Sesame St S6: Grover, Etc.
This sketch veers more towards the latter, for as soon as Johnson recognizes Grover, he’s already begun to dig his heels in, refusing to give in to Grover’s “nonsense”. And to be fair, what Grover delivers him will turn out to be turned up to nonsensical heights, however in this case, it isn’t Grover’s fault at all but rather the kitchen’s.
At the top of the scene, Mr. Johnson orders a hamburger and Grover tells him that he has two options: little or big, but Grover strongly advises he go with the little one, and Johnson agrees to give it a try. As soon as he sees that said burger is actually tiny (like a miniature slider), however, he demands a big one. Grover tries to explain to him that it would be a better option to have a few little ones, but Johnson has made up his mind. When Grover beseeches him that they’ve had some trouble with the big burger, he even rather rudely responds, “Your trouble is no concern of mine”.
And, as in classical tragedy, that behavior leads to his own desires being ruined, as when Grover reluctantly brings out the “big” burger, it is absolutely enormous, smashing into and destroying the kitchen doors and eventually crushing the table, Grover’s punchline being whether Johnson wants the big or little bottle of ketchup. Johnson then walks out, leaving poor Grover buried under the burger and him presumably with no lunch.
And so this might be the first restaurant sketch that ends with neither having truly “won”. In some ways, Grover gets to lay claim to the moral high ground, since he never once either deliberately or accidentally antagonized Mr. Johnson and even went out of his way to try to prevent the catastrophe that occurs. But, on the other hand, Johnson unfairly doesn’t receive much comeuppance. Yes, he leaves hungry, but poor Grover is the one who has to truly suffer the consequences of his demanding customer’s actions. This is also another Sesame Street sketch without a prominently educational message. It gently reminds us of the concepts of “big” and “little” to a degree but without putting too fine a point on it and all in the service of the comedy.
And speaking of Grover not winning, next we have another in the continuing adventures of Super Grover!
One of the funniest aspects of Super Grover is that, whereas when most people imagine themselves as superheroes, one expects them to be the brightest, most beyond-competent versions of themselves, but Grover’s superhero alter ego is in some ways even more exaggeratedly ill-equipped to handle the world than he is. But what makes the character so lovable is that he has no idea how bad he is at being a superhero, always flying in…and then crashing…with gusto and confidence. He really wants to help the helpless and the best part is, most of the time, he’s convinced himself that he has, all evidence to the contrary.
This sketch is particularly funny as it hinges on Super Grover not being able to read while the little boy he is ostensibly saving, can. So, although the boy initially cries because he can’t find the bus his mommy told him to take home, he finally stops and reads the “Bus Stop” sign and voices relief that he’s going to be ok. “How did I do it?!” Super Grover expectantly asks, to which the boy replies, “You didn’t solve my problem!” arguably the most direct a person has been with Super Grover to date about his lack of help. The boy goes on to explain to Grover that the sign is the answer, to which Grover replies, “Your mommy said to take a bus home. She did not say to take a sign home!”
The boy then tries to show him how the sign says “Bus” and Grover assumes that that means this sign is a bus, proceeding to pull it out of the ground. Finally, the bus arrives and the boy hops on, to the utter confusion of our poor fuzzy hero: “While I was trying to explain to him that his mommy wanted to take a bus home, he got into that big wagon thing and drove away!” So not only can Super Grover not read, but he can’t identify certain words, either…which is actually pretty consistent with Farmer and Marshall Grover’s directional issues, come to think of it!
Next time: an assortment of miscellaneous clips from Season 6 that weren’t as easy to categorize!