Blog:How are Seasons 33-37 the only bad seasons of Sesame Street?

Indeed, Seasons 33-37 of Sesame Street are bad, but how can they be worse than the final six PBS seasons or even the HBO seasons? There is so much wrong, you see, with all but one or two of the Sesame Workshop (post-2000) seasons. But for now, let's look on the bright side of...

Seasons 33-37

 * Most of the human cast, including Gordon and Maria, still appeared sometimes.
 * The show still ran for an hour (45 minutes if not counting Elmo's World).
 * A handful of pre-1990 sketches were still shown.
 * At first, Abby Cadabby only appeared in a few episodes of Season 37 before she became the new Elmo the following season. The original format even returned for two episodes in Season 38.
 * Bert and Ernie still appeared in the sketches spearheaded by Journey to Ernie, in which Ernie also appeared with Big Bird.
 * The Count and Cookie Monster got to host The Number of the Day and The Letter of the Day, respectively.
 * Most of the sketches aside from Elmo's World were still short enough to hold an average child's attention.

On the dark side...

 * The CGI for the bouncing blocks in the opening sequence for these seasons was cheap-looking.
 * There was the very formulaic, structured "block" format. The sketches Journey to Ernie (until Season 36), The Letter of the Day, The Number of the Day, Global Grover (beginning in Season 34), and the Trash Gordon closing (beginning in Season 35) all came on every episode in the exact same order. The majority of the show was compromised of these sketches, and it barely even recovered because of this. When it did recover, it was only for a brief time.

Season 39-present

 * Not only does the show continue handing over huge chunks of time to Elmo, but now it's giving Abby Cadabby the same treatment. She got her own segment like Elmo called Abby's Flying Fairy School, which (not kidding, BTW) used to be 1/8 of the entire show. Most of the sketches nowadays, like this one, are drawn out for long periods of time.
 * Murray didn't need to host the show at all. He had segments like The Word on the Street, Murray Has a Little Lamb, and Murray's Science Experiments that compromised 1/15 (or 1/10 every other episode) of the show. He was even one of the hosts for The Letter of the Day and The Number of the Day and went so far as to announce the sponsors of each episode. Eventually, he stopped hosting the show after Season 45 and was dropped altogether the following season.
 * When Elmo's World and Abby's Flying Fairy School were removed, that wasn't the end of it. Oh no. Instead, they were replaced by Elmo the Musical and Abby's Amazing Adventures. Then EW returned in Season 46, but at least it's much shorter now.
 * The human cast gets almost no screen time now and the central cast of Muppets is much smaller. The other Muppets (yes, even Bert and Ernie) get very little screen time, too.
 * The show is apparently struggling to figure out its current half-hour runtime by cramming in as many sketches as possible. Half of the show is now compromised of the street scenes, and the other half consists of recurring segments and nothing but.