PC stormtroopers issue warning about first Sesame Street episodes

[bull]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of "Sesame Street" are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia. Just don't bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, "Sesame Street: Old School" is adults-only: "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child."

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. "What did they do to us?" asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar's depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn't exist.

Nothing in the children's entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-'60s news report — something about a "senior American official" and "two billion in credit over the next five years" — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old "Sesame Street" is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper "Elmo's World" started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original "Sesame Street" might hurt your feelings.

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of "Sesame Street," how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody "Monsterpiece Theater." Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, "That modeled the wrong behavior" — smoking, eating pipes — "so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether."

(click link for more...)

[Charger_Fan]

Rediculous.
I've gotta wonder how many people actually search & buy the original episodes of Sesame Street for their kids. I bet there ain't many at all.

[PocketThunder]

When sesame street stopped having the cookie monster eat cookies and instead had him eat numbers because kids were getting fat, i quit watching.. 

I sit down with my 3 year old and watch old time cartoons on youtube and i can definitely see the difference in violence between Tom and Jerry and todays cartoons on the Disney Channel.   Was there anything wrong with Tom and Jerry?  I dont think so.  I always wanted to flood my kitchen and stick two lines from the kitchen freezer in the water and see it instantly turn to ice 

oh and for demographics to this thread i'm 32 yrs old.

[Drache]

did you know there was a coalition of mothers who once got together and staged a strike of sorts wanting disney to stop anything from ever dying in their movies? 

[RD]

man, my 5 year old would rather watch boomerang than any of the new cartoons out today  (well except dora and barbie stuff).  Tom and Jerry is something she loves to watch.  She doesnt care for Sesame Street though... I dont know why.

[dodgecharger-fan]

Watch this Tom and Jerry episode.. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=e-zh6CMmGgg&mode=related&search=

I find the segment at around 2:06 rather disturbing.
Disturbing in a funny-as-hell kinda way, though.

[hemihead]

And people wonder why some people act the way they do today.We are raising a generation of Americans that lack any kind of intestinal fortitude .
Parents need to stop being a bunch of wusses .

[HITMAN 149]

I read that article on yahoo... and was like WTF!?!?!?!? are they kidding me!!!!
there is something seriously wrong with people nowadays!!!!!!!

[Manfred318]

And people wonder why some people act the way they do today.We are raising a generation of Americans that lack any kind of intestinal fortitude .
Parents need to stop being a bunch of wusses .

These PC ass-wipes need to shut the hell up and quit ruinin my life.

[skyhawk61]

    I call it the "iddy-biddy life"(clean version) syndrome.  Apparently these true believers feel it is absolutely necessary to play the role of social engineers, most likely, in my opinion, because 99% of their everyday life is just too mundane for them to tolerate.  I went to college in the 60's with people like this who just couldn't wait to get enough money, power, and influence in order to inflict their idea of how we should live our lives, and how we should think, upon anyone within range.
   

[mikesbbody]

didnt burt and ernie sleep in the same bed? seriously though what a bunch of stupid pc crap.

[RD]

Watch this Tom and Jerry episode.. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=e-zh6CMmGgg&mode=related&search=

I find the segment at around 2:06 rather disturbing.
Disturbing in a funny-as-hell kinda way, though.

that wasnt bad at all... now 2:25  that actually happened to me on the golf course

[remta1]

And people wonder why some people act the way they do today.We are raising a generation of Americans that lack any kind of intestinal fortitude .
Parents need to stop being a bunch of wusses .

These PC ass-wipes need to shut the hell up and quit ruinin my life.

Dead right !!!!!!!

[VPFD13]

Its all part of the pusafaction of todays youth

[Charger_Fan]

And people wonder why some people act the way they do today.We are raising a generation of Americans that lack any kind of intestinal fortitude .
Parents need to stop being a bunch of wusses .

Couldn't agree more...














...well, maybe I could, but that would need a different smiley & I'm too lazy to go look for one right now.

[HITMAN 149]

it's exactley.. like those emails that circulate..... comparing back in the days when we were growing up (nothng past the 80's... i was born late 1970) to growing up today.... we all turned out fine!!! (well some of anyways..charger boy!!LOL  ) 
my fav email is the one comparing what would have happened in school in 1960.. as opposed to now... the teacher consoling the kid who fell & scrapped his knee... the kid who pulls up into the pkng lot w/ a shotgun in his gunrack...ect...ect.  anybody ever get that one??it's the truth though!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
and it is realllllly sad!!!!

[Charger_Fan]

 
my fav email is the one comparing what would have happened in school in 1960.. as opposed to now... the teacher consoling the kid who fell & scrapped his knee... the kid who pulls up into the pkng lot w/ a shotgun in his gunrack...ect...ect.  anybody ever get that one??

I haven't gotten that one yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time, though.

[HITMAN 149]

it's soooo hysterical... BUT true!! something like ..
1960.. lil johnny goes hunting early before going to school & pulls up into the pkng lot with his shotgun on his rack in the back window.. vice principle notices it while standing outside smokin a cigarette... they start talkin & the vice principle goes & gets his shotgun outta his car trunk to show johnny...they talk guns before school starts....

2007.... someone hears johhny has a gun... calls the police, who respond with the swat team, the fbi, and the atf.. who close down the whole town.... evactuate the school... johhny is takin in and charged with possesion of a gun for unlawfull purposes...ect..ect..ect.. goes to jail and never gets a good job.!!!

1960.... lil timmy falls during recess at school & skins his knee, and is crying ... mrs. crabtree (teacher).. goes over to help him out and gives him a hug to console him and tell him it'll be alright.....

2007..... timmy falls at school hurts his knee..... Mrs. crabtree is reported for sexaully abusing lil timmy..... gets locked up...looses her teachers lic... never to work again!!!! timmmy spends years in counseling, about how the teacher sexually abused him... wins millions in teh lawsuit against the school system... blows it all on drugs, and  shrinks, cause he was soooo traumatized!!!

there's about 10 diff scenerios!! but they are soooo funny  ... but sadly true

[Charger_Fan]

You're right, it is true!

[Old Moparz]

I was too old for Sesame Street when it aired, but my younger sister watched it. She takes medications now, so I have to say that it could've been that show that messed her all up. 

The Electric Company was the one geared towards kids a little older, & the one I recalled watching. My 4th Grade teacher would have it on in the class a couple of times each month. Morgan Freeman played a character that could almost pass for a pimp or a dealer on that show called Easy Reader, try doing that now.   
Easy Reader:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PuAqRQLKA

Now my 8 year old daughter didn't really like Sesame Street except for Elmo. There's a bunch of other kid shows that are popular that she also doesn't like. My wife would catch her watching Animal Planet with the emergency vet shows doing operations on pets. She hates Dora The Explorer, but cut open a dog & save it & she's a happy kid.

Her & I watch Monty Python's Flying Circus together. My dad gave me the entire TV series on DVD. Her favorites so far are The Ministry of Silly Walks & the Spam song with the Vikings in the coffee shop.   
Silly Walks:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
Spam:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ6N5m8FpVg

[Brock Samson]

only kids shows i watched are Captain Kangaroo and The Boondocks. 

[Old Moparz]

only kids shows i watched are Captain Kangaroo and The Boondocks. 

The Captain was cool.   

[HITMAN 149]

it's a lil long.... but i found it!?!?! don't ask me how???
SCHOOL 1967 vs. 2007
Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1967 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1967 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1967 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1967 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1967 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1967 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1967 - Ants die.
2007 - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security and FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Heather. Heather hugs him to comfort him.
1967 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Heather is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy. 

[Charger_Fan]

That's friggin' awesome!!
(sorry for my late reply )

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1967 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

This one reminds me of my grade school principal. He wore these nice, pointy cowboy boots, ya see...so, one day I did something bad (no longer remember what it was). He grabbed me & kicked my azz ALL the way back to the Principal's office with those boots.
My Mom had to come hear what I did, took me home, made me wait 3 hours with my nose pressed against the wall until Dad came home.
Dad came home & upon hearing the news, whipped my azz with his belt.
I didn't do THAT again...whatever it was.

[HITMAN 149]

  OUCH!!! but ya didn't do it again did ya!?!?!? NOPE!!!!
but nowadays.... forget it..... the kids have  the  DYFS phone #  on there $300 cells phones!!!!!!!  :rotz:LOL