Reasons to Not Watch Sesame Street

This post was made in honor of Jim Henson (1936-1990), Caroll Spinney (1933-2019), and Jerry Nelson (1934-2012).

Sesame Street was once a timeless classic, but things have severely changed since Jim Henson's death in 1990. It has gone from a show that parents used to have fun watching with their kids without wanting to pull out their eardrums to one of the most irritating kids' shows of all time. Let's look intosome reasons...

Unintentionally Bad Role Models
Abby Cadabby and Elmo are bad role models themselves, and they're pretty much why Sesame Street has been going downhill for a long time. Their tremendous success and excessive screen time have come at the expense of all the other Muppets and even the human cast.

While many of Sesame Street 's Muppets have personality and flair, Elmo and Abby are nothing but blobs of adorable stupidity. They are hyperactive and ridiculously excited all the time. They teach kids to be happy and nothing else.

Elmo teaches kids to whine and complain so they can get what they want. He is incredibly narcissistic and thinks that the world is all about him; not helping matters is that he always refers to himself in third person.

Almost every time he learns a lesson, he will completely forget it in the next episode.

In Elmo's World, all he does is run around in circles and scream at the inanimate objects in his room for no reason.

Abby Cadabby teaches kids that simple things like magic will solve all of their problems. To solve her fellow Muppet friends' problems, she lets them make wishes for her grant and then she does spells. Not only is that not how the real world works in the slightest, but she often fails at magic as she makes things disappear or turns them into pumpkins.

Huxley from The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland is a complete manchild and may cause kids to be immature.

Baby Bear is also not a good role model for kids, because he baby talks like Elmo does. "THEWE'S SO MANY KIDS WHO DO IT!" "HEWE I GO OVEW THE MOUNTAIN!" "NO, MY SISTEW CUWLY BEAW HAS NEVEW EATEN BANANAS!"

These characters really are that annoying.

Lack of Key People
Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, Joe Raposo, Tony Geiss, and Jeff Moss have all been dead for years now. Even Frank Oz was unhappy with the direction Sesame Street was going in after Henson died and eventually quit. Caroll Spinney also died on December 8, 2019 at 85.

Without them, there is no Sesame Street. They cannot be replaced. Spinney, Henson, Nelson, Oz, and Hunt all delivered some incredible performances. During song skits, they could hit so many ranges with such smooth transitions.

Sure, they probably wouldn't have minded the spirit of Sesame Street living on, but out of respect for what Sesame Street once represented the producers should have called it quits. The fact that Sesame Street is still called what it was in the first place without Henson, Nelson, Raposo, Moss, Geiss, Hunt, or Spinney is disgraceful. This is not Sesame Street anymore. It's a reboot, revival, rehash, or whatever besides Sesame Street you can call it.

On top of that, Big Bird's modern voice sounds too deep and tiresome for a 6-year-old. Big Bird's even had this voice as far back as Journey to Ernie and several occasions afterwards back when Caroll Spinney was his primary puppeteer! I'm not kidding!

Gross-Out Humor
Yes, there are some gross-out and toilet jokes on the show. Not only does Oscar the Grouch make these, but there is a video called Elmo's Potty Time that's loaded with them! The whole video is just disgusting to watch.

There is an animated King Kong-esque segment where a giant gorilla needs to pee and even chases a giant toilet!

During the "Diaper Blues" song, we see some toddlers in diapers playing outside. Even worse, there are multiple shots of their diapers from the back and they appear to be full. The toddlers even bend as if they have to poop.

There's a skit where some kids shout synonyms for pee and poop, such as "pee-pee", "tinkle", and "urinate". Even Baby Bear spouts such synonyms like "wee-wee" and "woo-woo".

Prairie Dawn, Gordon, Elmo, Grover, Baby Bear, and Gina have the guts to sing a song about everyone using the potty at the end.

Not only that, but one Abby's Flying Fairy School sketch from the main show has Blögg's stinky sock coming to life and contaminating everything that it touches! Who would write something like this?

Unoriginal and Bad Skits
Journey to Ernie is a rip-off of Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, because Big Bird looks for Ernie in different places and they all encourage the audience to participate. JTE and Blue's Clues both have to do with clue-finding as well.

Abby's Flying Fairy School feels so long and drawn-out. I mean, it goes on for 10 whole minutes! Blögg is also an idiot. The whole skit portrays him as dumb and just not as bright as Abby. He is also treated like crap.

Monster Clubhouse is a rip-off of Teletubbies, Tweenies, and Rugrats in which the monsters do random crap like sleeping on the floor for a few seconds, being chased around by an elephant for no real reason, spin wheels, and eat snacks.

Hero Guy is about Baby Bear having an annoying animated sidekick named Hero Guy... and that's it. Hero Guy himself doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever other than to be an unfunny comic relief. Almost all of his dialogue is him trying to be funny, but he instead comes off as insufferable due to how goofy he is. He has no charm or traits to make him more than an obnoxious idiot. Not to mention, his animation is terrible for early 2000s standards and he even cried in one skit when Baby Bear forgot to draw some water.

Elmo's World
Elmo's World isn't just bad—it's the absolute worst thing that ever happened to Sesame Street and far from something parents should let their kids watch!

The theme song (which is a rendition of "Elmo's Song") is so annoying that it can make The Smurfs theme song sound decent. The skit revolves around everyday people and objects, which are less meaningful subjects for kids than letters and numbers. Dorothy does nothing but swim in her fishbowl. During the quiz part, Elmo asks "yes/no" questions about things that the audience has probably already gotten or will get very quickly if they haven't. The Noodle Family is dumb and immature. The computer from which Elmo gets E-mails is annoying and says "Elmo has mail" constantly.

The cartoons that Elmo watches are repetitive, as most of them involve the Lecture Lady or "The Girl/Boy Who Loved (Subject X)". "The Closing Song" is just Elmo singing one word to the tune of "Jingle Bells". The music is abysmal, given that it's mostly horn instruments and kazoos.

Murray Monster
His voice is way too loud, it is completely pointless for the show to even have a "Word on the Street", he gets way too much screen time by showing up in-between skits, and he (perhaps) even spoils them by telling the audience what's coming up next! He also has a lamb named Ovejita, who is nothing but a complete rip-off of Rosita.

No Adults
Gordon, Bob, Susan, Maria, Luis, and Gina have all unfortunately disappeared from the show since it moved to HBO in 2016. This is disappointing, and I mean very disappointing. They were great characters who gave their fellow Muppet friends some useful tidbits and let them work things out for themselves. They weren't condescending, nor did they have every answer. But now the only adults left are Chris, Alan, and Nina.

Even when most of the aforementioned adults were still on Sesame Street, they would often fall victim to Elmo and Abby's takeover of the show to the point where they became almost nonexistent. Only Gordon, Alan, Chris, and Gina still made any regular appearances whatsoever by Season 40, with the other adults only making a few appearances per season or being reduced to background extras.

More disappointing is that Sesame Workshop hasn't even bothered to explain why they had to leave. Some say that this was due to the show's move to HBO, but SW said that they have no control over such decisions.