Sesame Street S6: Misc.
For today’s post, we have a bunch of miscellaneous clips from Sesame Street‘s sixth season. The first 2 are more Sesame Street Fairy Tales, as told by people from the street and acted out by the Muppets, the first being “The King’s Picnic”:
So, a pretty simple Sesame Street set-up and pay-off: a king assembles all of the people in his kingdom to have a picnic and asks them all to come back and bring various sorts of food so they can have a great big feast. If one so chooses, one could read into this a rather dark story about a despotic ruler who, rather than sharing his wealth and food with the kingdom, demands his subjects provide him with sustenance. I mean, come on, King, this would be pretty rude behavior from a neighbor, let alone a reigning monarch.
But putting that aside, the lesson here is actually about specificity and fore-planning, for everyone happens to bring the exact same thing–watermelon–and then when they all go home and reconvene again, everyone brings potato salad, the king having mentioned a preference for it. And so it’s up to the prime minister to suggest that the king make a list and ask each person in the kingdom to bring a different item off the list, which he does, leading to a fun call-and-response between the king and his subjects in an almost musical beat.
Overall, a good example of Sesame Street again not just going for the obvious lessons or message. They weren’t just about letters, words, and numbers, but about introducing concepts such as cooperation and organizing in order to bring a plan together.
“The King Banishes P”
And then in “The King Banishes the Letter ‘P’“, we have an even sillier king making an even sillier proclamation. King Peter the Persnickety is very fond of the letter, “P,” until one day, when walking with his daughter, Princess Penelope, a ping-pong ball hits him in the head and he then painfully backs into his pet porcupine, causing him to ban all things starting with “P” from his kingdom, only for one of his advisors to remind him that the words, “pen” and “proclamation” also begin with that word, and so he promptly takes them away. Now, logically, one could argue that that should mean that this is perhaps somewhat of a paradox, as the proclamation should eliminate itself (not to mention the king himself, thanks to his name), but for the sake of the joke, let’s just go with it.
And as one might guess, the king soon comes to learn that he’s now going to be denied many of his favorite things, including peanut butter and pickle pizza, his daughter since she’s a princess, and his palace, until he finally reverses his decree. The end. Perhaps not the most innovative or surprising Sesame sketch, but cute nonetheless. Note: interestingly, the clip I was able to locate of this sketch is actually from a later season. They apparently reshot a new framing device with Luis, in order to let them use the story after the original one had become dated, likely due to the ages of the actors. This clip seems to be from the mid-80s, judging by the presence of Telley Monster.
And speaking of monsters, next we have another Ernie/Cookie Monster team-up, “Cookie Counter”: