea.
And the unlucky man, no longer father,
Cried, “Icarus, where are you, Icarus,
Where are you hiding, Icarus, from me?”
Then as he called again, his eyes discovered
The boy’s torn wings washed on the climbing waves.
He damned his art, his wretched cleverness,
Rescued the body and placed it in a tomb,
And where it lies the land’s called Icarus.

And that's why I'm not bothered by the possibility that it all may have been a hoax. From the beginning, the story always lay more in the realm of myth. The fact that the boy flying away was named Falcon makes it clear. This was never a news event. It was a fable.