Round 4: The Seventies

In this week’s Sesame Street video voting, Kermit’s “Bein’ Green” should be a lock to walk away with honors, but I was never that crazy about it. Second place will go to “Rubber Duckie”; I think I have to cast my vote for Ernie, though it’s tough to bypass the earworm “What’s The Name of That Song?” Cookie Monster’s version of the “Theme from Shaft” rocks; Big Bird’s “Alphabet Song” is a delight, and “Everyone Makes Mistakes” serves a useful pedagogical purpose; I’ll never get the Ladybugs’ Picnic” out of my head (“They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs / And fire insurance for ladybugs”). I’ll go cast my vote, then check the leaderboard.
 
(Missed my guess; “Rubber Duckie” is currently leading, followed by “Bein’ Green.”)

4 thoughts on “Round 4: The Seventies

  1. Is Rubber Duckie more fun? You bet. Overall, I’d much rather spend an evening with Ernie than Kermit. But Bein’ Green is a real song — a gently profound one occasionally covered by real artists. The fact that it was included in a children’s program seems like a big deal in cultural context. It’s a song with some moral depth without having an imposed “moral.” It takes children’s feelings seriously without talking down to them. To borrow a culinary metaphor, I feel like it’s neither candy nor spinach. And the fact that it addresses what color a character is, without overtly talking about race, was a real gift.

  2. John, I’m partway there with you, but “Bein’ Green” always sounded a shade too self-conscious for me to admire it fully. If I were to go on describing it, I’d have to use adjectives that are more forcefully dismissive than I feel; I do like and admire it to an extent, but that extent is attenuated by a lingering aura of delliberateness that puts me off.

  3. I’m particularly fond of Put Down the Duckie, and, having remembered that fact, I shall head out into the day singing it to myself. Hope you all join me.

  4. 2 friends of mine took part in the original crew, Sam Pottle from New Haven and Joe Raposo who was a college friend. Unfortunately for the creative world, they are both now dead.

    Cheers, I didn’t mean to make it such a downer!

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