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Let’s face it. Muppet Fans are not like normal human beings. For one thing, we can’t hear the word “Phenomenon” without singing, and we probably have stronger opinions about pre-school programming than is strictly good for us.
But the most striking difference between Muppet Fans and the rest of humanity is Elmo. Muppet Fans, on the whole, hate Elmo. And everybody else loves Elmo. Wait, let me do a recount on that. Nope, I was right. Everybody in the whole entire world loves Elmo, except for the hardcore Muppet Fans.
Personally, I became the self-appointed leader of the Elmo Pep Squad in August, when I watched Elmo’s World for the first time and wrote My Week with Sesame Street. I thought Elmo was the perfect expression of what Sesame Street ought to be — funny, cute, and passionate about learning. But, strangely, that opinion just isn’t popular in the Muppet Fan community, where people are more likely to refer to Elmo as The Red Menace. It just don’t add up.
So let’s break this down. For Muppet Fans, the two main issues with Elmo are as follows. Issue Number One: Elmo’s taken all the focus away from the other Sesame Street characters, who Muppet Fans have a lot of affection for. According to Muppet Fans, all we see these days is Elmo, instead of other favorites like Grover or Cookie Monster. Issue Number Two: Elmo’s always happy and cheerful. Other Sesame characters get to be vulnerable, lonely, frustrated or grouchy, but Elmo is just a one-note tickle machine, and that’s boring.
Well, I think it’s time someone actually tested this, to see if these charges actually hold water. This week, I’m going to watch five Elmo specials produced over the last five years, and I’ll report on my findings. Don’t try to stop me! This is something I have to do. Not just for me… not just for Elmo… but for all of us.
Buckle your seatbelts, and hang up that mistletoe. We’re starting with Elmo Saves Christmas, the 1996 special released the same year that the Tickle Me Elmo doll dominated the Christmas shopping season. Elmo had been around since the mid-80’s, but 1996 was the year that Elmo became synonymous with Sesame Street.
And on Sesame Street, if we’re talking Christmas, then we’re talking Maya Angelou. I kid you not. Zoe, Telly and Baby Bear appear to be spending Christmas Eve with Dr. Angelou, as naturally they would be. I guess it’s traditional to have Maya Angelou over for the holidays. Actually, if I can be allowed a moment’s sidebar — I think the holidays are getting a little too commercial, Maya Angelou-wise. It’s like Halloween is hardly over, and Maya Angelou starts hanging out in your living room. And isn’t it sad in the first couple weeks of January, when everyone puts out their old, worn-out Maya Angelous in the driveway for the trash pickup?
Anyway, it’s Christmas, and Telly asks Maya Angelou wouldn’t it be great if it could be Christmas every day. Maya Angelou tells him to step off, girl, and stop being all up in her business. No, she doesn’t really — but wouldn’t that be fun? Instead, she tells him the story of when Elmo found out that you can’t have Christmas every day.
The story goes like this: There’s Elmo, it’s Christmas Eve. Everyone is preparing for the holiday, and for some reason 24 Carat Soul is singing at everyone about how much fun it all is. Cookie Monster’s baking cookies, Grover’s selling Christmas trees, Big Bird is saying goodbye as his friend Snuffy heads to his granny’s for Christmas. Elmo waits up for Santa Claus, and actually catches Santa when he’s stuck in Elmo’s chimney. Elmo pulls Santa free, and meets Santa’s newest young reindeer, Lightning. A grateful Santa gives Elmo a magic snowglobe that grants three wishes.
Elmo makes his first wish, and gets a glass of water. Lightning is incredulous: “But you could have had anything!” Elmo: “A diet soda?” I gotta tell ya, kids, we’re about ten minutes in, and so far Elmo has been nothing but adorable. Here’s Elmo after he makes his second wish, to have Christmas every single day. Santa says you can’t have Christmas every day, and Elmo shouts: “YES – YOU – CAN! It’s easy! You have Christmas today, and then you have Christmas tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that… Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, every day!” And he just won’t hear another word about it. He’s passionate and excitable, but he’s also selfish, and it’s pretty funny. So far I am all about Elmo.
And it doesn’t really look like Elmo is crowding out the other characters. There’s a great Kermit scene, where Kermit does a news report on Christmas coming twice. Everybody’s suddenly buying more Christmas presents, and a frazzled father runs up and offers to buy Kermit’s microphone for fifty bucks. “Certainly not!” Kermit sniffs. “This newsfrog’s microphone is not for sale.” Father: “How about a hundred?” Kermit: “You want that wrapped?” All the main characters get funny scenes, and Elmo’s just the glue that holds the plot together.
Then things take kind of a weird turn. To teach Elmo that you can’t have Christmas every day, Santa sends Lightning and Elmo into the future, to witness Christmas in the spring, Christmas on the Fourth of July, and finally Christmas on the next December 25th.
Now, there isn’t a lot of plot suspense at this point for anyone over two and a half. Elmo’s got three wishes, and he’s made two so far. Hands up if you can figure out what Elmo’s going to do with Wish Number Three. So, relieved of the burden of any further plot points, the special goes deep into the freaky spectacle of Sesame Street falling to pieces at Elmo’s whim.
Christmas in Springtime goes by without major incident, except for an appearance by Harvey Fierstein as the Easter Bunny, who sings a funny song about giving Easter Eggs for Christmas. As naturally he would.
But it’s Christmas in Summertime that really gets strange. Grover announces a worldwide Christmas tree shortage. Big Bird tries to call Snuffy, who’s been spending Christmas at his granny’s for four months, and sings into the answering machine.
Then we see Maria and Luis standing forlornly in front of a pile of broken toasters. They can’t work on Christmas, and they miss the days when they used to work in their shop. “But Maria,” Elmo says, “Christmas is FUN!” Maria just snaps like a postal worker. “I’m SICK of having fun, Elmo!” she screams. “I want to fix TOASTERS! I’m gonna fix one right NOW!” Luis gently tells her, “That’s a waffle iron.” Maria snaps, “I KNOW THAT!” Then she slams the waffle iron down and bursts into tears.
And that’s not all! Really, if the Elmo Detractors want an example of the Destructive Power of Elmo, they should look no further than Elmo Saves Christmas. Lightning and Elmo travel to December 25th — the 366th Christmas in a row — and Sesame Street is a ghost town, boarded up and trashed. Finally, Elmo realizes that this is all his fault, and he decides to wish things back to the way they were. But the magic snowglobe falls out of his hand, and smashes on the ground.
What to do? Elmo realizes that if Lightning can take him into the future, then he can travel back to the past and stop himself from asking Santa for the wishes in the first place. And that’s exactly what they do, and Elmo saves Christmas.
Of course, by changing his own past before he started, he also creates a transtemporal paradox that eventually destroys the entire space-time continuum. But Merry Christmas, everybody!
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by Danny Horn
