Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Random Top Ten

Random Top Ten!

Top Ten Sesame Street Characters

10. Amazing Mumford - Let's create a vaudevillian-esque, hammy stage magician Muppet? Very cool. Let's give him the magical, "Abcradabra"-stand-in phrase of "A-la-peanut butter-and-jelly-sandwiches?" Super cool. Let's give him a W.C. Fields accent? Genius.

9. The Count von Count - Such elegant simplicity - he loves to count. That he's a vampire is just icing on the cake.

8. Big Bird - The Elmo-haters forget that there was a more rounded, gateway character for little kids before Elmo - the hardly unpopular Big Bird. And a plus - best snore in pop culture history.

7. Oscar the Grouch - Like many a little kid at times, he hates everything. One of the best characters in the Sesame Street tradition of having one character embody a specific kid trait.

6. Bert - Hero to anal retentives everywhere.

5. Elmo - I know that as a certified Gen-X'er I'm legally bound to hate on Elmo, but I just can't do it. And I've seen first-hand the spell he can cast on younguns. Impressive.

4. Snuffleupagus - The classic imaginary friend writ real. How many of us still bemoan his reveal to the rest of the world?

3. Cookie Monster - The best of the "one trait" characters. "C is for cookie" is a mantra for living.

2. Ernie - He got way more than his fair share of great songs ("Dance Myself to Sleep," Rubber Duckie" "The Honker-Duckie-Dinger Jamboree," "that "Moon" song," but he kind of deserved them. And has anyone ever had a better laugh.

1. Grover - He's a frickin' superhero for crying out loud! How could he not get number one?

Until Whenever

6 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

What, no Kermie? But he's GREEN. And it's difficult being green. Or something like that.

Tosy And Cosh said...

Kermit is a Muppet Show Muppet, not a Sesame Street Muppet,at least in my head, and would end up ranked rather high I suspect in that particular Random Top Ten.

Roger Owen Green said...

Yeah, but he was a Sesame Street muppet first, the intrepid reporter for Sesame Street News. He should get points jjust for the hat. And the fact that he's GREEN.

Tosy And Cosh said...

Was he? Wasn't he a Jim Henson Muppet in other venues before Sesame Street?

Agreed, though, that hat is killer.

Tom the Dog said...

Kermit on Sesame Street is the only impression that I can do: "Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here, reporting to you live for Sesame Street News."

I'll take Kermit as #1, followed by Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, and Ernie.

Roger Owen Green said...

I think he WAS a character before SS, but he was much less well defined, from the tapes I saw years ago.