A couple months back the special Songs of Wrestle-Me Street was re-released, and we at ToughPigs are here after viewing said special to pose the question:
Who was this special even made for?
It’s such a bizarre mix of wholesome, family programming and giant meat men garbling music (while occasionally tackling other meat men). And you might think to yourself, “Well, okay, that’s weird, but hey! Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is pretty charismatic! And John Cena’s not half bad! This could be good!” Well, joke’s on you, because those guys are nowhere to be seen in this program! Making us ask even louder: who was this special made for??
It starts off with a jovial rendition of ‘Sing a Song’ with the whole Sesame cast, then suddenly Ronda Rousey is there and she, needless to say, ruins everything by forgetting almost all the lyrics and looking incredibly awkward. At the end of the opening number, Rousey loudly announces that the whole thing is dumb and puppets are fake before she storms off.
And it only gets weirder from there. Elmo is paired up with Brock Lesnar for a number, and I truthfully can’t begin to tell you what their song was about because I spent the whole time worrying Lesnar was going to eat Elmo. Rosita, Abby, and Zoe do a wonderful revival of ‘Women Can Be’, a beloved song from the 70’s era of Sesame, but for some reason The Undertaker is just standing behind them the entire time – watching. Goldust and a masked Asuka come out to sing a song about the importance of hard work to a bunch of children, all of whom look like they’re about to cry in terror. When Jericho and The Count started counting everything on Jericho’s list, I literally yelled at my television screen: “WHO THE HECK IS THIS SPECIAL EVEN FOR???”
I mean, there are some almost nice moments to be had here and there throughout. There’s a bit sung by Daniel Bryan and Prairie Dawn about taking care of the planet, but then the Miz jumps out of nowhere and starts wailing on Bryan. There’s an edging-towards-delightful scene where The New Day sing “C is for Cookie” with Cookie Monster (and add their own twist, “P is for Pancake”), when the Uso’s run in and punch them all in the face – with a horrified Cookie Monster looking on. Then there’s the song with Bayley and Sasha Banks singing about friendship alongside Bert and Ernie, then Banks suplex’s Bayley out of nowhere and destroys Bert and Ernie’s dining room table. Who the heck put that in a script for children’s television????
And don’t get me started on the one part of the special where an ecstatic Seamus runs down the streets of Sesame, so eager to start singing, only to then be told that his twin Beaker isn’t a Sesame Muppet, which causes him to loudly curse, kick Oscar’s trash can over, and walk off set. Like, why did they not even cut that from the special?? Who was this special made for????? Does Vince McMahon really need to corner the toddler audience??????
We may never know why Songs of Wrestle-Me Street was created, let alone released to the public, but it’s out there now, so I guess if you love cute furry monsters, delightful songs you grew up with, and an endless amount of adults pummeling each other, then you’ll probably want to watch this cause I guess this special was made just for you.
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by Julia Gaskill
