On Non Sequitur, This Week's Findings, and Sesame Street
Let's get started with This Week's Findings. An interesting review of last week's news can be found on the BBC website and I'm not talking about the OddBox this week because I think it's pants. No, revisiting the scorpion and the two jellyfish attacks as well as the newly discovered Romulus Cave in Rome make much more captivating viewing. So I recommend you watch the BBC's Did You See? The week's highlights! instead.
The Guardian published a list of 1000 music albums to hear before you die, a cross selection from several genres. Naturally, whenever you compile a list like that you're gonna miss something and therefore they also published a selection of what people had suggested once they had started. It takes a while to absorb the list but it's quite worth having a look.
I've been a fan of Non Sequitur Comic Strip for a long time and I have posted stuff before but I had fallen out with that comic for while due to the fact that in my view is lost its character over the years by moving from a single panel gag cartoon, similar to Gary Larson's The Far Side, to a more traditional, multi-panel format and recurring characters.
However, occasionally, it returns to the old format and thereby to its old strength of capturing comic situations in just one pane. A selection of last week can be found behind the cut.
According to the American producers of Sesame Street, ever present since 1969, the old episodes aren't fit for children or at least that's what the warning label suggests. American Editions of "Sesame Street - Old School" carries the warning:"These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child." Even though I found it in a German paper first, I subsequently managed to find this brilliant article (See Sweeping the Clouds Away) in the NY Times. Well worth the read.
The German version of Sesame Street was largely succesful because they decided to recruit German actors to play German characters who "live" in the fictional Sesamstrasse and a German intro which children could understand and sing.
My favourite character was Herr von Böfefeld who insisted on being addressed in the formal personal pronoun Sie rather than the familiar Du, and was mischievous and generally as wiley and grumpy as Oscar. He was largely responsible for the problems of all the other inhabitants of the Sesamstrasse and there was great verbal jousting at times between him and Manfred Krug, one of the human inhabitants. I attribute my love for character comedy of the likes of Don Camillo and Peppone to this early influence.
Unfortunately, when the contract on the puppet expired in the early '90s, the American producers decided not renew the contract (the puppet was made by the Muppet company). It was argued at the time that the character couldn't be syndicated internationally because it was a German creation. It was then decided to introduce a German cousin of Oscar called Rumpel who lives in a barrel. Surprise, Surprise. The motives were probably more economical in nature after all.
The Guardian published a list of 1000 music albums to hear before you die, a cross selection from several genres. Naturally, whenever you compile a list like that you're gonna miss something and therefore they also published a selection of what people had suggested once they had started. It takes a while to absorb the list but it's quite worth having a look.
I've been a fan of Non Sequitur Comic Strip for a long time and I have posted stuff before but I had fallen out with that comic for while due to the fact that in my view is lost its character over the years by moving from a single panel gag cartoon, similar to Gary Larson's The Far Side, to a more traditional, multi-panel format and recurring characters.
However, occasionally, it returns to the old format and thereby to its old strength of capturing comic situations in just one pane. A selection of last week can be found behind the cut.
According to the American producers of Sesame Street, ever present since 1969, the old episodes aren't fit for children or at least that's what the warning label suggests. American Editions of "Sesame Street - Old School" carries the warning:"These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child." Even though I found it in a German paper first, I subsequently managed to find this brilliant article (See Sweeping the Clouds Away) in the NY Times. Well worth the read.
The German version of Sesame Street was largely succesful because they decided to recruit German actors to play German characters who "live" in the fictional Sesamstrasse and a German intro which children could understand and sing.
My favourite character was Herr von Böfefeld who insisted on being addressed in the formal personal pronoun Sie rather than the familiar Du, and was mischievous and generally as wiley and grumpy as Oscar. He was largely responsible for the problems of all the other inhabitants of the Sesamstrasse and there was great verbal jousting at times between him and Manfred Krug, one of the human inhabitants. I attribute my love for character comedy of the likes of Don Camillo and Peppone to this early influence.
Unfortunately, when the contract on the puppet expired in the early '90s, the American producers decided not renew the contract (the puppet was made by the Muppet company). It was argued at the time that the character couldn't be syndicated internationally because it was a German creation. It was then decided to introduce a German cousin of Oscar called Rumpel who lives in a barrel. Surprise, Surprise. The motives were probably more economical in nature after all.