Sesame Street Live: A Review

Last month, we took a family trip to George Mason University's Patriot Center to see Sesame Street Live: Make a New Friend. Naturally, I feel the need to share my thoughts about the show and the experience seeing Big Bird, Elmo and company.

- Despite the Steelers playing at 1:00 in Atlanta, somehow Ben Roethlisberger was able to be in Fairfax at noon to see the show.

- The premise of Sesame Street Live: Make a New Friend is that Chamki, apparently a character from the India version of Sesame Street, travels all the way from India just to visit Grover for one day. According to the show, Grover and Chamki met on Fuzzbook, the Monster Social Network. (The joke went over just as well live as it did reading this on the screen.) I understand that this is a show for kids, but travelling across the globe just to get together for one day? Seems like this could be a plot from Avenue Q rather than Sesame Street.

- When the show began, my 3 year-old was focused on the tub of popcorn we bought while my 8 month-old was fascinated by the lights and music, had a huge smile and waved his arms around. Of course, he fell asleep about 15 minutes later.

- With tickets being reasonably priced, I wondered how Sesame Street made it money from the show. The answer: merchandising.



There were Sesame Street pennants, clothing and so much more. At the beginning of intermission, they brought out seemingly hundreds of balloons with Elmo on one side and Grover on the other directly in front of the stage to sell. At the end of intermission, there were maybe a dozen balloons left.

- I was disappointed that Mr. Snuffleupagus wasn't part of the show.

- When exactly did Elmo become the #1 character on Sesame Street? When I was growing up, I think Big Bird was the top seed. I don't even think Elmo was around when I watched Sesame Street as a kid.

- Why does Count Von Count dress significantly better than every other character? He's in a three-piece suit while many of his companions don't even where pants.

- Does GMU security enjoy the crowds at Sesame Street Live compared to those attending a WWE event? There's little chance for a drunken brawl at Sesame Street but all of the kids must present a different type of challenge.

Overall, my 3 year-old enjoyed the show which was the entire reason that we went. 90 minutes including intermission was the perfect amount of time since I don't know how much longer the kids would have lasted beyond that. I'm not sure we're taking this type of family outing anytime soon, but it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.