Reason Writers Around Town

Writing in L.A. Weekly, Jesse Walker reevaluates the most influential pop super-group since Menudo: the gang from Sesame Street.

Comments

[John V.]

Just remembering Ernie singing “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” has me tearing up a bit. I love that song so much.

[ChrisO]

Whatever Jesse was on when he wrote that…I want some.

[Jim Walsh]

Baby, that’s rock ‘n’ roll…

[jf]

Jesse:

That was genius. All I can say is thank you.

[Stevo Darkly]

It wasn’t the big hit that “Rubber Ducky” and “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” were, but my favorite has always been the relatively obscure “Up and Down.” (I think it was a duet with Cookie Monster and Grover.)

I look up and see the sky!
I look down and see the ground!
I look at you and sing a song about up and down!
(flourish of horns)

[Jesse Walker]

That’s a great song, Stevo. A band called Donner Party did a pretty good cover of it in the ’80s.

[temujin334]

While I was much more on an Ernie fan, when I read “Sesame Street” and saw “Music” I instantly thought of Bert’s “Doin’ the Pigeon”. In my mind I can still see him dancing.

A few years back I walked into a conversation between two co-workers arguing who the most popular SS character is/was. One was arguing Elmo (this was around the tickle me craze) and the other was arguing either Big Bird, Cookie Monster or Ernie. My argument was that Grover was by far the most popular. If you ask “Who is your favorite character” you will rarely hear Grover be the first pick, but as soon as his name is mentioned, almost everyone says “I loved Grover”. Then ask “Who was your least favorite?” and you will never get Grover as an answer (OK maybe every once in a while but those are probably the kids that liked Scrappy Doo). As for characters that people did not like you will get a wide variety (although I think The Count would be the highest percent). We ended up having about a 3 hour conversation about it–needless to say we were pretty bored that evening.

[free form]

When I was growing up, I lived too far out in the country to get PBS, so I missed the whole Sesame Street thing until I had my own kids. That said, my all-time Sesame Street favorite is the cover of Los Lobos’ “Kiko.” That was art.

[smacky]

*sigh* I miss Jim Henson.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I heard somewhere that menudo is Spanish for molested. Is that true?

[Stevo Darkly]

I thought “menudo” meant “I’m not wearing any clothes.”

“Me nudo!”

Actually, it means, “small or slight.”

Jesse, I’m going to see if the Donner Party version of “Up and Down” is available through amazon.com. I probably won’t buy it, but I’d like to hear a sample clip.