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Here’s a little story from my personal childhood. When my family went on vacation, my mother would always work like a demon to keep our traveling spirits up. So whenever anything went wrong — if we got lost, or it started to rain, or the thing we were trying to see was closed — she would chirp, “It’s an ADVENTURE!” Unfortunately, my brother and I caught on to this trick pretty early, and it just became a joke in my family — after a while, “ADVENTURE!” became the code word for “really boring and unpleasant.”
This all came back to me while watching Elmo’s Magic Cookbook, the 2001 direct-to-video cooking special. Elmo, Telly and a couple of General-Issue Sesame Kids find a magic cookbook in the attic, and Jean the Genie appears to teach them how to cook. “Okay, everyone!” she cries. “Get ready for a scrumptiously succulent, splendidly savory ADVENTURE!”
And then she magically transports them to… a kitchen. “Where ARE we?” Elmo says. You’re in the kitchen, Elmo. What does it look like? “Wow, COOL!” Telly says. “A giraffe TEAPOT!” The G.I. Kids admire a big fish decoration on a shelf. “Elmo has never SEEN a kitchen like THIS before!” Elmo says, and the G.I. Kids agree, so obviously their parents don’t shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
They all sing a peppy salsa-type song about how great kitchen equipment is. It’s a fun song, Jean is a very cute character, and they’re all really working their tails off to sell this kitchen thing. But it’s a kitchen. I mean, how worked up can I get.
The song tires Jean out, and she sets an egg-timer to take a nap before going on. They cut to a little animation, and when we come back, Jean is still sleeping, and Elmo and the kids have to yell to wake her up. Attention, TV producers: It’s never a good sign when one of the main characters takes a nap on screen in the middle of your show, especially in the first fifteen minutes. It erodes my confidence as a viewer. This is not selling me on the exciting adventure of cooking dinner.
First, they learn how to make ice cream. They load all the ingredients into a hand-cranked ice cream maker, and Telly starts cranking. But that’s gonna take a while, so he goes off-screen to crank.
Then Alan appears from Sesame Street, and he’s going to teach Elmo how to make snacks. But what should Elmo do first? Wash his hands, of course! “Ohhhh!” Elmo says. “Wash our HANDS! Oh, Elmo knows how to wash his hands! This cooking thing is going to be FUN!”
Okay, I’m starting to see where the Elmo-animosity is coming from. It’s not his fault, poor dear, but he’s trapped in a boring cooking video, and they’re not going to let him loose unless he acts excited about the most mind-numbingly boring things. Washing your hands is NOT fun. It may be hygienic, but it’s not fun, and no matter how much Elmo chuckles, it’s not getting any more fun. We’re getting into deep Tomie dePaola territory here.
Emeril LaGasse shows up to teach Elmo and the G.I. Kids how to make pizzas. Now, I’ll grant you that making pizzas is kind of fun. It’s more fun when you actually get to EAT the pizzas, rather than just watching other people eat them — but still, it registers on the fun scale. They start rolling out some dough, and a Muppet-ized glass of water appears and says they should thank him. After all, dough is made from flour, yeast and water. Yay, water! Then they put sauce on the pizza, and a tomato shows up to ask for some applause. Yay, tomato! Then they put on the cheese, and here’s a glass of milk, begging for attention. Yay, milk! Then the COW shows up, and says SHE should get thanked for giving the milk! God, I had no idea that food was so high-maintenance. Do we have to cheer for every damn ingredient? No wonder it takes so long to get served in restaurants.
Then Emeril urges us to TAKE IT UP A NOTCH! and make some CRAZY PIZZA! BAM! here’s some pepperoni. BAM! some mushrooms. BAM! some olives. To be honest, Crazy Pizza doesn’t look that much different from regular ol’ pizza, but maybe it has some deep-rooted issues that only come up after years of therapy. Anyway, they can BAM! all they like, but the whole BAM! technique is just taking a handful of pepperoni and throwing it on the pizza in a big lump. It may be fun to throw ingredients around, but those are some shady looking pizzas.
And hey, by the way? Telly is still mixing the ice cream. We come back to Telly waaay at the end of the show — about forty minutes later — and he’s actually so tired of mixing that he’s falling asleep while he’s doing it. They look in the ice cream maker, and… Hey! Ice cream! Just like you could buy at the store for about three bucks! And it only took six dollars worth of fresh cream, sugar and strawberries, and forty minutes of hard manual labor!
Still, I’m not holding this one against Elmo personally. He’s honestly trying to make the best of all this, and it’s hardly his fault that he’s been sentenced to make dull cooking videos. It’s kind of like when Cher hadn’t had a hit for a while, and she had to make a Psychic Friends Infomercial to make ends meet until her next big comeback. Elmo’s Grouchland movie was a big flop, so now he’s trying to pick up a little extra cash. We didn’t hold a grudge against Cher, did we? Of course not. Hang in there, Elmo. We believe in life after love.
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by Danny Horn
