Sesame Street Saturdays: Season 41 Episode Recap, Week 2

Sesame Street Season 41
Episode Recap, Week 2

Shane Keating – A second week of shows, a second week of write-ups! This week started the return of “repeating” episodes, where they use the street scenes from an older episode and add new segments to it. The season 39 shows are being repeated this season, but I’m not going to cover them. Let’s go!

EPISODE 4218 – THE FURRY FOUR

Elmo, Telly and Abby are inspired by their “Furry Four” comic to pretend to be the superheroes. But, there are only three of them and they need a fourth. They find Rosita and Zoe, but they make five. They find a chicken, which refuses to be a part of it. A squirrel takes up the challenge, but breaks his back while showing off his “super-strength.” With no hope, they find Chris, who becomes their fourth member.

The episode was pretty funny. Joey M’s squirrel particularly had me in stitches. Much like the “Y Quest,” they sing the same song in every scene and it got on my nerves.

New Segments:

• Chris O’Donnel tries to show “activate” by activating a robot, but can’t find the right button.
• Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures: Ernie and Bert are dog-walkers and deal with Lady Ostrich’s sad dog.
• An Anything Muppet girl sings about how much she loves her hair. It’s a good song.

EPISODE 4219 – THE WOOSH & VANISH MYSTERY

Elmo and Telly are going to play basketball, but their ball suddenly disappears. Telly gets an investigator’s hat, crayon and pad to try to find an answer to the mystery. They first accuse Abby, since she can make things disappear, but she was with the Seven Dwarves. They then accuse the Big Bad Wolf, since they heard a wooshing sound, but he was busy at the hair salon (he works as a hair drier now).

A pretty good story again. The Big Bad Wolf and his Zsa Zsa Gabor-like customer were a highlight.

New Segments:

• Colin Farell and Elmo investigate to find the meaning of “investigate.”
• Anime-Elmo sings about the J sound in “jacket”. Was there a demand for more of these?
• A film segment where a man takes plastic bags blowing around the city and makes an inflatable animal from them.

EPISODE 4220 – MUSIC MAGIC

Abby leaves her wand behind on her way to the library. Elmo pretends he’s a conductor with it, and soon casts a spell on himself and the street that makes everyone start singing. He makes Bob, Gordon and the kids sing about their games. Baby Bear and Alan are bewitched into singing about his porridge order; Elmo magically makes them sing high and low (with a Chimpunk’d Alan voice!) He spies Chris asking to get a mustard stain out of his shirt with Leela and makes him sing a “Shout” parody while singing loud and soft. Soon, Elmo sees everyone doesn’t like singing, but doesn’t know how to stop. Abby arrives and fixes everything. Leela explains that if Elmo wants everyone to sing, he doesn’t need magic – he just needs to sing!

I had high hopes for this episode and was not disappointed. The songs were wonderful and I want them on my iPod! It may be all a reference to the Buffy episode “Once More with Feeling”, especially with the mustard stain reference.

News Segments:

• Reggie Bush explains “appetite”, while two monsters have a hunger for his food.
• Film: Four folks in the city beat-box, showing M for “mouth-music.”
• Cartoon: A family of penguins go to the movies, but by the time the snacks are passed to papa, there are 0.
• In a UTube video, Elmo shows how to do “The Elmo Slide.” I don’t love it, but don’t hate it.

Keep reading until next week and watch the new episodes if you can!









The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier