http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2008/04/29/sesame-street-video-theater-edition.aspx You know, when I found a list of YouTube clips featuring Sesame Street doing Shakespeare, I was very excited. With 3 little kids running around my house I’m one of those adults who’ll giggle hysterically every time Cookie Monster eats poor Prairie Dawn’s letter of the day. There’s a surprising number of references for adults to be found in the show (I once saw Grover make a Cherry Orchard reference). Alas, the skits just aren’t that good. Having a bunch of puppets running around adding “eth” and “ooth” to the ends of all their words does not make for a Shakespeare skit, in my booketh. Although the Waiting For Godot one is pretty good, if only for Cookie Monster’s description.
Oh, hey, I just thought they were silly fun. I do share your annoyance that they don’t bother to get the archaisms correct–there are presumably English majors working on this show, right? It’s not that hard to get the “eth”s and “est”s correct: Thou DOST, he DOTH. Maybe the kids seeing this stuff have a hidden association with happier times when they finally get around to cracking the spine on a Shakespeare play in school?
You’re right, though, that “Waiting for Godot” is the best of the lot. “Why couldn’t they do ‘Oklahoma?'”