Sesame Street has always prided its self on being kind of hip. The show is filled with celebrity appearances, the music is usually pretty in style, and they make plenty of references and parodies off of popular culture. Every so often though, some people look at what’s going on down on Sesame Street and they are stumped at just what those fine young people with their hands up the butts of puppets are thinking.
That is what happened when critics heard the news that Sesame Street would be doing a parody of “Mad Men.” Just how are you supposed to take a show like that and make it kid friendly. Its almost like having The Count read Off Schindler’s List!
Which led critics to wonder: Just how do you pull off a parody of “Mad Men” for preschoolers?
I’m going to use the transcript version of executive vp of content’s Miranda Barry’s answer, because it shows how much the oft-grumpy critics appreciated her answer…
Here’s how they explained it to the critics in the audience.
“You may have seen our parody we did a fear years ago called ‘Desperate Houseplants’ which was a perfect translation of a houseplant that wasn’t getting its needs met by the gardener who was not watering it.”
Sesame Workshop’s vp of education and research Dr. Rosemarie Truglio adds, “’Sesame Street’ has always been written on two levels. And the children don’t understand these parodies, but the adult does…. Think about the title ‘Mad Men’ and think about the emotional curriculum that might be linked to that.”