Series cast summary: | |||
Caroll Spinney | ... | Big Bird / ... 626 episodes, 1969-2020 | |
Frank Oz | ... | Bert / ... 566 episodes, 1969-2014 | |
Jerry Nelson | ... | Herry Monster / ... 549 episodes, 1970-2013 | |
Sonia Manzano | ... | Maria / ... 456 episodes, 1971-2014 | |
Jim Henson | ... | Ernie / ... 526 episodes, 1969-2005 | |
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Bob McGrath | ... | Bob / ... 425 episodes, 1969-2017 |
Martin P. Robinson | ... | Telly Monster / ... 411 episodes, 1981-2020 | |
Emilio Delgado | ... | Luis / ... 401 episodes, 1971-2017 | |
Roscoe Orman | ... | Gordon / ... 391 episodes, 1974-2018 | |
Richard Hunt | ... | Two-Headed Monster / ... 441 episodes, 1972-2005 | |
Kevin Clash | ... | Elmo / ... 367 episodes, 1980-2018 | |
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Loretta Long | ... | Susan / ... 359 episodes, 1969-2017 |
Fran Brill | ... | Prairie Dawn / ... 315 episodes, 1970-2015 | |
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Northern Calloway | ... | David / ... 259 episodes, 1971-2004 |
David Rudman | ... | Baby Bear / ... 256 episodes, 1986-2020 | |
The setting is in a small street in a city where children and furry puppet monsters learn about numbers, the alphabet and other pre-school subjects taught in commercial spots, songs and games. Written by Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>
This is a children's television classic. It's educational and entertaining, and not painful for parents to watch with their kids. At least it never used to be. It used to be quite edgy, high-brow, very adult-accessible. It's been dumbed down considerably over the years. This is a result of playing to lower age-groups, shorter attention spans, and competing with the run-of-the-mill trash in the kid's TV arena.
The adults have virtually vanished, the muppets have gotten annoying (I'm sure we're all familiar with Elmo by now), the show has shrunk to 40 minutes, the last 20 being a new show-within-a-show known as "Elmo's World". As if the 20 minutes of Elmo aren't enough, even more grating is that there are only about 10-20 episodes of Elmo's World, yet it runs every day! And rather than dealing with reading, writing, counting, nature, social skills, Elmo's World revolves around things like balls, puppies, hair, etc. Yes, this is not your parent's Sesame Street, or probably even the Sesame Street you grew up with. It's a more modern, simple, conformist Street that has considerably less charm but at least more educational value than the other, more commercial stuff out there.
The only reason to turn your kids on to television is rapidly shrinking into another Barney.