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Cookie Monster really has a good thing going, you know...?
Warner / 398 Minutes / 1979-1984 / Unrated / Street Date: November 6, 2012
Sesame Street - at least as represented by the material on this Old School, Vol. 3 compilation - moves a lot slower than modern children's programming, but that's precisely what makes it so magical. I've tried (as so m any of us have) to pay Sesame Street forward, to expose young kids to it the way I was exposed to it back in the early 1980s, but its effect is minimal. I continue to love Bert and Ernie like brothers, but if you ask most kids today, they prefer Bubble Guppies.
But the advent of home theater allows for even the most distinctly grown-up of us to consult our inner 5-year-old and swim in the marvelous sea of Sesame Street - Old School, Vol. 3. This compilation - even more so than Vols. 1 and 2 - really brought me back: as a bicentennial baby, the material showcased here was originally broadcast right in the sweet spot of my childhood. I'd be lying if I said I remember all the stuff on this set, but there's no denying that it all seems somehow familiar.
One sheds a tear, though, knowing that a lot of parents and godparents and aunts and uncles will buy this set, try it out on their favorite 5-year-olds and quite likely fail to make an impact. Sesame Street remains the gold standard of children's programming, but the post-Dora world has left the franchise seeming extinct, unfairly antiquated. Thank goodness even us thirty-somethings still need to learn how to count to three every once in a while....