Sesame Street Saturdays: Season 41 Episode Recap, Week 1

Sesame Street Season 41

Episode Recap, Week 1

Shane Keating -Another season of Sesame Street has begun! And on my birth-week no less! This season’s all about science and conducting experiments, which sounds a lot more tolerable than season 36’s healthy curriculum. We’ve got 26 episodes over the course of four months, so let’s begin here in September!

EPISODE 4213 – THE CAMOFLAUGE CHALLENGE

Elmo’s taking photos of Chris and Rosita, when they are greeted by Camouflage Carla (played by Kira Sedgwick). They are invited to join the Camouflage Club, but need to find 6 things that blend into Sesame Street in 6 minutes. They look all over the street, finding a grasshopper, a lizard, two butterflies and two ladybugs.

An alright story. It shouldn’t have been the season opener though. I love the "Camouflage" song though.

New Segments:

• Amy Poehler and Elmo show what a challenge is.
• “The O Network” – A cartoon letter O hosts an Oprah parody (voiced by Oprah herself)
• Abby’s Flying Fairy School: The class takes the Tooth Fairy Test by trying to place a coin under a girl’s pillow. It’s really nice to see a new one after a season of repeats. I especially loved the Tooth-Bank commercial.    
• Super Grover 2.0: Grover tries helping some penguins move an ice block from their dance floor. This is a GREAT segment! It’s 6 minutes, but unlike “Murray Has a Little Lamb”, it didn’t seem like that at all. It went by really fast. And there’s plenty of Grover comedy in it and Super Grover-type blunders you’d expect.
• The Closer: A Kira Sedgwick Muppet closes cases around the office. How odd that they’d include this in the episode with the Closer herself. You don’t really have to know the show to get the jokes. 

EPISODE 4214 – THE HAPPY SCIENTISTS

Telly, Elmo and Rosita find Gordon grading his student’s science papers, inspiring them to become scientists. They form a hypothesis about baths, after seeing Leela giving Barkley a bath. Elmo and Rostia think everyone on Sesame Street takes a bath, while Telly thinks otherwise. They roam the street and find that Chris takes a bath, cats take tongue baths, sparrows take dust baths, owls sun bathe, and Oscar takes a mud bath. Telly is upset his hypothesis was wrong, but learns that it’s okay to be wrong in science and the fun is in finding the answer.

This episode was a lot better than the previous episode. Telly is flat out hilarious when he becomes a “mad” scientist. The song they sing after they make a discovery got annoying after awhile (much like the Questing song from last season).

New Segments:

• Wanda Sykes shows Elmo what a journal is, but her journal begins to spread her secrets.
• F for Float – An astronaut in a NASA space station shows the letter F.
• Abby’s Flying Fairy School: A Cubby Creature steals all their stuff and they must get them back using patterns and “The Name Game.” If you like Michael Jackson, you’ll get a lot of the jokes Blögg makes.
• will.i.am sings “What I Am.” It’s a good song with lots of characters in it. But as you’ve probably seen, he doesn’t look too enthusiastic about it.
• The Two-Headed Monster adds chickens and pigs to make 14 animals. How cool is it to see these two (one?) back in action?!
• Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: Bert, Ernie, and Rubber Duckie (The Three Ducketeers) help King Louie Louie get his queen to forgive him. Bert falls in the moat several times in the process.

EPISODE 4215 – CHICKEN WHEN IT COMES TO THUNDER STORMS

Elmo, Chris, Leela, Abby and four chickens celebrate their tee-ball victory, but because of the thunderstorm outside, the chickens freak out, trashing the store and causing harm to Chris. They try to calm them down in various ways, including pretending the storm is like a side-show and a rave-song.

Chris is an excellent foil when it came to getting chickens thrown at him. Also, Teriyaki Chicken is a terrible pun name.

New Segments:

• Jason Bateman can’t find someone to help show “comfort.”
• “Fear,” a cartoon segment by child-book illustrator Todd Parr.
• Abby’s Flying Fairy School: Abby can’t sleep during naptime and tries counting sheep…by poofing several sheep into the classroom. Among there are a trio of German fashion model-like sheep, which cracked me up. 
• Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures – In Scotland, the duo try to get a picture of the famed Loch Ness Monster.
• True Mud: A “True Blood” parody where a man orders “true mud” at a restaurant, but gets a “true spud”, “true cud”, a man named Bud and a “true dud”. I liked it, plus Jerry Nelson voices the Bill M. Muppet! I don’t see why YouTubers are saying this will make kids wanna watch “True Blood.”

EPISODE 4216 – IRON MONSTER

Grover needs his Super Grover cape cleaned, but everyone in the Laundromat has an issue. While his cape’s in the wash, he invents a new superhero – IRON MONSTER. He tries breaking Chris’ dollar literally, while Leela shows him how to make change. Gabi then has a sweater with some stains, which Grover adds to rather than subtracting. Leela provided some stain remover. Finally, Maria is missing a sock, so Iron Monster uses his static-cling power that sends clothes flying at him. Leela finds the sock in the Missing Sock bin. When his cape is ready, he retires Iron Monster, stating the Laundromat has a superhero – Leela.

New Segments:

• Jude Law explains what “cling” means. Some animals help by clinging to him.
• Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures - Ernie and Bert train the Amazing Froggy to hop in the Frog Race. A tad tame compared to their other misadventures.

EPISODE 4217 – WHAT’S THAT NOISE?

Elmo is sleeping over at Maria and Luis’, when they hear a grasshopper on the sofa, but aren’t sure how to get rid of it. Big Bird arrives to say goodnight, and learns that some birds eat the insect, causing him to freak out. Super Grover then comes to the rescue, luring the grasshopper from under the sofa with a grasshopper call (or more accurately, a cow call). Getting the idea to lure the grasshopper outside, Elmo and Rev Run team up and sing “Hop This Way” as the grasshopper follows them to the garden where it belongs.

Another pretty good street story.  I didn’t really understand why Rev Run was really needed, but Super Grover’s scene was certainly great! And for anyone wondering, he retains his classic Super Grover look in the street scenes and has the new get-up in the Super Grover 2.0 segment. Speaking of that…

New Segments:

• Kara DioGuardi and Chef Elmo show the different kinds of pasta.
• Super Grover 2.0 – A cactus tries playing with his ball, but it suddenly begins to shrink and blow out air. Grover tries to find an appropriate substitute ball.

Tune in next week for some more weekly wrap-ups!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier