Sesame Street/YMMV

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: Elmo's World only appears once in a while from now on, and will be replaced a few seasons from now.
  • The Tim Schafer video game.
  • The actor who played Gordon in the first pilot episode has finally been identified!
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Pretty much endless, as befits a kids' series with adult fans, but the most famous is likely the one holding that Bert and Ernie are a gay couple. Spinoff rumours include a scenario where they're going to marry to teach kids tolerance, and a horrific variant in which Ernie is then to get AIDS and die graphically, again all in the name of understanding. Ironically enough, the series did eventually add an HIV-positive Muppet — but only in its South African version.
  • Sesame Workshop has debunked the "gay couple" theory. "Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation."
  • Not that it stopped Kermit and Miss Piggy...
    • Miss Piggy never appeared on Sesame Street, so they can't speak for her.
  • Word of God says that originally Bert was going to be the father and Ernie his son, which is why they live together. There were concerns that this would encourage kids to talk back to their parents, so the relationship was changed to make them brothers. More specifically, Bert is an older brother as perceived by his kid sibling (kind but boring), while Ernie is a younger brother (affectionate but annoying) from the elder's perspective. The writers eventually kept this vague, to allow more kinds of plots between the two.
  • It's obvious that Bert and Ernie aren't adults, but a pair of preadolescent boys living an ideal boy's fantasy life, with the freedoms of adulthood but none (or few—they occasionally clean the apartment and do laundry) of the adult responsibilities. Their lack of any apparent paying jobs and constant habit of playing with toys support this interpretation. Bert's obsession with collecting fits right in with their role as the "latency period" characters in the original cast (just as Cookie Monster appears to represent the oral stage, Oscar the anal and Big Bird, age 6, the Oedipal). C.S. Lewis cites the characters in The Wind in the Willows as an example of a similar trope, using animals instead of people to let them have the freedoms of both children and adults at the same time; likewise, Sesame Street uses puppets to get away with the same fantasy.
  • Some people also see Bert in a different light...
• Archive Panic: If you gave birth to a child, and immediately began watching the entire run of Sesame Street in succession, that child would be old enough for Kindergarten by the time you were finished. That's amusing, given the show's mission and target audience.
• Awesome Music: Now has its own page.
• Broken Base: Parents who watch Sesame Street now might be uncomfortable with the show's transition into "The Elmo Show" and the degree to which Elmo has pushed all the other Muppets into the background. Children, however, love the little red menace.
  • If there is enough parental outcry in regard to potentially objectionable material, e.g., Katy Perry wearing a revealing bridal outfit or Chris Brown beating up Rihanna, it is going to get pulled. As a result of both PBS standards and trying to appeal to both kids and parents, this show manages to defy and exaggerate this trope.
• Creator's Pet: Nearly everyone's had their turn, but the two most recent are Elmo and Abby Cadabby.
• Ear Worm: One two three four, five, six seven eight nine, ten, eleven twelve.
  • Rubber Duckie, you're the one! You make bath time lots of fun! Rubber Duckie, I'm awfully fond of you!
  • 'C' is for Cookie, that's good enough for me!
  • Have YOU got the moves?
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Elmo, after Kevin Clash started performing him, so much so that he's now become a Creator's Pet to a lot of the show's older fans.
  • Clash, on the other hand, has developed into the Derek Jeter of children's television, set with the task of training muppeteers all over the world.
  • For those who aren't freaked out by them, the Martians could also qualify. YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP. UH HUH. UH HUH. YIP YIP YIP.
• Fan Dumb: The continued rumors that Cookie Monster is being transformed into the Veggie Monster. Despite this rumor having been debunked years ago, there are still people that are slinging it around, such as in this YouTube video. Wake up, people!
• Flanderization: An inevitable side effect of Long Runner crossed with Loads and Loads of Characters. Some stand out more than others, though: Zoe was originally a little girl monster who enjoyed, among other things, dancing, but now she is never seen without her pink tutu. Also, Telly used to be fond of triangles instead of obsessed with them like he is now.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: The cover of Monsters on the Loose!.
  • In this 1992 clip, Elmo pretends to be an obnoxious wind-up toy. Four years later comes Tickle Me Elmo, amid other merchandise.
• Genius Bonus: Most people think Count von Count's counting obsession is just a pun on his name. It's not. A largely forgotten vampire legend holds that the best way to escape a vampire is to spill a bag of rice, sand or pebbles, because vampires, being a neurotic species, must stop whatever they're doing until they've counted every last item in a pile. That's why the Count has never killed anyone: he never runs out of things to count!
• Germans Love Bert and Ernie: So much so, that they have their own apartment on Sesamstrasse. Other minor characters such as Lefty, Herry, and the Two-Headed Monster are also more popular in Deutschland.
  • Bob McGrath is huge in Japan, even before he was an SS cast member. Many of his albums saw an exclusive release in Japan.
  • The show itself is quite popular in Japan, where it ran on NHK for many years. This was due to the fact that they left parts of the original dialogue undubbed, which would help Japanese children learn English better. In 2004, a Japanese co-production started, whose questionable handling of the English language was not well received.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Ernie's song "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon".
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "OM NOM NOM NOM", to the point of possibly being more recognizable than the Cookie Monster who originally said it.
  • "One of these things is not like the others..."
  • This desecration of "The Count's Song"... by Lemon Demon.
• Memetic Outfit: Bob's sweater.
• Nightmare Fuel: Plenty. See this page for examples.
• Periphery Demographic: part of the reason there's so many Parental Bonuses.
• The Scrappy: Elmo, to a lot of adult fans.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Now that everybody does it, it's hard to remember that Sesame Street invented quality, research-based, curriculum-based, entertaining and educational children's TV that has an ethnically diverse cast and doesn't talk down to its audience.
• Tear Jerker: See this page for examples.
• Unfortunate Implications: Cecille's "I'm Gonna Get to You" can be read as either I Will Find You or Stalker with a Crush.
• We're Still Relevant, Darn It: Pretty much inevitable given the show's age, although not nearly as bad as it could be. Here is an article on the subject.
• The Woobie: Grover, on a kid's-TV level. He frequently pushes himself to literal exhaustion in his drive to be helpful, as when for example demonstrating concepts like "Near and Far".
• Woolseyism: In the Hebrew version of "It Sure Is Hot", instead of the boy trying to talk to the girl in Spanish, he tries to talk to her in Hebrew instead.
  • That song is not, as far as I know, actually from the Israeli version of the show (Rechov Sumsum), but rather from a special project of CTW from the late '80s and early '90s called Shalom Sesame. That miniseries was meant to introduce Israel and Judaism to Americans, and is mostly in English, though it features many of the Israeli characters. Based on the fact that the song in question is mostly in English, and is aimed at teaching Hebrew, I would presume that it was made especially for the crossover.
  • The Dutch version changes the girl to one who only knows English, and so the boy instead teaches her a little Dutch.
  • "C Es De Cebolla" from Plaza Sésamo, a remixed version of "C Is For Cookie". Here, Pancho sings about his love for onions.