Who's Afraid of Monsters?

no one else?

When the monsters are blue, how could you be a bit slow on the uptake and only interested in sweets.

Or if they are red, have a falsetto voice and need help with the traffic light.

When the monsters take part in game shows or sing songs about traffic, about life or about their homeland in a raspy voice, the place where it all takes place: Sesame Street.

Johanna Dürrholz

Editor in the “Germany and the World” department.

  • Follow I follow

The German version of Sesame Street turns 50 this Sunday.

The NDR is celebrating this with a Sesame Street anniversary episode - and the ARD with a special edition of the daily topics.

Presenter Caren Miosga is sometimes addressed as Judith Rakers, sometimes as Ms. Maischberger, while her partner in the studio, the Cookie Monster himself, tries to eat her biscuit brooch.

The field reporter is Wool Sheep, there is a wonderful interview with the artist Jonathan Käse, who rambles along in artistic phrases, at the same time half the population of Sesame Street is looking for a missing zero, who ends up in the studio and sadly announces that she feels "that way worthless".

In the end, Caren Miosga can only congratulate.

The daily issue short episode is a wonderful example of what has distinguished Sesame Street over the past 50 years, both in the English-language original and in the German version: orchestrated chaos.

Sure, a bit of counting is done here and there, for example when Count Number has three apples in front of him (which in turn the Cookie Monster secretly eats).

And the German segments in particular have an educational claim, for example the pulley system is explained or the pedestrian traffic light.

But most of the time there is a kind of child-friendly lawlessness on Sesame Street: The Cookie Monster steals as many cookies as it wants and also likes to eat up all the studio equipment, Ernie annoys Bert anew in every episode and prevents him from falling asleep, game show participants don't follow the rules, some animals can talk, some can't.

Nobody is really "good" or "bad", there is no black or white and there is little clear morality.

If other children's figures are anarchists, then they are mostly in a bourgeois, orderly environment, such as Pippi Longstocking.

But nothing is organized on Sesame Street, nobody has to protest here because there are no guidelines for correct behavior.

There's a hero, Oskar, who lives in the garbage can and sings about liking garbage.

And then there's Bibo again, the friendly, canary-yellow giant bird who couldn't hurt a fly.

And then, of course, there's the frog Kermit, the alter ego of the original creator, Jim Henson, who played Kermit until his death in 1990 and who, after Sesame Street, also created an internationally successful adult puppet show: The Muppet Show.

Of course, Sesame Street is also fun for adults.

Because it's so absurd, often a bit stupid and at the same time always endearingly cranky.

No wonder the show wasn't exactly loved by critics 50 years ago: what kind of example should that be for children, media educators asked, a monster that lives in a garbage can?

Some things on Sesame Street almost seem to have been made for grown-ups.

For example, the parody of "Les Miserables", in English it's called "Les Mousserables" and it stars a certain cookie monster who walks around Paris, called "Jean Bonbon" and doesn't want to share his biscuits with all the other biscuit lovers .

Or the episode where the cookie monster looks for a cookie treasure as "Capt'n Snack Sparrow".

Or the one in which the cookie monster has to compete in the Hunger Games as "Krümeline, the insatiable".

It's all wonderfully weird, entertaining, entertaining - and just very funny.

Monsters that you like, extraterrestrials who discover things on earth, people who are at best extras next to the loveliest dolls in the world.

You can only do the same for Caren Miosga – and congratulate Sesame Street.

Here's to the next 50 years!