A Christmas Special for A Generation: Nostalgic Thoughts on Elmo Saves Christmas

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone! We may not have chestnuts roasting on a fire here in Miami, and the Charlie Brown Christmas special has already aired, but the date is upon us. People are happier despite the crowded stores, and the radio has started to play classic carols. Thus it feels fitting to dive into some nostalgia into what I think about the holiday, regarding a classic PBS show that has been on the air for more than forty years.

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A lot of changes have come to Sesame Street over the past few years. The original puppeteer for the Count, Jerry Nelson, passed away, and the actress Sonia Manzano, who plays FixIt repair-woman Maria, has decided to leave the show, and HBO has recently purchased the Sesame Street franchise, slashing the episode times from 60 minutes to 30 minutes. These changes may be for the best, but at the moment they feel murky and stab at my heart. I didn't lear n everything I knew from Sesame Street, but I learned quite a bit. I remember learning a sobering lesson about Christmas from the show, via a rather unusual holiday special.

Elmo Saves Christmas was a special that aired for a few years during the late 1990s, when Christmas in Miami means the sun shining on the green grass for a couple of days before blasting cold would come in. Kevin Clash was still performing for Elmo, and gave the character's voice an endearing scratchiness that sounded monster-like. Another special has since replaced it, so that you can only find several of the songs online. It featured Maya Angelou narrating how Elmo, after rescuing Santa from a stuck chimney, received a snowglobe that can grant three wishes. Elmo decides to wish that it were Christmas every day, so that everyone will be happy all the time.

Image source: http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060311195440/muppet/images/0/09/Elmo_Saves_Christmas-_Holiday_Favorites_(CD).jpeg


At the time, such a wish didn't sound like a bad idea. Christmas to me simply meant one day of the year when one could receive presents, enjoy good weather, and bask in a warm glow of holiday cheer. Santa during the special then sends Elmo out with a time-traveling reindeer, to show him what happens if Christmas happens every day, keeping people out of school, out of work, unable to send mail, and obligated to buy presents. Elmo's friends seem fine in the spring, slowly start to stress during the summer, and completely crack by winter. Having a holiday everyday nibbles away at the novelty, until what's left is a hollow shell of a celebration.

The special did a good job in not hammering in the message that "Christmas every day is bad" and instead reflecting the childlike naivety. In fact, several characters, like Santa's elves, point out that Santa shares part of the blame in giving a childlike Muppet such power, and imply that similar disasters have emerged from other users of the wish-granting snow globe. Santa seems to admit this in part, especially when his morose song "Everyday Can't Be Christmas" doesn't convince Elmo at first, and he has a rather alarmed expression when Elmo uses his first wish to request a glass of water. He also takes the time to come to Sesame Street, warn Elmo, and give him a way to see what will happen. When Elmo gets a second chance to choose either the snow-globe or an ordinary toy at the special's conclusion, he chooses the ordinary toy but Santa offers him something far more extraordinary that won't cause temporal anomalies. Many questions arise from the fact that despite having given the snow-globe before, he hasn't thought to take it out of production, and one wonders what the previous gift recipients did with their wishes.

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The other important thing about this special was that it showed rather than told the consequences, and used concrete imagery to convey these devastating actions. As mentioned in my previous Christmas post, it irked me in Mickey's Christmas Carol how it hammered so much at Scrooge being a miser would condemn him, so that you couldn't sit back and enjoy thirty minutes of animation. In contrast, Sesame Street knew how children thought, that is with visuals instead of words. Elmo can't comprehend consequences in the long term that emerge from too much of a good thing, especially when everyone appears happy on hearing the news. Neither could the viewers at the time, including myself, who came along for the ride. I was quite shocked to see Sesame Street as deserted, and not even Grover trying to sell Christmas trees could add enough humor to quell the blow.

The third thing was that this special showed one Muppet making a series of mistakes, and despite the increasing consequences manages to amend for them. Elmo wishing for Christmas every day is somewhat forgivable, again because he is a child with a childlike mentality. He makes the mistake of not taking Santa's concern seriously, which is again understandable since he cannot visualize the consequences that the man in the red suit brings. The farther Elmo travels into the future, however, the more he realizes that people aren't happy, especially his friends and loved one, but he keeps going forward, hoping that "real Christmas" will recapture the joy that he meant to spread across the year. His final mistake in what happens when he realizes that he has a way to undo Christmas everyday-- with his last wish-- and takes too long to do so, instead of fixing the problem straightaway.  Despite those mistakes, Elmo finds a way to undo his wish, and save everyone from constant holidays.

Image source: http://cdn.madman.com.au/images/screenshots/screenshot_2_1112.jpg
 For those reasons, I do hope that Sesame Street starts airing Elmo Saves Christmas again, with its memorable songs that can make one laugh and also sober up instantly. It isn't often that we have a Christmas special with such mood swings and strong plot to show the consequences of our actions, It's A Wonderful Life notwithstanding, and makes us feel like little kids again. For the moment, as we all do with Christmas, I'll keep the hour-long special with me through the year, with my memories of childhood Sesame Street.

 Image source: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/6/6b/ESCKeep.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121222025729

Weekend Trip to Disney

Hi all! I’m back from a two-day trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando. We drove out Friday afternoon and arrived in Miami yesterday evening. The two days in between were quite adventurous.  

We haven’t been to Disney World since 2011, when we stayed in Bay Lake Tower and learned how Disney is accommodating to special allergies and dietary needs for my younger brother. This was going to be fun, short, and sweet. And it all was. On top of that, I smuggled in my Hiccup doll for comfort from the packing stress and the road, and to indulge in the subversive nature of bringing a Dreamworks character to a Disney franchise.  

Hiccup enjoyed himself, I can tell you that. So did we. So much has changed in Disney over the past five years. A few rides, like Snow White’s Scary Adventures, have vanished and been replaced by a Princess Fairytale Hall where you can meet and greet the ladies of Disney. We didn’t go on the new Snow White ride, Mine Train, because the waiting times were between 40 and 60 minutes, but it certainly looked interesting. Fare thee well, Snow White; I wished I had ridden you more often before your 2012 closure. 

On the first day, we went to Epcot, which remained mostly the same as it was in 2011. Spaceship Earth is still the most soothing ride, and my mom’s favorite experience was going on Soarin’. The large globe is soothing to see at night, though the walking between rides and Via Napoli wore us out. I actually fell asleep on my brother after we boarded the Monorail back to our hotel room.

 

On Saturday and Sunday, we went to the Magic Kingdom. The park is decorated in full for Halloween, even with a month to go before Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. It certainly gives a delicious air to the fall atmosphere. The people dancing around trolleys and singing about hayrides also helped.

The new ride that I loved the most was The Little Mermaid ride. I saw a 3D blueprint of the ride on my Little Mermaid DVD, and was excited to get a chance to go on it. The animatronics were very sophisticated, with the audio matched closely to the lip synching, and there was an extended sequence depicting “Under the Sea” with Sebastian the crab conducting.

With that said, they do cut out the Lovecraftian climax towards the end where Ursula gets angry and takes over the oceans, but I figured that’s a small allowance to make in favor of an actual Little Mermaid dark ride. This took twenty years into the making. The queue was also entertaining, with an animatronic Scuttle providing commentary and a sea-like backdrop.

We also went on Splash and Thunder Mountain; I was terrified of going on the rides as a kid, when we used to go to Disney more often, but I managed to swallow my fear and go on the drops. After all the stress of the past three years, an amusement park ride that relies on our fear of falling felt like a walk in the park. Plus, I can make up for the times as a kid that I freaked out and refused to get on, requiring my mom to wait with me outside the ride.

 On the second day, I took Hiccup with me to the Magic Kingdom. He got a glimpse of Cinderella’s castle, which is undergoing renovations. I found it wicked to sneak in my favorite Dreamworks character into the Happiest Place on Earth (fanfiction material). He sat with me on Space Mountain, and no one noticed. It was hard to take a photo of him in the dark, but I managed. Space Mountain was pure darkness, so I was relieved to have a comforting character with me.

We also went on the Carousel of Progress (which will remain a classic), Small World (ditto), and the Haunted Mansion. I love the ghost host outfits that the cast members wear and asked where I could get one. A cast member told me that the nearby shops sold a t-shirt, but I want to go for the full Victorian dress. I also got flashbacks when a frightened child said he didn’t want to go on; I was the same way about Pirates of the Caribbean. Jay and Mom remember that, and how I would always say, “NO yo-ho!” On the bright side, the ride was as fun as I remember, with a few updates; Leota’s head does more floating, I actually saw the Black Widow bride, and the tombstones were hilarious as always.

Overall it was a fun trip. I enjoyed myself, as did the family. Hiccup also got a chance to see my childhood and enter a place forbidden to him; the security guard that checked my bag didn’t even recognize him. I got to be a proper kid again, with some cynicism about progress and yet less adult worries on hand. In the Magic Kingdom, you can shut most of the real world out, and get lost in the atmosphere.