Sesame St S7 Clips #2
Today, we wrap up Sesame Street Season 7 with one last batch of clips, most of which I found on the show’s official YouTube channel. First up, we have Cookie Monster teaching us the Spanish word for “love”:
Don’t tell me you’re surprised about the object of his affection! I particularly love the romantic flower beside them. Such a nice touch. Next, yet another rendition of “Bein’ Green,” this time with the legendary Lena Horne:
Although it might be sacriligeous to say it, this is actually my least favorite version of the song we’ve seen so far. While Lena is sweet with Kermit, as she was with Grover in Season 5, I’m not a huge fan of how she talk-sings large portions of it. I find it more than a bit grating. She had a beautiful voice, and I just wish she would have used it for more of her rendition. I also wish Kermit had sung more on it, too. Oh, well. To make up for that, we have 2 scenes that feature a great deal of talking from Kermit. The first is yet another Grover the Salesman sketch:
As with the previous one, Grover is again trying to sell Kermit on something he ultimately doesn’t buy, albeit this time around it isn’t a fantastical object but a rather mundane one: sunglasses. And it is something that Kermit would like, in order to protect his eyes, although perhaps not from them being sunburned, as Grover suggests. The problem is, however, that, in order to hold up said sunglasses, Kermit would need a nose and ears, which he does not have. When Kermit first points the latter out to him, as he apparently did when Grover had tried to sell him earmuffs in the past, Grover cutely responds, “Aw, still no ears, huh?” all of which is almost a meta comment on Kermit’s construction as a puppet, but it’s also literal. Even closer to meta is when Grover describes Kermit’s eyes as being “like two ping pong balls floating in a sea of mildew,” because a ping pong ball cut in half is exactly what the original Kermit puppet’s eyes were made out of.
But, anyway, despite Kermit’s protestations, Grover does indeed have a solution for him. He pulls a reluctant Kermit behind a chair, and once he emerges, we see that Grover has plastered Groucho-esque glasses–which come with their own rubber ears and nose with mustache (“Mustache optional,” Grover clarifies)–on an engraged Kermit’s face! One of the great things about Sesame Street is that, as with The Muppet Show later on, underneath its innovative madness, it was rooted in classic, well-worn comedic tropes from vaudeville and much earlier. As with Bert and Ernie, Ernie and Cookie Monster, and other similar combinations, the root of the Kermit/Grover relationship is a straight man being driven up a wall by a wackier comedic sidekick.
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