Only a few days left in this year’s 30 Day Song Challenge and as much as I’ve enjoyed participating again this summer, it just got considerably more difficult to do so as I am now swamped with other blog-matters (specifically, my post regarding the recent SCOTUS “marriage equality” decision). Thankfully, today’s prompt is a simple and fun one. Ahhhhh, childhood.
Like most people my age, I was in part raised and educated by the PBS children’s program Sesame Street, As you may or may not have heard, the early episodes of Sesame Street have now been released as a multi-volume DVD collection entitled Sesame Street: Old School. For those of us who grew up watching the show, the collection offers a healthy helping of nostalgia and probably several hours worth of hilarity for the next time you and your friends have had a few drinks. Be forewarned, though: you’ll need to send the kiddies to bed before you watch, because (according to the warning labels) Sesame Street: Old School is FOR ADULTS ONLY. Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself “WHAAAAA??!! WHYYYY??!!” as I did when I heard the news. Is this the edict of some Helicopter Parent? Have the PC Police overstepped their bounds? Surely there was terrible mistake at the labeling factory! Did some poor intern mix up the Sesame Street:Old School boxes with The Wire boxes?
Nope. It turns out that quite a bit of legitimately questionable stuff used to go largely unnoticed, uncorrected and/or unpunished back in the day on Sesame Street. Kids rode their bikes without helmets. Little girls wandered around alone on the street (and allowed themselves to be hoisted up into the arms of the first adult male stranger that was nice to them). The muppets taught each other about different emotions by pretty much psychologically abusing one another. And then there was my pick for today.
Want to learn what’s great about the 15th letter of the alphabet? Great, kids! Here’s a little ditty and sketch about the letter “O.” Our protagonist, “Lefty the Salesman,” is styled after a street-corner, trench-coated drug dealer! Here he his not-so-subtly sexualizing the letter and getting pushy with a reluctant buyer!
My, oh my, how things do change.
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