Sesame St S3: Bert & Ernie
Bert objects to Ernie’s categories.
And speaking about placing things, in “Ernie Puts Toys into Groups”, he agrees to put away “most” of the toys from the messy floor if Bert will put away the rest, which his friend is fine with. To help make the process easier, Ernie decides to break it down into categories. He’ll put away the fire trucks! But there’s only one, and he knows he has to put away more than just that, so he expands his search to all the big toys! But as it turns out, the fire truck is the only big one. How about all of the red toys? Nope, just the fire truck. All the toys with wheels! Just the fire truck. All the toys with ladders? Naturally, just the fire truck. Finally, exhausted from all this thinking, Ernie just takes the fire truck, reassuring Bert that he’s taking all of the red toys, the big toys, the toys with wheels, and the toys with ladders, so really how can Bert complain?!
And how can he complain in “Talk Slower”, when Ernie runs into the living room, talking very quickly, in an effort to get Bert into the kitchen immediately? Yet Bert tells him he has to slow down because he can’t understand him. Ernie then very slowly explains that Bert’s toast is burning. At which point Bert starts freaking out and talking a mile a minute. “Talk slower, I can’t understand you, Bert,” Ernie fairly responds.
Conversely, he’s not fair at all in “Pizza and Grape Juice”, in which he and Bert are about to sit down to a lovely lunch of pizza and grape juice, however Ernie has both much more grape juice and more pizza than Bert. Bert complains, and Ernie rectifies the situation by quickly eating a bunch of his own pizza and drinking a bunch of his own drink until he actually has less than Bert! And if that weren’t bad enough, Ernie then tells Bert that it isn’t fair that Bert now has more than him, so he starts to drink Bert’s juice and nibble away at his pizza until there’s nearly none left of either, and Bert leaves in a huff. We’ve seen sketches like this in the past such as the one where Ernie ate another of Bert’s cookies because he didn’t want four and the one in the season 3 premiere where he drank all of Bert’s and his own soda while practicing how to use a straw, but you have to admire his sheer audaciousness here. It’s like the earlier set-ups on steroids!
Big Bird visits Bert and Ernie at home.
Ernie gets a bit of a taste of his own medicine, so to speak, however, in “The Wrong Patient” (particularly for the sketches where he won’t let Bert speak such as in “Surprise Present”) when the doctor arrives at the door, after Ernie had called him. Ok, so here’s one dated element: the concept of a house call, particularly in Manhattan. But, anyway, the doctor proceeds to check Ernie’s mouth and orders him to wiggle his fingers and wrist and to twist his neck. Then he checks his eyes, ears, and nose, and feels his heartbeat, and can find nothing wrong. All the while, Ernie is protesting and attempting to get a word in edgewise, which the doctor denies him.
Finally the doctor asks why he called him, implying with his tone that he’s a busy man who doesn’t like being bothered. “BECAUSE MY FRIEND, BERT, HAS A TUMMY ACHE,” Ernie answers. And off the unapologetic, oblivious doctor goes into the bedroom, where we hear him asking Bert to open his mouth! As in “The Case of the Broken Window,” Ernie is forced into Bert’s usual position here and getting nearly as frustrated as he does!
We get another nice surprise in “Tall, Taller, Tallest”, in which Ernie decides to demonstrate the three words for the audience. He explains that he is tall and that Bert is taller, which is a nice indication of character growth, as last time they had this discussion, Ernie had trouble admitting that Bert was taller than him. Bert then asks him, however, who is going to represent “tallest,” at which point Ernie tells him that he’s invited a friend over to illustrate that very thing, and then who should enter their apartment but Big Bird?! And here I thought Oscar visiting was a momentous occasion! Bert begins to complain as Big Bird gallumphs in, knocking over their coffee table and eventually putting his head through their ceiling, but Ernie just laughs. “Boy, isn’t this fun?!” Big Bird asks. It certainly is, Big Bird. It certainly is.
Speaking of home improvements, in “Fixing the Window”, Ernie stands by the window, which remains open even though there’s a rain storm outside, water furiously blowing into the apartment. Bert naturally asks him why he hasn’t closed it, and Ernie explains that the window is broken, and he can’t fix it because if he goes outside, he’ll get wet. Literally an instant later, the rain stops and the sun comes out. Bert declares that this makes it a perfect time for Ernie to fix the window. “Why fix it now, Bert?” Ernie asks. “If it’s not raining anymore, nothing’s getting wet, so there’s no reason to fix it now, Bert!” He mischievously laughs and leaves.
Bert objects to Ernie’s window logic.
I love how, in the normal situation, such as the earlier beach one or the one where it rains in the bathroom, a rapid weather change is something that ends up burning Bert and working out well for Ernie, but in this case, it should’ve helped Bert, as it provides the perfect opportunity for him to get Ernie to do work, and yet even with that, Ernie ends up winning with his impenetrable logic! It’s also another case where the show depicts something that an overly sensitive parent could be perceive as a “bad message” for children in that Bert doesn’t correct Ernie but just looks on, horrified, instead trusting the kids watching to understand the humor and why Ernie should fix it.
And we finish today with “Ernie’s Important Note for Bert”. Ernie has a notoriously bad memory (see him trying to remember what he forgot to do after his bath in this post, as well as when he went to bed with his basketball), and so here we learn he’s written down an important message for Bert that he hasn’t only forgotten but lost. Bert encourages him to find it, and so Ernie looks all over. After thinking he might have lost it in the toybox, he digs into it, tossing all of the toys all over the house but coming up empty. Then, he checks the laundry basket, throwing all of the laundry everywhere, to Bert’s outrage. Finally, he finds the note and reads it to Bert: “Dear Bert, it’s your turn to clean up the apartment. Love, Ernie.” Ba dum dum sisssss. Well, at least he said “love,” right?
Next week: Jim Henson and the Muppets make a classic appearance on Dick Cavett’s Thanksgiving special, 1971!