Bullied Nostalgia: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland

So. Many of our favors to watch. Well, look, now they're being bashed. I guess that's what we should expect on the Bullied Nostalgia Podcast. Hello, bullies and grouches. Timothy Nesbitt here with the Bullied Nostalgia Podcast, the podcast where four adults take turns re watching movies and TV shows they loved from childhood and ruin them for each other as adults. I'm joined by John. Are we each going to do our Elmo impression? Is that how we're going? To I'm joined by John. But I will not. Continue it yeah, you can do that if you want I'm.

Joined by John's Elmo impression. It's been a couple of days since I watched. I feel like I need Oh no. John's webering gremlins over. There. Just something in the back of my throat. A mogwai in the back of your. Throat. Anyways, maybe Elmo will come up later. I hope not. All right. Is that your introduction, John? Yeah. OK, chance I'm here. And Kylie. Gratches of the world unite. As always, you can find us on socials under the title Bullied Pod or by emailing Bullied [email protected]. We also have merch on Red Bubble you can search for using the same word, Bullied Pod.

All right, so let's just jump right into the episode. Though today's episode is something I don't have any nostalgia for. Most of us don't. As a matter of fact, I don't think I'd seen it before this week. And I had less nostalgia for it than I thought. So we're in for a wild 1 today. Yeah, so the movie. Guys where your nostalgia is lacking, I've got plenty. Yeah. The movie that we watched was The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. This was Sesame Street's Reattempt at a theatrical release after Follow That Bird Flopped in the 80s, which we have in episode 4 if anyone is curious.

Surprise, surprise, this movie flopped 2. It came out in 1999 and was considered a sure thing because Elmo ruled the world at this time just two years earlier. Tickle Me Elmo sold out across North America and was the get present for Christmas, so people assumed that this movie was going to do well and it paired with the 30th anniversary of Sesame Street, but it didn't. I'm going to give chance an opportunity to tell us what the story was. But before we do, I'd like to hear from someone who did see this movie in theaters.

John, wait. What?

So I would have been 10 or 11 when it came out. So this is around the age when I was getting old enough to think that some things were too childish. And so my good friend Joshua, who was on our Beast Wars episode, he and I thought this would be fun to go to and make fun of. Was it boring? This feels like a very terrible movie going experience. Yeah, I think we were still figuring out what it meant to be cool older kids and making fun of stuff. And so I think this was part of that rocky journey. Yeah, I'm cool.

2 tickets to L my please.

Famous last words. So then my next memory of Elmo and Grouchland is our uncle who lived with us for 12 years, very close to the family. He used to always get us gig gifts. We would open, I think it was. Mostly you, actually. OK, sure, it was mostly me. So he got into this tradition of getting me a small gift for Christmas, and one that was usually a little bit odd, but expensive or big enough that I thought it was the legitimate gift he was giving me and he would like to watch me worm and pretend that I like it.

And then he'd give me my actual gift. So when Elmo came out to VHS, this was my big comeback. I was going to gift Nelson Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland for Christmas. I don't know why I was so fixated on this movie, but it cost $30 and I was only like 11 or 12. So that's a lot of money. And I also remember trying to get it at Costco, but at Costco you need that membership card. Why did? You 2. It's so hard for this one. Movie. You've gotten another movie. Then Elmo kind of took a back seat in my life until I had my second nephew and I was all over that, Yeah.

Is there anyone on the call who dedicated the first half of their life to the intellectual property of Elmo? Well, fortunately it wasn't the first half we're. Getting down to the nitty. Gritty. It was the second. Half. I'm still in a baby. I'm starting now. Oh my God. Yeah, I was joking with. John, we met up recently. I was like, it's crazy. You think your brother has dedicated, like a decade of his life to his intellectual property. And I was like, yeah, starting from 5:00 till 15. Yeah. As John's inferring.

Unnecessarily into it like it was too much. I too loved Elmo. This is a theory that I have is that at different milestones I became a new human being that just happened to live in the same body because why did I care so much? Yes. I do not have any nostalgia for this movie, and like I said, pretty sure I'd never seen it, but I do have a lot of nostalgia for Kai's Elmo life. My life. Your Elmo life. So we'll get into that stuff. My pretty metamorphosis. Before we do though, chance for people who, like me, do not know what this movie is, do you want to share it with us?

To add on to that chance, don't assume that people know what Sesame Street or Elmo is. Assume that people know what Elmo is, I think. I think that's OK. In 1950, new legislation which was made to allow for monsters to own real estate I. Thought that you were going to go into some Sesame Street Lord that you just had on lock, but no. No, he's talking about the establishment of Groch Land USA. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Yeah, so Elmo in this movie perch, right? To have his favorite item in the world be a blanket, he gets into a mishap with Zoe, another monster, and his blanket is lost in Grouchland, which appears to just be a very trash build town full of creatures just like Oscar the Grouch.

Elmo is quickly interrupted by by a man named Huxley who's very selfish and steals Elmo's blanket. After then, Elmo goes on a quest to get his blanket back on the vicious Huxley while his friends chase after him to both help him retrieve his blanket and get him home. Good job, Chance. Yes, Huxley in this movie is played by Mandy Patinkin and this of course is his most iconic role. No, just kidding. He of course, played Enigo Montoya in The Princess Bride and it is so weird. It was about the same caliber.

To see how far he fell. It's my soul. Did you recognize him immediately, or is it one of those things where now that I've said it, you're like, Oh no, that's the real life. Oh no. I actually know the actor, more so from the Criminal Minds TV show, but yes. It is very sad seeing him in this. I will give him credit. He's given it all he's got, which I appreciate very much. It is a waste of his talents. Yeah. Like he does a song in this movie. It's like I make it mine or something like that. It's a terrible song.

There is one art in the bridge where he does a very old crooner style section at the beginning of the song. I'm like, this is the worst song ever. And then it gets that. I'm like, Oh my gosh, do I like this? Song. And then it went back to normal. Like no, I hate this that. Song did trip me up because I kept going like oh OK Oh no, oh OK Oh no. I was thinking about the songs that I maybe even said something to Kev when we were watching. Is Lamb before Time's Garbage has really lowered my bar for what I find enjoyable in these movies.

And yeah, it's better than most of their songs. Has the Best Song that we've heard on this podcast. I'm running around, running around. Is that true? No, it's. Are you talking about in a Lamb Before Time movie or in any of these? In any movie which. Oh no. What? Movies have. No, we did like Quest for Camelot. OK, OK. Yeah, we've had a number of very good. Songs Thanks Back that far. Who are you taking? Yeah. Céline Dion sing that song when they were running on the Hogs. Yes, we have had a number of very good songs, but we've also had a number of very bad songs.

I'm a Triceratops. Save some water. Let's talk about Groch Land. Elmo chases his blankie through the beginning 5 minutes of the Mario movie. Yeah, and they end up in different parts of the Koopa Kingdom and. Not as close as there's a section where he's, like, spinning through the vortex and he's holding onto the blanket, and then it lets go and they go off in different paths. Yeah, it doesn't feel exactly like the Mario movie. Yeah, but Elmo lands in Grouch Land. This is our second Sesame Street movie.

For this podcast, we did follow that bird, and in Follow that Bird, I said several times my absolute favorite things about the movie were Oscar, the Grouch and Maria. I would say that those are still my favorite things about this movie, too. Oscar's not in it very much. Neither is Maria, although she just randomly shows up in Grouch Land, which is funny, but it is the Grouches. It's this Grouch world. I really like it. They've got this weird backwards nature. It's kind of like Bizarro world where they have like a car mess where you drive your car through and they throw banana peels and mud on it and stuff.

They have this sense of humor that's super cynical. At one point they hand Elmo flowers just to cut the heads off of them. Like OK, that was. Genuinely a really good joke, I really like that. The Grouches are still my favorite, but for a movie that's called Adventures in Grouchland, he's only in Grouchland for like 5 minutes. Technically the whole area is Grouchland. I don't know about that. That's why there's the garbage queen. That's why there's a grouchy giant chicken. That's why there's vegetables in the grill.

The whole movie is a hero's journey of Elmo going from trial to trial. But I think you're right. Tim Grouchland is one of like 8 set pieces. There's not a ton that happens there. I also have a. Problem with the fact that Grouchland is such an interesting concept but I feel like they take it in a direction I wasn't happy with. Like I think a really good example is do you guys remember nowhere from Guardians of the Galaxy? Yeah, the skull of the selections. A big Isle of trash that people have learned how to live in.

And it's so interesting to see all the different cultures of things that are mashed together to create their own culture and all this stuff. But Grouchland is just look, we put three trash bags in a trash can, isn't that? Grouchy I will say the thing that I praise the Hemson Company so much for is their set dressing. And I think that that continues to be a good thing. Looking at these buildings in these towns, like random signs have grouch text and stuff that if you look really close you would notice but you wouldn't pay attention to and I just really.

Like I agree with that, but I think the best example are the garbage. Puppets. The ones that are animated garbage. Those guys are just so fun to look at. Oh. I want to look at all the detail. Then you look at where they live and it's literally just a trash pile. There's nothing going on there. So what Chance is talking about is at one point in Elmo's hero's journey he gets tricked to go see the trash queen. And she's got two of these stench men, as they're called. Yeah, she's played by Vanessa Williams and essentially 2 of The Muppets are piles of garbage.

And I do agree, chance. Their design is very cool. I don't think their personalities are interesting to me like Grouches are. I guess I am really cynical as an adult because the Grouches are by far my favorite part of Sesame Street now. Well, and I prefer Bert over Ernie. I really feel like I'm seeing the wrong side of Sesame Street. Oh. My goodness, wait a second. Oh my goodness, Bert. They ruined him they laughed so hard at. Wait, what? When he comes from Bert, where Ernie's like, who would ever want to watch a movie with a sad ended and it's just silence.

Titanic. What Titanic Gone with the wind? That made me laugh so hard I'm. Ironic. You're so clever. Yeah, they did otherwise ruin his characterization though. He's kind of become pathetic. And he was a coward throughout. Yeah. But anyways, what I was about to say about your cynical point of view is I think that's intentional from the point of Sesame Street. They're supposed to show you that it's OK to not always be cheery and bright. You can like things that other people don't like, and you don't need to have people telling you what is good and what isn't good.

You aren't supposed to dislike Bert, yeah. John, what brought back memories for you in this movie? I don't have any memories other than it was a poor choice to go to it in theaters. What do you mean, John? That's a you get cool. How many people did you brag to? Just like flashing my ticket down the hall. For people who don't know, and this is something very cute that John did for many years, he held on to every movie ticket he got. Was this in that time frame? Did you hold on to this? I've since thrown out my.

Movie. OK. But did you at the time? I can't remember. So John would write on the back of the movie ticket who he went to see the movie with. And then it was the sentimental memory that he could go back to and say, oh, I remember seeing this movie with this person. And it would bring back memories or feelings of all the things you decided to throw away. John, you know, as a minimalist, that one surprised me. Tim, I could have them come and be stored at your house. You threw them out already. How much storage space did they take?

Everything else, it's like, Oh yeah, I get it because it takes up so much space. But they were movie tickets. It's confusing. I'm being told all the time I have too much stuff, throw it out and now I'm being told you should have kept it. I don't know how. No, I just there are things that you keep that probably a lot more clutter than that. OK, let's talk about the man of the hour. We haven't at all, Elmo, because it's. Probably 1 of the worst characters in this movie I'll play. Does anybody have any hot takes on Elmo?

Of all the Sesame Street characters, Elmo does have the best dance moves. That is 100% true, I will say that much. And every so often the puppeteers will green screen their bodies so that they can have someone go all out with his legs and someone go out with his top. And it looks terrifying to. See Elmo's legs it. Really does. Not as terrifying as Clifford's legs from tonight, though. He's shaped wrong. Yeah, the. Problem is, their body never seems to be small enough to support their tiny tiny legs.

My hot take is that this movie tries to do what Follow That Bird did and it just doesn't do it as well the focus on Follow That Bird is the cast going to save Big Bird, but in this movie it's Elmo going on an adventure while the cast is stuck in jail for the entire time. Yeah, John, you really disliked your follow that bird experience last. Year this felt like it would be way worse for you. You had some experience with this one, Did that make it better or what was your take on this one? I feel like there are similar concepts for movies but the amount of energy and excitement is different.

I feel like follow that bird because the protagonist is big bird. Big bird's like, oh, hi there. I'm like this, whereas Elmo's like kind. Of. Thing. So no, keep on going, keep on going, keep on going. I need, I need to hear Elmo.

That's too much. That's pretty good. I just hear his skin cording screaming because the mic cuts out every time you start talking.

Anyways Elmo goes on this hero's journey with high stakes of like a giant chicken picking him up and trying to eat him random big flashy things whereas followed that bird is like what if big bird just got lost and confused and walked into some kids that are water painting and then went and learned about corn stalk and then. And then got kidnapped and stuck in a life of servitude by poacher he. Had an easy. Dog, What if Big Bird got lost? What if he went for a big walk? Sure, when they were trying to free him from the carnival at the end there was some high stakes, but other than that it was a snooze fest.

This movie was a lot harder to fall asleep too. I can see the case that you're making that this one doesn't slow down really at any point, and I know I have personal bias, but I consider Follow That Bird to be a considerably better movie than this. Yeah, it's fair. I would agree. I. Don't know what you guys are. On you like this like determined. I can't tell which one's worse. OK chance. I just like start the. Film. And then I'm awash with Muppets. Chance imagine any song from this movie. Can you tell me any lyrics?

Change your perspective. I'm you tell me how to I don't know at. Least at least you have legs. Now in comparison, every song in Follow That Bird has a unique vibe to it that's pretty good. The music is better, it's true, yeah. I mean, to be fair, some of the songs in this movie have a unique vibe, but it's. Not good.

Follow that bird didn't have me blowing raspberries. Oh my goodness, I feel so uncomfortable. So I it's in my notes for the listeners. This movie really uses audience participation. So regularly Ernie and Bert will stop in and talk to the audience. Sometimes Elmo will ask for the audience participation and help. So when Elmo is trapped, stuck. I'm not even sure what the negative connotation would be, but. Are they going to kill him? What were they going to do? When he's about to be murdered by Vanessa Williams character, she asks for proof that he is nothing like Huxley and the way she demands it is for him to do 100 raspberries, she says.

I need you to give me something. That's something Huxley would never do. And I was like, oh, OK. I was like, oh, what do I have to give you? And she asks for 100 raspberries in 30 seconds. And then Elmo asks for from the audience so everyone can do sounds together and it is so strange. Somebody needs to get fired. You can help put that good children, though that should be illegal. Vanessa Williams is so excited about it, too. It's like I. Cannot put that in a children's note. I cannot say that enough.

There was something very wrong. About. This I did feel very strange and I did not like it. Imagine. The movie theater full. Imagine John and Josh who are going to make fun of this movie. The movie's like, Oh yeah, hold my beer. The movie would be so insulting as a 10 year old. Awesome. You don't remember what this was like in the theater job. No, I don't think. If I were to guess, we probably walked in there all cocky, ready to make fun of it, thinking about saying something silly whenever Elmo invites participation, but then like chickening at the last moment.

Hey you guys help? No.

I did that for way too long, I'm not gonna lie. I remember doing that to Dora whenever I would walk past. You'd make fun of Dora asking for. Your home you'd ask for. I don't know if it was specifically Dora, but when I was like 10 when a movie or a TV show would ask for participation, I'd be like no. Unless it was Elmo. Kai was mortified that I participated during this movie. With that part, why did you agree to do it? He did do raspberries at the screen. He's a freak. You were disgusted by it and you continued to do it.

Elmo needed my help. I was going to get murdered. You mentioned earlier that Bert and Ernie were talking to the audience, breaking the 4th wall. What I was reading about in trivia was that during early screenings, the little viewers were actually really scared of Huxley and they were actually genuinely concerned for Elmo's well-being. And so Ernie and Bert, their part was added after the fact. To. Tell me. To reassure the audience that Elmo was going to be OK. It did feel super out of place. That makes.

Sense that was kind of the biggest complaint. He was just like, why do they keep coming here? And Bert's acting like such a coward. Just let the movie happen. He was every time a scary prop got added onto the screen like the chicken. Interesting. Yeah, as far as puppets are concerned, I did really like Huxley's bugs. I thought you mean his. Eyebrows. I thought the movie. Sucks. So Huxley has an army of these little fuzzy guys, but Huxley also has these giant bushy eyebrows. And one of the lines that one of the bugs says is when I was like, oh, his eyebrows or something.

And one of the other ones is like, no, that's my niece and nephew. Yeah, his eyebrows are bugs, I guess. And that has implications because all of the grouches have those same eyebrows. I was. Bugs your face. Confused about grouches having noses, I thought that was what separated them from being monsters. Oh, you thought they lived in grouse? Well, not because they liked each other, but because of racism. They were segregated to their own town from being noseless. Oscar the Grouch. That's his species.

It's like saying Oscar the Giraffe Grouch. Is a subspecies of monster? I don't think so. Is Big Bird a monster? No, he doesn't have any. You're telling me that noses are what makes things monsters? Look in the mirror, buddy. No. There's a really big nose. Monster. We're not all dogs. We're monsters. All dogs are monsters. No, that's like a common thing in Sesame Street is they refer to a certain subset of Muppets as monsters and Oscar Luke Grouch is not a monster. But they go down into Grouch Land and everyone has the bushy eyebrows, but some of them have noses, which flies in the face of everything I thought I knew about the.

Grouch. There are a few historical grouches that did have noses. But while we're talking about Grouchland, obviously I have questions about the fact that they keep referring to it as Grouchland USA, because that implies that it's somewhere in the United States of America. Yeah, this isn't a. Portal to another. Dimension. This is a portal to WLAI. Really like the fact that it's just like Kansas, the dimensional portal to Kansas. There are garbage cans everywhere and they put trash in those garbage cans in Grouchland.

But the whole way we got to Grouchland is Elmo took a portal that was inside of Oscar the Grouch's garbage can. So where do the garbage cans in Grouchland take you? Is this like an inception thing? You go deeper and deeper? What's grouchier than grouchy? No, because grouches put their own stuff in garbage cans. Peyton, it's not like. Grouches are collecting nice things and putting them in their garbage cans because they're sitting in them. There's one guy who's sitting in it, so it's not like it's going to be good if.

You're the grouch. What's the one thing you put in your garbage? Why would you flower heads that you just got off? Stole from someone you gave a flower to. No, but there's the Grouches sitting in a garbage can in this movie, just like Oscar would. It's his house. He clearly hoards his own garbage wealth in there. Not nice things. It's got to just be like a hoarder realm. John as the Elmo connoisseur. Yeah, somebody who's watched this movie before. I'll have you know that I had a little bit more extra free time, so I did learn a lot about Elmo.

I watched an Elmo documentary. I have mixed memories about this movie. I don't remember the second-half. I remember the first half of this movie perfectly fine. But then we get to the second-half and I don't remember anything. Did I see the full movie? I remember seeing a Grouchland book. I remember reading that book, but I also remember having knowledge of it before reading the book. Also, is there a world where I just saw trailers of this movie? Because I distinctly remembered a scene that wasn't in this movie, and I get the feeling that I may have just had trailers of this movie interlaced with other Elmo content.

John, did you watch this movie by yourself? Emily fell asleep. Oh, even just. Now, sorry, it's not even like he went back to the theater and watched it again. No, we already know he did. He didn't feel like he participated enough with the raspberries the first time I. Wonder how much like the Minecraft movie experience it would be? Did neither of you participate during this movie? Am I the only one? Oh no, I woke up Emily to blow raspberries. Are you talking about being cynical? Huh. What's funny is John, do you believe?

Like it was weird the Raspberry scene. I think it was weird that that was what she wanted him to give her. OK, this is another thing. Remember in our very first episode of this podcast, Superman is de arming the planet of nuclear weapons. He's not going around taking nuclear weapons. He's stopping nuclear weapons that are actively being fired and then he's throwing them into the sun. He shouldn't stop doing that. That's a realization I made on this podcast. In the same way Vanessa Williams is like, you're just like Huxley.

You're selfish. And I go back to the moment where almost like, oh, yeah, I did say that's my blankie to Zoe. But he. Kind of was in the right, wasn't he? Yeah, she didn't ask to see his. Blank. Well, she did ask, but she already had it in her hands. No, she was like, oh, this is a really soft blanking. He's like, well, I'd like it back. And she's like, when I'm done with it. That is rude. That is inappropriate. Yeah. He wasn't being selfish. Essentially, she was having a bad day. And then he came over to cheer her up.

And she's like, you know what would cheer me up more? Taking your stuff. And then destroying it, it got ripped, didn't it? It did get ripped, yeah. Did that ever get closure? No. Yeah. I do struggle with Elmo's meltdowns. It. Gets really worked up. I know that there's some messaging in this movie around like, hey, we all have a little bit of Huxley in US, we're going to be a little bit selfish. And so Elmo has to learn how to share. But Elmo's temper tantrums are so big that they kind of over shadow Kim learning a lesson in the end.

Yeah, he did get Internet famous for a while there with Rocco because of it. For context for our viewers, Google Elmo Rocco. Once again, I'm fighting with Zoe about yes. It is him fighting with Zoe that happens quite a bit. Zoe thinks that a rock is a human being and Elmo is not having it. That is the only. Crashes out on her, no. He does. He does. Kylan, I don't think that would have been in the first half of your life that you got into those videos. He. Definitely was not. Chance also knows about these videos.

It's not like this is because I like Elmo. I mean like that is also true. So, Tim, do you remember the moment or like how? Did I had a? Problem of Elmo so much. I don't know if I remember the moment that I realized that he was Elmo obsessed. My favorite color was red because of Elmo. His favorite color was red. I remember I spoke a little bit about the Tickle Me Elmo doll in 1997. They re released that doll when I was little and so we got him Tickle Me Elmo. I remember that. I remember we got the Kinect game Once Upon a Monster.

I also remember that for one of his birthdays, we had a balloon that when you hit it, Elmo talked. I love that balloon so much that. I ran into batteries. Out, yeah, we couldn't get rid of it and so it would be like. Hi, I'm Elmo. Happy birthday. But then like after like a month it was like oh Oh no more happy birthday and I'd like hide it around the house so his mom would accidentally bump into it and then it would gratefully talk to her. Yes, that's one of my favorite album memories too. I remember that balloon.

We did. Also, at one time we had a photo shoot where we took pictures. It was corresponding to the Green Lantern color spectrum. Our viewers won't have any clue what I'm talking about, but we took pictures that were entirely certain colors. Everyone would be dressed in green and have green items and everything in the picture had to be green. And we did take a red picture and Guy is holding Elmo in it. I'm sure if I had more time I could think of more Elmo memories, but those are the ones that jump out to me.

But we did have a whole lifetime of Elmo experiences for sure. I remember Tickle Me Elmo. I don't know if I remember another toy in my childhood. I remember Furbies were pretty big the year they came out, but you would just hear news reports about like, violent outbreaks, fighting over Tickle Me Elmo dolls. I don't know there was another toy quite like it in terms of just. How? Sought after it was. Yeah, that's an interesting point, John. I don't think we'll ever have things like that again because brick and mortar stores were such a different experience.

Now everything's on Amazon and you can't really even know how sold out a store is or anything like that. Because they've always got more stock. And when the button says sold out, there's no point in like rushing to the store. There's nothing left on the website and you can just search other websites. Whereas back in the day when people were fighting to get a Nintendo Wii, people would trample each other. There were those items, John, around that time, the Christmas gift of the year was a common thing.

And I don't know if they were ever as big as Tickle Me Elmo. That might have been the biggest one ever. But like you said, Furbies were the Christmas item one year. I also remember, and you would have been younger, so I don't know that you would have remembered it, but we talked a little bit about it when we pulled it out of storage. Your creepy crawlers Growlers. Yeah, your little oven was the item at Christmas one year. I remember we went to Zeller's and mom had to get a rain check. She pre bought a creepy crawlers oven so that when it came in she would be able to pick it up and give it to you for Christmas.

Well, I'll have to thank her for that. For the listeners, a few years ago we found John's creepy crawler oven in the garage and we got it. Sean made some bugs. Essentially it's a easy bake oven where instead of making food, it makes. Insects. It makes plastic worms. They do not look real at all. But four year old John was convinced he bought into the propaganda of the commercials, that anywhere he stuck these bugs, people would get grossed out and scared. A lime green line, Yeah, We had to really ham it up for him, so he thought the bugs were grossing people out.

I was talking a little bit about having looked into Elmo stuff more, so might just share a little bit about that. Sesame Street starts in 1969. Elmo first shows up in 1980, and he's done at a certain point by a puppeteer who just really doesn't know what to do with Elmo. And Elmo kind of talks a bit like a caveman. And so in frustration, he goes to the backroom and throws Elmo at Kevin Clash, who was one of the puppeteers, and says, I don't know what to do with this puppet. Maybe you can. And so then Kevin Clash went home and thought about it and decided that Elmo would be based on concept of love, that he would just be very huggy and kissy.

Anyways, yeah, I got to watch Bean Elmo, A Puppeteer's Journey, which is just kind of the life of Kevin Clash up until 2011. It was kind of cool to watch more behind the scenes stuff with Jim Henson's company and what it looks like to have a life and a career as a puppeteer. It was funny. He commented on Tickle Me Elmo. He's like Elmo wouldn't say that Elmo doesn't say I or me. He always refers to himself in the third person and just be called Tickle Elmo. But it was kind of neat to see him mentor other puppeteers.

He would be Elmo from 1984 to 2012 and then and he would leave after some alleged scandal stuff. John, I am shocked that you are this invested in this movie after Big Bird. Allen, don't you know only cool people know puppeteering lore. You saw this movie in theaters? I had actually seen that documentary before as well, John. I didn't watch it recently. I think I watched it around the time it came out and that's mostly because I am fascinated by Jim Henson Company and absolutely the work that they've done over the years.

The whole puppeteering thing is wild. They managed to emote and put so much character through the felt. I was just reminded, even watching it, how many languages Sesame Street has filmed in. Oh yeah. Absolutely. It's wild. Like he was going over and he was teaching the French Sesame Street people how to puppet. It's not just dubbed. Yeah. Well, we talked about this during that bird. There are thousands of episodes in each language. And as you mentioned, John, they're not a re dub. There's different Muppets for different regions for different languages.

One piece wishes. One Piece actually, the creator said. I'm not going to spoil it for you guys, but he said in the final chapter there will be a pirate with an eye patch, and in the brand new manga there's a new character with an eye. So this is a big deal. That means that the story is finally coming to a close. It's so big for us people who are invested in one piece. Do you guys know what this means? Somebody tell me what this? Means watch more Elmo. The original American Sesame Street has 4600 episodes.

I think it's like the Danish one or something that has the most. One Piece The anime has over 1150 episodes. Yeah. Oh, when we were talking about Sesame Street last time, we discussed that HBO was dropping it and that the season would be over. And it sounds like Netflix has picked up Sesame Street. OK, let's hop over to closing comments. John, what have you not said about this movie? I found the looking into Elmo stuff far more fascinating than the movie itself, so my overall experience of them looking into puppeteering stuff and learning about it was nice.

But the actual movie itself I wouldn't recommend to watch to make fun of or to watch to be in a podcast episode. You're like I've tried it more than once. Not worth it either time. I remember whispering to Josh in the theater. One day I'm going to make an episode of a podcast where I'm going to make fun of this. What's a podcast in 1999? Yes, I completely agree. There's shows that we watch that are ripe for making fun of. There's shows that we watch. They're meant for certain target demographics.

There's none of them. Yeah, like even land before time is for a very young subset of children, and if you hate yourself enough, you can make good content out of that. This is just if you're not a preschooler, there's not much here. I agree, obsessed with Jim Henson. I think The Muppets are amazing. This is a great excuse to look into other muppet stuff but I would not recommend this movie to anyone and I will never watch it again. Chance. It's funny because sometimes I'll watch kids shows. I have several.

Your siblings, son and people say the best kid shows are the ones that have something for the adults as well. Really great example is Bluey. Bluey has very conversations, allows the adults to be entertained, and I agree with that. But sometimes I feel like then people give it an excuse to also be bad. You guys. The movie, yeah, it's for kids, but Bert's is a funny line that's just for adults. And like, yeah, the movie still sucks. Though. You know you can make something for kids that's also good.

Phineas and Ferb was widely acclaimed. I don't know, this is looking pretty low. I think this might be a one. Do you guys know what I gave Big Bird I? Think you said 5I. Think you gave it like I think it broke your scale. It was crazy. I think you. Said something like spider man enter the spider verse was 6 before you saw that movie but since there could only be 1/6 No 2. Descendants. You follow that bird knocked it out of that slot, something like that. Well, I guess I'll take your word for it.

Thank you, Chance. Thank you Chance. He's in this Big Bird era. I'm in my Elmo era. All right, crazy. My phone died while I was trying to find the Sesame Street show. I think it is Sesame Street from the Netherlands. OK Sesame Strat. This movie, it's not good. I don't even know if I've ever seen it before, which makes my role in this podcast very weird. But it is Sesame Street and I do have to give them props for the props. I think it does really fail at being something of substance. It could have been for a wider audience, but there is literally one joke that adult audiences would get and children wouldn't so.

That's an interesting. Point This is not the kind of movie that an adult would want to watch with their kid. This felt like a longer episode of Sesame Street, whereas Follow That Bird does not feel like an episode of Sesame Street, for better or for worse. As John said, that's much slower and kids would probably get bored in Sesame Street. It's like keep things moving. This does feel like that. Anyways, yeah, I would make there be something behind this movie at least because it is for teeny tiny babies.

OK, well enough for people who like chickens. That's true. There is a big. Can't believe we went through this whole episode and we didn't talk about the giant chicken. Or we didn't talk about at all. We said that he was selfish one time. We didn't even mention that one named Grouch. Did anybody? Grizzly? Yeah, that's her name. Yeah, she had. Trickles OK anyways, closing yeah, another one's in the can we're inching closer to our 50th episode so that's right around the corner our next episode is about I don't know, we.

Good luck with that one. If you're a listener who's excited to watch along with us. Because there is one of you, we're pretty sure. The whole point that we tell people what we're watching next episode was a recommendation that came from multiple listeners 2 Yes 2. Okay, there might be two of you. One of you might have given up. Two at the same time, though, so that's pretty interesting. Anyways, we typically say what the next episode is going to be about, but due to external factors, we've really had to shuffle around the episodes in the back half of this season, so we're just kind of figuring it out still.

We'll let you know when we do. Does anybody have anything else to add? Is this podcast good when none of us have real nostalgia? John had a little bit of nostalgia and I had a little bit of nostalgia. I like the part where Chance was shocked to hear that John had seen this in theaters. Yeah, that was good. The reason why I didn't have any nostalgia is because I watched that movie several times in the second-half of my lifespan, not the first half. I watched it. I just watched it yesterday, OK? I was like, do you want to watch this for the podcast?

And you're like, again, I already watched it this week. That's why I'm sick of it, because I watched it 80 times. This week. All right, well, that's gonna be me signing off. Look out for weirdos. Praise Beethoven.

I didn't really think about the fact that we actually dragged more grandma stuff into this season. Oh yeah, there's so many grandmas in our podcast. Should we rename this to like grandmas and? Grandmas and dinosaurs. Grandmas and grouches. We haven't talked about dinosaurs at all in this episode. No, no, no. No, Somebody talking about dinosaurs. Jim Henson did the Dinosaurs TV. That's a very loose connection. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepared to. Dinosaur.

Prepared to dinosaur? You're like looking for a planet. It was a yeah. I was trying to do the adventure JB adventure but you did much better.

Game plan