Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sesame Street’ Season 56 On Netflix, The First Batch Of New Episodes Arrives At Its New Streaming Home

On November 10, 1969, Sesame Street debuted on public television, a year before PBS was created; it was designed to teach young kids from all backgrounds, but was specifically geared towards kids in less-privileged city neighborhoods who may have gaps in their education. Fifty-six years later, the show starts a new era, debuting its first episodes produced for its new home at Netflix (the episodes will also be run on PBS Kids), with a new format that was in the works before the deal with the Big Red N was signed.

SESAME STREET SEASON 56: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Elmo (Ryan Dillon) looks at the camera and says, “There you are! Hi! Elmo is so happy to see you!”

The Gist: Elmo, Abby (Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) and Zoe (Jennifer Barnhart) gather at Hooper’s Store before “The Sesame Street Races”. Alan (Alan Muraoka), the owner of Hooper’s, comes out and gives the friends sandwiches to give them energy for the race. But Elmo is too busy to eat, leaving his sandwich on the table to tempt Cooke Monster (David Rudman).

Grover (Eric Jacobson) refs the race, telling the friends that they each have to carry a chicken on their back; doing play-by-play is NASCAR star Bubba Wallace. As they race down Sesame Street, Elmo gets tired and he loses to Abby (Zoe and her much larger chicken don’t even get started). His tummy rumbles, but he still doesn’t want the sandwich Alan saved for him.

A new animated segment called “Tales From The 123” follows, which takes place in the apartment building where Elmo and just about everyone else in the Sesame Street gang lives. In the segment, Elmo and his puppy Tango (Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) are going to Grover’s apartment for a playdate, but Grover is heading to Elmo’s. First they’re far, then near, but definitely on different floors.

Then we get a segment with Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck; Cookie and Gonger (Warrick Brownlow-Pike) get an order for a birthday cake, but they don’t have eggs! They get in touch with a farmer and her daughter and they show the food truck guys where eggs come from. Finally, on “Elmo’s World,” Elmo talks about how great it is to have friends around, with an assist from Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle (Daniel Koren) and his poodle, Schmoodle.

Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Sesame Street, Seasons 1-55.

Our Take: Season 56 is the first Sesame Street season that the Sesame Workshop has produced with Netflix, after their HBO deal ended. There definitely are changes to the format, but the Workshop, constantly making adjustments based on new studies of how kids consume media, had them in the works before Netflix picked them up.

This Parade article gives a good summary of the changes. The first segment is 11 minutes long, and has more music and animated elements than they used to, including things like “shouty lines” when a character yells or “rumbly lines” when Elmo’s tummy rumbles. The Muppets talk directly to the camera more than they used to. “Tales From The 123” is a new fixture. The stories concentrate on Elmo, Abby, Cookie and Grover, withe the rest of the cast as supporting players. And any of the remaining short interstitials, like “Number of the Day” or “Letter of the Day,” are no longer there.

We get it; the target audience of Sesame Street has been getting progressively younger, and it seems like the show is now geared towards 3-and-under audiences. But it feels like, while the show still has a lot of creativity and is effective at getting littles engaged in order to learn and retain the lessons they’re trying to teach, something has been lost in all of the show’s transformations over the past decade.

Sesame Street is no longer the smart show that didn’t pander to its audience just because they were in diapers. If it weren’t for the iconic characters, at this point the show would blend in with every other grating show for the preschool set that relies on songs, colors and noise instead of real characters. Sure, this evolution has been happening for decades now, ever since Elmo became the show’s most dominant character. But it feels like it’s accelerated since the HBO deal went down and the show went from an hour to 30 minutes.

We do really understand why Sesame Workshop wants to make sure that today’s kids stay engaged with the show; it’s harder to keep kids’ attention given everything else that’s around for them to pay attention to. But at what point does the show become different to the point where it’s barely recognizable anymore?

Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX

What Age Group Is This For?: As we said, Sesame Street has truly become a show for the 3-and-under set. It may still keep the attention of Pre-K 4 and 5-year-olds, but the show isn’t as much for them as it used to be.
Parting Shot: Elmo does his happy dance on “Elmo’s World,” then a new end-credit sequence sees most of the Muppet cast dancing.
Sleeper Star: Each and every one of the Muppeteers are sleepers, because they continue to embody their characters so well that you have to remind yourself that there are people moving these puppets and giving them their voices.
Most Pilot-y Line: We are not fans of the added animations in the opening segment. Why do we need shouty lines or whatever else is there? The talent of the Muppeteers has been more than enough for 56 years; why start adding to it now?

Our Call: STREAM IT. What, did you think we were going to pan Sesame Street? It’s definitely a shadow of what it once was, but the characters are still classic, and the lessons they teach are given in a way that will stick in the minds of the kids they’re trying to teach.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.