Generation gap, 1

Some nights ago, some friends and I went out for a post-midnight snack. We had gone to another colleague’s dad’s wake straight from work—we all work on Western Europe time, so this was around 3 am already—and, not wanting to risk going against any superstitious beliefs, we all decided to have SEx—Sinangag Express—before heading on to our homes. Over tapsilog, tokwa, and suppressed yawns, I somehow brought up the subject of Sesame Street.

“Do you remember that puppet that made sound effects?” I asked.

They all looked at me blankly.

“He was blue.”

“Oh, Grover,” replied one.

“No, Grover doesn’t make sound effects. This guy would go, ‘I want to buy a [zzz-zzz-zzz] when he meant a saw.’” I tried my best to reproduce the sound of a saw.

“Oh, you mean Cookie Monster,” replied another.

“No, this muppet was human.”

And they all laughed and said, “Althea, there are no human puppets in Sesame Street! They’re all monsters!”

That was when I realized many of them were four to six years younger than me. They were born around the time the Filipino-English Sesame! and, eventually, the all-Filipino Batibot took over Sesame Street and, as such, only remembered the monsters that made the cut. They grew up with serious Sesame Street merchandising. For obvious reasons, few of the human puppets ended up as stuffed toys.

It isn’t true that there are no human puppets in Sesame Street, of course. There are a number of “human” puppets—and by human, I mean Ernie and Bert human. Among many others, there’s, well, Ernie and Bert; there’s America’s favorite game show host, Guy Smiley; there’s the inventor who invents useless things or already invented things, Dr. Nobel Price; and there’s my favorite human puppet of all-time, Simon Soundman. Yes, I had to look him up in Google.

Simon Soundman is a coat-and-hat-wearing, mustachioed blue puppet who has the ability to mimic sounds and he usually produces sound effects in the place of his nouns. He walks his [bark, bark], hangs up the [ring, ring], and so on.

I was also thrilled to discover there were YouTube clips of his segments! One of my favorites is still when he goes to the music store asking to buy a [sound of a trumpet] and the clerk brings him all sorts of musical instruments. He would say, “No, I don’t want a [sound of a piano], I want a [sound of a trumpet]!” And so on, until the clerk finally gets it right. Of course, the clerk has his moment too, when, after Simon leaves, he says, “I should have asked him if he wanted to play in our [band music].”

Another favorite is when he meets Old MacDonald in a china shop. Old MacDonald is looking for an animal and Simon tries to guess what it is by making different animal sounds. It’s a riot with all the animals coming in each time and the china shop guy panicking—especially when Simon makes the sound for an elephant! 

The segments still crack me up.

I used to love to say that I learned English on Sesame Street, and just honed it on Reader’s Digest. In hindsight, I realized I picked up more than just the English language; I also picked up a sense of humor and a love for all things creative. Imagine all the work that goes into making a puppet show—and an educational one at that!

That early morning, I also realized I was getting older and it won’t be long until I’m talking about the good old days and kids would be laughing at the absurdity of my recollections.

Wait, that already happened.

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