So I know this kid who kept begging me to watch this show with her - it sounded a bit silly - just a kid's show with puppets - but it was actually a lot cooler than it might sound.
After opening with these rather charming but clunky animated clay dinosaurs, it starts off with Gordon (apparently one of our main neighbors, a very handsome African-American gentleman who lives at 123 Sesame Street with his lovely wife, Susan) introducing all of the characters to a little girl named "Sally", as well as "us", the viewers.
So, we meet Big Bird, who looks like a giant canary, and seems a bit dizzy. That or he is supposed to be a little kid.
Then we meet Ernie and Bert, who are typical NYC apartment dwellers:
They, in turn, introduce us to Solomon Grundy (this is starting to feel a little like The Saragossa Manuscript). I'm expecting Solomon Grundy to come out and introduce the next character.
Then we continue on the "wash" theme with a short film, then Ernie again washing up.
(Very stream-of-conciousness/associative stuff. This, along with the urban setting, makes me feel like Allen Ginsberg or Gregory Corso is in the back room writing sketches.)
It gets even more abstract with a bunch of dots blinking around the screen.
Then we get this "song of 3" thing,
Which has some blinding animation and some very annoying kid singers (really not a fan of that - this one comes across like a hyper version of that Frank Sinatra song about the little 'ol ant.) I sense though that the baker at the end is going to be reliably amusing.
Well, we go on a milk tangent, meet Oscar, a grumpy orange garbage monster, more animated clay animals, a bunch of stuff about over, through and through, more dots, and a song from "Oliver" (I left the room for a Pepsi at this point).
When I get back, we find Ernie again (sans Bert) buying milk (again!) from Mr. Hooper, who seems like a transplant from the Lower East Side. We get a "song of 2" song, some more animals, another 2 song, then a gorgous "E" animation by the Hubleys, which is the highlight of the episode so far.
We get a slightly unmemorable sketch about a picture being hung up, and this great "token white guy" named "Bob" (how is that for a token white guy name?) showing Sally and Kermit the Frog how to make a W out of a dollar bill.
Wanda the Witch is an aliterative story that has an irritating animation flub at the end with a witch's face that is ostensibly in FRONT of a cauldron appears behind it. Otherwise, had a nice feel to it.
Carol Burnett comes out and makes a snappy one-liner, we stick with W until the end, get some closing credits and some groovy music.
From what I understand, this show is supposed to be like a media-savvy version of the federal Head Start program. I think it will do well, though they may want to consider stripping down the "sponsors" into a more digestible size (letters and numbers are the sponsers of the show, as opposed to advertisers.) This episode has the sponsors E, S, W, 2 and 3. In fact, the whole format is like that of a fast-paced network program, except educational and with no commercial interests. I am sure the jury is still out as to how the networks feel about this kind of co-option.
The kid loved it. I thought it showed a lot of potential. Who knows, maybe they will cancel it after a few months, because the kiddos miss their toy commercials and meaningless programming. We will have to see.
