Before I became a parent, my Muppet obsession was kept well in check. It all changed when we put on Bert & Ernie Sing-along (one of the greatest recordings of the 1970’s), and my son Asher discovered his love for morning TV, my furry friends came rushing back into my life. Sesame Street is a fixture in our morning routine, so Bert, Ernie, Grover, Elmo, and Big Bird are back in my life. Big time.
Recently, I heard whispers of a new production of Shalom Sesame, the 1980’s series that introduced countless American kids to Kippy ben Kipod, “Rubber Duckie” overdubbed in Hebrew as “Barvazani,” and a pre-SATC Sarah Jessica Parker. Jews and Muppets, together again! My dream of working with Ernie–first crushed by a visit to a depressed Greenwich Village puppeteer as a teenager–would finally come true!
Try as I might, though, I was not able to convince Sesame Workshop that the scene their new series needed most was Balkan Beat Box dancing in front of Hooper’s Store. I guess a beat boxing grouch was enough for them.
All that said, the first 2 DVDs from the ambitious new series have just been released (our friends at Tablet had a sneak peak of an animated clip about Talmudic scholars Hillel & Shammai) and along with them, a round of exceptionally awesome Jewy tshirts. The shirts feature Grover, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Zoe, and Oscar.
Jews: we like to claim what’s ours and now that Grover is a Super Mensch, we can proudly call him a member of the tribe. Our friends at Modern Tribe have a some of the designs, but Super Mensch seems to only be available direct from the source.