NHK is no longer gonna get the Big Bird

[Taro Toporific]

NHK to discontinue airing 'Sesame Street'
Yomiuri/ Mar 10"Sesame Street," a children's English-language program broadcast by NHK on its educational channel, is to end April 3, due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said..."(The production company) Sesame Workshop has been asking us to broadcast the program in Japanese for several years,"

[Caustic Saint]

A pity really, since CTW was making software aimed at the Japanese market:



(image cribbed from somethingawful.com)

[Big Booger]

What policy differences?

due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said.

[GomiGirl]

What policy differences?

due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said.

A whole generation of kids prounoucing the letter "Z" as "Zee" and not the correct "Zed" !!.

*GG ducks for cover*

[Ptyx]

Don't worry they'll probably get Hellmo as a replacement

[ramchop]

A whole generation of kids prounoucing the letter "Z" as "Zee" and not the correct "Zed" !!.

*GG ducks for cover*

Oh the arguements I've had with the FG 3 year old over that issue. (The ABC song does sound a little stupid ending in "Zed" though)

[dingosatemybaby]

What policy differences?

due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said.

A whole generation of kids prounoucing the letter "Z" as "Zee" and not the correct "Zed" !!.

*GG ducks for cover*

"Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."

Butch, "Pulp Fiction"

[mr. sparkle]

A whole generation of kids prounoucing the letter "Z" as "Zee" and not the correct "Zed" !!

Zed? That's just plain WRONG.
You also prob'ly spell color with that unnecessary "U" also!

[kamenr]

NHK to discontinue airing 'Sesame Street'
Yomiuri/ Mar 10"Sesame Street," a children's English-language program broadcast by NHK on its educational channel, is to end April 3, due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said..."(The production company) Sesame Workshop has been asking us to broadcast the program in Japanese for several years,"

Not sure I understand this. Sesame Street is already in Japanese. The primary channel is set to Japanese, and I would bet most mothers don't know or don't bother to switch it to the English sub channel. I know that when it comes on in my house I have to get proactive with the remote or else it stays in Japanese.

I think the real problem here is that Sesame Street is just so goddamn boring to kids, especially compared to NHK's own shows. My toddler inevitably drifts off and starts doing something else when it is on. NHK is probably signing a contract for Barney or something else (not that I think Barney is any better).

[mnine]

Weird, when I was a kid, I always thought Sesame Street skits were often funnier than the Muppets.. Especially the Count and Guy Smiley. Ok, maybe I stayed in the infantile stage a little too long. Count Smackula!!!

[Big Booger]

Weird, when I was a kid, I always thought Sesame Street skits were often funnier than the Muppets.. Especially the Count and Guy Smiley. Ok, maybe I stayed in the infantile stage a little too long. Count Smackula!!!

Oscar rocked. Cookie monster was the shiz.. and Ernie and his home slice Bert, were mackadocious.


Big Bird was Big Pimpin'.. and Elmo wasn't even around..

The worm was tight.. along with the mammoth AKA brown hair elephant.

can you tell me how to get... how to get to sesame street?

[bandonion]

I feel inferior since my childhood was not enriched by "Big Bird's Egg Catch"

[Frost]

Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers should all be given huge awards and money for babysitting millions of kids throughout the decades and raising all of us to be the new freaks of the world...i hope they keep it up till my kids can expirence it.

[Caustic Saint]

Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers should all be given huge awards and money for babysitting millions of kids throughout the decades and raising all of us to be the new freaks of the world...i hope they keep it up till my kids can expirence it.

Mr. Rogers died last year.

[ramchop]

Oscar rocked. Cookie monster was the shiz.. and Ernie and his home slice Bert, were mackadocious.

Nah, Oscar is a phoney.

Cookie Monster was/is indeed "the shiz". C is for Cookie that's good enough for me.

Do we need a Poll on this?

http://www.jumptheshark.com/s/sesamestreet.htm

No television show has its thumb and index finger more firmly depressed on the rectal pulse of America than does Sesame Street. If Sesame Street has jumped the shark, the ONLY possible reason for this is that American society, as a whole, has jumped. Sesame Street always goes along with whatever time period it happens to find itself in. During the 70's, Sesame Street was a VERY 70's show, with its Samuel Jackson-esque Gordon, funk-based music, psychadelia, and "lofa bread, quarta milk, sticka butta" cartoon segments. In the 80's, Sesame Street was a VERY 80's show: a wave of political correctness flooded Sesame Street with deaf characters, blind characters, "ethnically diverse" characters, cartoons and live-action segments encouraging ethnic diversity, and an overall "Kids, You Can Do Anything!" atmosphere -- not to mention the obvious influence of new wave music. In the 90's, Sesame Street, from what little I've seen, appears to be a VERY 90's show: the music is horrendous, the writing is laughable, the skits are aimed at an attention span of 15 seconds, all the kids are expected to be computer nerds, all the adults are expected to be less intelligent than the kids, and the main character is a narcissistic, mentally retarded 2 year old boy. All Sesame Street does is observe the society which surrounds it, and base itself upon this society. Look, I haven't watched Sesame Street (intentionally, anyway) in years, so if it indeed has jumped the shark, it would explain why other countries laugh their asses off at how screwed up America is.

[kamenr]

NHK dropping Sesame Street means that Sesame Workshop must be scrambling like mad to do a deal with some other Japanese broadcaster. The reason? All those product tie-ins. Sesame character merchandising is a big business in Japan, and that dies out if the show is not on the air. Existing contracts probably even have escape clauses contingent on continued broadcasting.

I am afraid Sesame Street in this context is a cynical commercial issue rather than an educational one. What kind of educational value does Sesame Street have in Japanese language, with all that focus on English literacy and numeracy? There is no educational value, it's all entertainment value, and not necessarily interesting to Japanese kids, other than the Cookie Monster, and maybe Elmo. Presumably the marketing department cheesedicks at Sesame Workshop believe that a Japanese-only Sesame Street would increase mindshare, and thus increase the value of Elmo as a merchandiser.

Sesame Street no doubt jumped the shark when there began to be so much emphasis placed on character merchandising. That's the tail that's wagging the dog now. Elmo may be a lousy contribution to the excellence of the show, but he is certainly the world's champion salesman of breakfast cereals.

But IMO the real issue here is that neither Sesame Street nor Sesame Street English (the EFL program with the muppet Tingo and that really hot blonde) are effective educational programming for Japanese kids, and somebody at NHK has finally awoken to that fact, which is why they are worming out of their contract renewal.

Even Sesame English, which has dumbed-down lingustic content, presumes a level of English listening competence way above the "threshhold level"--which itself is way above the heads of Japanese kids (in my observation, at least). And even if it were effective, one hour a week would not be enough. What a half-assed implementation! The presumption that a kid is gonna absorb English by osmosis by plopping them down in front of Sesame Street once a week is silly. To be effective at all, it needs to be on every day, or at least several times a week.

Our observation, from carefully watching what the toddler picks up from TV, is that the two-minute simple English puppet skit that is inserted into the middle of Eigo de Asobo (a show that is otherwise not particularly effective at teaching English, either) is much more effective in teaching English than Sesame Street. Exceedingly crude puppets and staging, reminiscent of maybe a street puppet show from the 19th C. But very compelling and effective.


Sorry for the serious rant, but as an stay-at-home-dad who watches a constant diet of this stuff on TV, this topic gets me exercised.But

[ramchop]

Exceedingly crude puppets

Speaking of crude puppets don't you just love the nutters that run around and around and around the Yamanote Loop mouths agape singing a song consisting solely of the station names? Insane.

[ramchop]

More than three decades after "Sesame Street" was first broadcast in Japan in 1971, the program will for the first time involve Japanese directors and artists in a bid to reach the show's intended audience: children.

..

"It's the complete opposite of the rest of the world," Knell told The Japan Times later in the day. "Everyone else is saying, 'Take away American imperialism,' and here, people were saying they want it imposed on them." But the show wasn't designed to teach English as a foreign language, he said.

..

The new show will feature muppets unique to Japan and address themes it believes relevant to Japanese children, such as diversity and the use of imagination.

Diversity? Does this mean there'll be a Gaijin Monster?