Okay, back to the salt mines. This is where the personal challenge part of this feature really starts kicking in. I worked late today and didn’t get home until 9pm, and now I have to watch a whole hour of Sesame Street before bed. I thought writing this column would be easy, but I find that I’m actually dreading it tonight. I once had a life beyond watching Sesame Street. That world feels so far away now.
On the Street, Baby Bear idolizes the Count — “the grand master of counting” — and asks him to be his counting coach. The Count agrees, and teaches Baby Bear how to count a baby. First, they count the baby itself — one baby — but then the Count starts counting the baby’s ears (one, two), her eyes (one, two), her hands (one, two). Then they move on to the fingers. (One, two, three, four…) My eyes are glazing over. They finish the fingers. They move on to the feet. I’m afraid that they’re going to do the toes next. They finish the feet. They start on the toes. No! Not the toes! One, two, three, four…
Okay, I’m starting to see why I’ve been dreading Sesame. The problem is not the counting. I don’t take issue with the counting. The problem is that this isn’t a story. There’s no conflict. There’s no character development. Nobody’s overcoming an obstacle. They want to count, so they count. Then they want to count some more, so they count some more. Same deal on Monday — the monsters decided they wanted to find the Dotted Dinging D, and they found it. On Tuesday, they wanted to sing, so they sang. But there aren’t any conflicts between the characters — if Baby Bear wanted to count, and the Count refused to teach him, then that might be an interesting story.
I’m not saying it would be. But it might be.
It’s possible to structure a show like this, where the characters are just gently going through their day. But if you’re going to try to get by without conflict or story, then the characters need to have tremendous personal charm to pull it off. I can watch Oscar read the phone book; I can watch Grover do his laundry; I can watch Elmo talk to his goldfish. But only a superstar can get away with it. I like Baby Bear and the Count, but they just aren’t superstars.
Then there’s Elmo’s World, my reward for getting through the counting. What’s the topic today? It’s BABIES! Excellent! This is gonna be great. Dorothy the goldfish is baby-sitting two little goldfish. Mr. Noodle tries to play chess with Natasha. Elmo interviews a baby — and the baby stuffs a soft ball into Elmo’s mouth. Ohhhhh, yeah. It doesn’t get any better than this.
by Danny Horn
