The same six goddamn Sesame Street episodes

I've always been a connoisseur of Sesame Street. Loved it when I was a kid, and still loved it when my sister (who's six years younger than me) grew up watching it. I always thought Jim Henson was a genius who, although obviously trying to appeal to kids, always kept the humor within reach of the adults too.

Now that I'm the father of a 10 month old child as well as a TiVo owner, I've learned to keep at least one episode of Sesame Street on standby so that Elmo can entertain Mattie in a pinch for the umpteenth time. Because of this, I've watched Sesame Street more frequently than I ever did as a kid. And about a month ago, Debbie and I realized something...they keep showing the same damn episodes OVER and OVER and OVER again. We started to get suspicious because we set the "season pass" up to keep one Sesame Street on file...the newest one. Henceforth, it would always overwrite the one before it. But the same episode kept showing up...sometimes multiple days in a row. And, even more frustrating, after disappearing for a week the same episode would come up again. So after troubleshooting my season pass settings several times, I realized that the reason the episode never changed was because they kept replaying it! It's not so bad that they replay the same episode a couple times a day, but that they keep replaying the same rotation of episodes. I mean, c'mon....35+ years of A+ material to choose from and we have to be subjected to the Elmo & Zoe kite episode every five days?

Can you at least mix in some old skits to keep us Gen X'ers happy? What about the old bits where"Bentley" (from "The Jeffersons") was always finding a way to paint a number on a very young Stockard Channing? The chef yelling "12 COCONUT CUSTARD PIES!!" and then falling down the stairs? The YIP-YIP-YIP-YIP aliens? (BUH-RING! BUUUHHH-RING!!!) And for chrissakes, whatever happened to Kermit? When Henson died, was there a stipulation that Kermit got retired with him? Guy "I *AM* WHISPERING" Smiley?? How about the infamous Harvey Kneeslapper, who told the worst jokes ever? (my hero!)

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Note: after I found the above links to the Sesame Encyclopedia, even more memories came flooding back. I'm now going to spend the next few hours researching characters I-Z.