Board 8 > The 100 Dumbest Events In Children's Television History- Part 2 (The Top 30)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Wooden rocketship? What is this, Outer Wilds?

I feel like a lot of the last few entries (not the Danny Phantom thing of course) ought to be lower. After some of the heavy hitters in the low 30s/high 20s, I was anticipating that we were done with stuff like dumb tropes, networks doing shows dirty, and just plain bad episodes while the top 25 or so would be stuff that's intentionally offensive or involving problematic people.

I sort of view this list as a more non-ordered thing. Morelike, here's 100 dumb things in no particular order

guffguy89 posted...

Wooden rocketship? What is this, Outer Wilds?

I was about to say, somebody's never played Outer Wilds

Grand_Kirby posted...

Commenting on #30, I need to post the Gilligan's Planet theme song. It's hard to believe it's real even when you're watching it:
https://youtu.be/MagAchLlJP4

(They built a wooden rocketship?!)

I heard The Professors been building submarines for Titanic tours lately.

Ew Stonetoss

You better be sorry.

I don't actually know anything about this comic, I was just was amazed that this showed up on my timeline completely out of nowhere even though I had never heard of this event.

Those algorithms getting too powerful.

Stonetoss is a nazi

Oh

Whoops

If Gilligan has been constantly thwarting the escape attempts of the other islanders, you'd think they would have left him behind on the island. Also, they can build a spaceship, but they can't patch up a hole on their boat?

Tag

I'm still banking on the death of Optimus Prime as #1, or at the very least top 5.

Bat Embargo sounds dumb as hell.

swordz9 posted...

Had no idea about the Ember murder thing, but man thats fucked up.

Damn yeah same here. That's awful. I knew she was popular but no idea someone was that obsessed about it.

WazzupGenius00 posted...

The show was Laverne and Shirley in the Army. Like the Happy Days one it got them both to reprise their roles (at least until they fired Cindy Williams from both the animated show and the sitcom after she sued Paramount for making her work on her pregnancy due date). In the second season it became Laverne and Shirley with the Fonz, where Fonzie became a mechanic at the army base. It was also paired with a Mork & Mindy animated series (the two original shows being spinoffs of Happy Days to begin with).

Thank you! The well of my Happy Days lore has filled closer to the brim.

The Happy Days Cinematic Universe is actually very large

Happy Days resulted in seven different spin-off series, including two that were animated: Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork & Mindy, Out of the Blue,Joanie Loves Chachi, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (animated) and Laverne & Shirley with The Fonz(animated).

I had to look up what fucking plots could happen on Laverne and Shirley in the Army

EPISODE ONE
The girls accidentally hijack a secret army rocket and get captured by aliens, who want to invade Earth.

Come on now thats a much better series right there

It feels like these writers had both ChatGPT and Monkey's Paw.

"Write a theme song for Gilligan's Planet, but also don't sound like the original Gilligan's Island song."

Cursed AI results.

That was impressively bad.

That was a trip. Tag!

A few things:
-I recognized Jabberjaw, but didn't realize he was hated. Never saw his show - a character like him is fine in small doses. (Gotta wonder if Scrappy-Doo + the switch to shorts instead of full episodes will be in the top 20)
-Fuck Megan Parker. Like, seriously, she made that show nigh unwatchable for me. She was never funny, not in the half-dozen episodes I tolerated. That kind of character is only funny if given proper comeuppances on the regular. She never did.
-Never saw Invader ZIM, but that was my flavor in Nickelodeon Mafia a year ago now (coincidentally, three of the next four posts were from my scummates). I should probably watch that sometime.
-Double Dare 2000 wasn't bad. Like... it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. "Forgettable" may be the right term.
-Fandoms are a truly disturbing thing. Getting into arguments about shipping takes away the point of it. You pair who you want to based on the evidence included. Fanfics written about urban legends are always better than the real thing. And them ruining the lives of writers and such.... just yeesh.
-That Milli Vanilli bit literally had me rolling!

TheRock1525 posted...

I'm still banking on the death of Optimus Prime as #1, or at the very least top 5.

It happened during a movie, so I can't include it on the list. It'd be top 10 for sure if I did though!

I mean it was a children's TV show turned into a movie. And the ramifications were felt in the show like bringing him back as a zombie.

That scene was super cool, though. >_>

I mean, two of the entries I have in the top 20 could potentially be rolled together to make room for Optimus Prime's death if y'all think it belongs on here...

Also didn't it tank ratings and sales?

RySenkari posted...

I mean, two of the entries I have in the top 20 could potentially be rolled together to make room for Optimus Prime's death if y'all think it belongs on here...

I mean, just my personal opinion, but if we're going to count a murder as one of the dumbest Children's TV moments then I think it's fair to count something as adjacent as a movie to a TV show as well.

But i'd rather you not change your list to appease me considering I'm the only one talking about it.

TheRock1525 posted...

Also didn't it tank ratings and sales?

Well, I don't recall watching much Transformers after it happened until like Beast Wars. But, the scene was still cool. <_<

Beast Machines could make this list. And I say it as someone who actually liked Beast Machines.

So, I've thought about it, and I'm convinced: the death of Optimus Prime DOES quality as a children's TV moment. I've fudged my rules a couple other times in equally loose ways, and there is a consensus for Optimus Prime's death qualifying, so I'll go ahead and slot it in. Like I mentioned earlier, two of my top 20 moments are closely enough related that I can just merge them together into one entry to make room for Optimus Prime.

With that said, the top 20 is now set! No more changes, if you're not happy with my top 20 rankings you'll just have to complain in here :p

And speaking of the top 20, let's begin:

-

#20: The Day My Kid Went Punk

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/3/2/AAAG8cAAEo4g.jpg
What would I do? Buy him a guitar, I guess?

Afterschool Specials used to be a staple of ABC's mid afternoon lineups throughout the 70s, 80s, and even a bit into the 90s. Attempting to entertain kids while teaching them valuable life lessons, they spanned the spectrum of quality from Emmy-winning classics to truly awful garbage, and between all the misguided morals, hammy melodrama, and overdramatic cautionary tales, I knew these specials needed at least one representative on my list. And while doing my research to find out which ones were the worst, one of them kept coming up at the top of list after list: the 1987 movie The Day My Kid Went Punk, about a quiet, well-behaved young man who suddenly decides to become a punk rocker. Oooh, scary! He gets a pink mohawk, he pierces his ear, and joins a punk band, all to win the heart of a special girl. He looks less punk than Luna Loud, for fuck's sake. The dialogue throughout shows that the writers knew next to nothing about punk rock (and punk rock wasn't even scary at this point, it had been years since the Sid Vicious/Nancy Spungeon incident and now everyone had moved on to commercialized hair metal). His mom, who decides to start a conference on "Punk Syndrome", keeps giving him crap throughout the movie, even though her son's behavior barely changes (he plays music for children about believing in themselves and takes a lonely little girl horseback riding). Honestly, it's hard to tell what this movie's message is, as it waffles back and forth between overdramatizing the punk rock craze and having a "just be yourself" message, and ultimately sort of settles somewhere between, with the protagonist toning down his look but not all the way. While the movie has its entertaining (entertaining in a campy, MST3K sort of way, mind you) moments, it's also boring, nonsensical, and about eight years too late, falling flat even amongst the worst of the worst of ABC's afterschool specials. Movies like these are why kids stopped watching them at all and started gravitating toward Fox Kids, and can you really blame them?

#19: Rubik, The Amazing Cube

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/4/AAAG8cAAEo4s.jpg
Damn, they always fly away when you're about to solve it.

Amongst product placement and merch-driven cartoons, there are some that are so boneheaded, so ill-advised that you wonder what kind of illegal drugs the production team was on. There aren't many shows this applies to more than Rubik, the Amazing Cube, which began airing in 1983 as part of an hour-long show with the Pac-Man adaptation (which wasn't great in and of itself, but looks like Arcane next to this). The show revolves around a magical Rubik's cube named Rubik who can transform into a magical flying hero once he's solved, and when he's not solved (which happens often due to his young friends fumbling him more than Matt Ryan), he just sort of wiggles around making gibberish noises and mumbling "help". All the while, the kids have to avoid an evil magician who used to be Rubik's original owner and who's constantly trying to take him back. Even in the merch-driven 1980s, the idea of making an animated series about a Rubik's cube has to be one of the silliest ever, and fans agreed, with this show only lasting 12 episodes. If there's one good thing about this show, it's that it was one of the first cartoons to feature a majority-Latino cast, but my God, they deserved so much better than this. Boring, silly, and derivative even in ways that the worst of the Scooby Doo imitators weren't, Rubik, the Amazing Cube faded largely into obscurity, but when it is remembered, it's remembered as one of the worst animated series ever.

RySenkari posted...

Even in the merch-driven 1980s, the idea of making an animated series about a Rubik's cube has to be one of the silliest ever, and fans agreed

Fans of what, precisely? Rubik's cube fans?

i mean, there's an anime about someone being reincarnated as a vending machine, so anything's possible.

RySenkari posted...

#19: Rubik, The Amazing Cube

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/4/AAAG8cAAEo4s.jpg
Damn, they always fly away when you're about to solve it.

Amongst product placement and merch-driven cartoons, there are some that are so boneheaded, so ill-advised that you wonder what kind of illegal drugs the production team was on. There aren't many shows this applies to more than Rubik, the Amazing Cube, which began airing in 1983 as part of an hour-long show with the Pac-Man adaptation (which wasn't great in and of itself, but looks like Arcane next to this). The show revolves around a magical Rubik's cube named Rubik who can transform into a magical flying hero once he's solved, and when he's not solved (which happens often due to his young friends fumbling him more than Matt Ryan), he just sort of wiggles around making gibberish noises and mumbling "help". All the while, the kids have to avoid an evil magician who used to be Rubik's original owner and who's constantly trying to take him back. Even in the merch-driven 1980s, the idea of making an animated series about a Rubik's cube has to be one of the silliest ever, and fans agreed, with this show only lasting 12 episodes. If there's one good thing about this show, it's that it was one of the first cartoons to feature a majority-Latino cast, but my God, they deserved so much better than this. Boring, silly, and derivative even in ways that the worst of the Scooby Doo imitators weren't, Rubik, the Amazing Cube faded largely into obscurity, but when it is remembered, it's remembered as one of the worst animated series ever.

Feel like this shoulda been the plot of a CDI game. Who thought this was a good idea at all

#18: David Zaslav's Warner Bros. Purge

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/8/AAAG8cAAEo7a.jpg
See also: #34: Characters Whose Sole Purpose Is To Make The Protagonists' Lives A Living Hell And Who Never Get Punished

David Zaslav took over Discovery Channel in 2006, and when he was running that network, we never really heard all that much about him. Then, in 2022, he took charge of the merger between Discovery and Warner Bros., and holy shit do we know a lot about him now. He's on this list mostly for one of the first big moves he made, a move to remove dozens of animated shows from HBO Max and Discovery+ in the process of the merge between the two entertainment entities. These shows include popular cartoons like Summer Camp Island, O.K. KO!, Mighty Magiswords, and, most notoriously, Infinity Train. Summer Camp Island was particularly egregious, as that show was just days from airing its final season and the move put that season (which was already finished with production) in complete limbo, while there's no other way to watch most of the seasons of Infinity Train that were removed from that service. Zaslav's moves came as a series of "cost cutting" measures that included canceling and permanently shelving the mostly completed Batgirl movie, and while some of these shows were simply just shelved for a while until they could be sold to new networks, others were written off for tax purposes, making it legally impossible to ever show them again unless those back taxes are paid (the number of times a tax writeoff has been reversed in the history of television can be counted on literally one hand), essentially making written off shows lost media. That's bad enough, but Zaslav's model for "cost cutting" has now been implemented by numerous television executives, with writing off and shelving of digital content now becoming a standard business practice. This could, if the trend continues, lead to the largest loss of television media since the wiping of tapes back in the pre-1970s era, and it's Zaslav who started it all. This is the newest entry on the list, and so it's a bit early to gauge the full impact of Zaslav's actions. If the trend continues and we see vast swaths of digital media culled because of the new trends, this could easily be a top 3 moment in just a few years' time. On the other hand, if the trend is reversed (shareholders are already starting to revolt after Warner Bros. stock prices plunged following backlash against these moves), it may fall into the bottom half of the top 100, though there's already been enough damage done that this will remain a dumbest moment even if much of Zaslav's actions are reversed.

#17: Kid Nation

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/1/AAAG8cAAEo7x.jpg
Quit whining. You could be working for Dan Schneider.

This is one of the shows I mentioned "fudging" my criteria for. Kid Nation was technically intended as a general audience program, airing in CBS on prime-time, but it ended up being marketed heavily toward kids, and CBS tried to promote the show by having schools show it to 7th-12th graders, so I'm counting it as a kids' show. The premise of Kid Nation was to bring 40 kids together in an Old West ghost town to see if they could successfully form their own society. They had their own "town council", and outstanding performers got gold stars that could be redeemed for real world money, with the possibility of earning six figure sums if one performed consistently well throughout the season. Needless to say, this show was absolutely littered with issues from the word "go". Psychiatrists and pediatricians went on record to say that the show's competitive environment could potentially cause extreme psychological stress for its young participants, while others complained that the show could potentially be in violation of child labor laws. There had been other reality competition shows featuring kids, such as J.D. Roth's Moolah Beach and Endurance, but those shows utilized older kids and had more participation from adult production staff to monitor the physical and psychological health of participants, while Kid Nation remained hands-off and left the children in charge of pretty much everything, with a much "looser" format for events and competitions. This led to some scary incidents, including a child accidentally drinking a small amount of bleach (they were treated by medical staff immediately afterward, but it's no less disturbing that this happened), and also led to New Mexico conducting investigations on the show itself. Kid Nation, despite the issues, managed to finish its first and only season with only a few of the kids quitting along the way, but despite the show's marginally successful run, it remains infamous as one of the most exploitative programs ever approved for airing on television. It enjoys somewhat of a cult status today, with both critical and supportive reviews still occasionally popping up on sites like Youtube.

I barely watched that show, but Taylor will forever remain one of the most memorable reality television contestants of all time.

#16: Clutch Cargo

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/6/4/AAAG8cAAEo8I.jpg
When you manage to make even Annoying Orange look like a normal cartoon...

Clutch Cargo was a 1959 cartoon about an adventurer who traveled around the world on dangerous adventures, sort of a proto-Race Bannon. One of the first televised cartoons, it could've been an innovative and groundbreaking show, and indeed, it did feature a creative story now and again, but what ultimately doomed Clutch Cargo to its status as a weird footnote in animation history was the producers' insistence on a shoestring budget for practically everything involved with the show, to the point where its producers said that they're not making an animated cartoon at all. Instead, most of the show's "animation" consisted of still frames of animation with live action movement superimposed on them, including, most infamously, the mouths of the performers, a technique known as "Synchro-Vox". This served to give talking characters an incredibly strange and disturbing look, with the real mouths of actors speaking the characters' dialogue and being shown on screen. Corners were cut on pretty much every aspect of production to save time and animation cels, with one producer bragging by comparing the production costs of Clutch Cargo to that of Disney at the time (one forgets that at this time, Disney was making the epic Sleeping Beauty, with animation that is still cited as some of the most beautiful ever produced). The disturbing animation techniques, combined with some pretty blatant racist stereotypes in a number of episodes, would ultimately relegate Clutch Cargo to obscurity and infamy, with only one season produced despite the low budget. What Clutch Cargo is mostly known for now is for having its theme song hummed during the infamous Max Headroom broadcast intrusion incident, and what that man put himself through is sort of how it feels like to watch Clutch Cargo today: screaming nonsense while being spanked repeatedly.

Oh geeze. We need a clutch cargo clip in here. It is even worse than the write up makes it sound

lol, this is the second time Kid Nation has come up for me today and its only 8:30 am

Lmao I feel like I gotta tell my buddy about The Day My Kid Went Punk. I bet he'd get a kick outta that.

I shouldn't be surprised there's a Rubik's Cube show and yet here we are. Definitely qualifies for this list.

Fuck Zaslav. Damn I thought Kid Nation was more recent than 2007 but maybe I'm thinking of something else or the interviews from some.of the kids more recently. Dunno!

masterplum posted...

Oh geeze. We need a clutch cargo clip in here. It is even worse than the write up makes it sound

I'm even more curious now. I never knew there was a name for it but Syncho-vox is one of my least favorite media things.

#15: Elmo Takes Over Sesame Street

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/0/AAAG8cAAEo8s.jpg
It's Elmo's World and we're all just living in it.

Introduced to Sesame Street in 1979, Elmo started off as a background character, but soon gained increased prominence in the show during the 1980s, culminating with Kevin Clash taking over the role in 1985. Clash's performance was said to have "breathed new life" into Elmo's character, and as a result, Elmo became even more prominent, continuing to appear more and more on the show throughout the 90s. Created to be an innocent, toddlerlike character, Elmo appealed greatly to the show's youngest viewers, who were most engaged when Elmo was on screen. Finally, in 1998, Elmo was given his own segment of the show, titled "Elmo's World", which was a more fantastical segment of the show compared to the more grounded in reality segments of the rest of Sesame Street. "Elmo's World", a 15 minute segment of the hour long program, aired mostly during the 2000s, a time of significant change for Sesame Street from what it was before, and this is when most of the problems began, including the reduced presence (or removal entirely) of Muppet characters such as Kermit the Frog, and less emphasis on visiting real people in real world settings, to make time for more Elmo segments of the program. It was a serious departure from the show's original mission to teach kids about the real world and make them feel more comfortable in it, and while the Elmo's World segments did successfully appeal to young children, these segments were also said to be less educational than the main program itself, even adjusting for the fact that younger kids would be learning more simplified material. "Elmo's World" ended in 2009, and in 2012, a new segment called "Elmo: The Musical" debuted, focusing on songs sung by Elmo. Later on, in 2013, Kevin Clash would step down from the role after abuse allegations, though these were later dismissed due to the statute of limitations, and Elmo would take a less prominent role in the show going forward (though later spin--offs such as The Not Too Late Show With Elmo) would give the character some of the screen time he had enjoyed on the show itself). The rise of Elmo might've been popular with Sesame Street's youngest viewers, but it also forever changed the focus of Sesame Street, bringing the show in line with its contemporaries and in a way removing some of what made the show unique. It remains a popular and valuable educational resource for children, but it lost some of its appeal and even its sharp wit in the process, as what usually happens when a show with such a strong ensemble cast becomes so heavily focused on one distinct character.

For the record, the Elmo thing has actually gotten worse than what Ry described. In 2016, when Sesame Street moved to HBO (and later HBO Max), the producers decided to shrink the show to half an hour. This, along with some other significant changes to the show, has resulted in something even more than Elmos peak in the 2000s, with him not just being a main character taking up a lot of screentime, but rather considered the central character (think if the show was called Elmo instead of Sesame Street). Instead of him being a part of an ensemble cast, hes the character that others resolve around. He appears in every episode and almost every one of those episodes has him in a major role. Him, Abby, Cookie Monster (who has become more childish over time), Rosita, and the new muppets theyve been introducing the past few years are who you usually see now. Even Big Bird has been pushed to the side, it seems.

Also, it seems that other companies are following WarnerDiscoverys lead in purging stuff (from streaming or otherwise) with little or no warning. I definitely think this will be catastrophic for the television industry (and possibly other industries) and I could see it being put even higher than it already is on a redone list years from now.

Is there a particular reason it is done with no warning? I can at least follow how the tax break stuff leads to money.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Is there a particular reason it is done with no warning? I can at least follow how the tax break stuff leads to money.

The same reason for most anything else: Corporations and executives dont care about their consumers or the people that worked hard on the things they sell. They just want to save money where they can, when they can.

getting a david zaslav jumpscare before i finished my morning coffee.

i mean i definitely expected him to show up, but oof his actions still sting.

#14: The Odyssey Of Greg Weisman

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/3/9/AAAG8cAAEo9T.jpg
He smiles to hide the pain.

Greg Weisman is a writer and director of comics and action cartoons, and he's widely considered to be one of the best animation writers of all time. In fact, some consider him to be one of the greatest television writers of all time. So, tell me, if the man is so good at his job... why does he keep getting fired from almost all of them? Weisman is widely known as the creator of Disney's animated classic Gargoyles, and while that show was able to come to some sort of conclusion, it's widely known that the show could've gone on longer than it did, and ended before its time. Then there's the ill-fated Spectacular Spider-Man, considered one of the best animated superhero cartoons ever, two seasons and then *poof*, gone! He would later go on to produce and write for the excellent DC animated show Young Justice, which got two seasons, was canceled, came back for two more seasons, and then in 2022 got canceled again (thanks to #18 on this list)! Greg Weisman is considered one of the tragic figures of animation, with so many beloved shows canceled before their time... even projects he's worked on but didn't create, such as W.I.T.C.H., have suffered the fate of cancellation, making some wonder if this man is cursed. Whether it be low ratings, periphery demographics, or poor merch sales (the excuse given in the case of Young Justice), network executives keep coming up with excuses to cancel this man's shows, despite fans being ready, willing, and able to support them. Perhaps his mature and complex storylines are too grown-up for the kids that network advertisers are targeting, but at the same time, so many people claim to have grown up on his shows as kids, so... maybe it's the networks themselves who just aren't ready? Time and time again, Greg Weisman has elevated children's animated television, and time and time again, the networks have been there to knock it back down to Earth. His talents remain in high demand, so there's no doubt he'll be back to direct more animated shows, but whether or not network execs will wise up and let him cook remains to be seen.

Clutch Cargo is something.... special. And not the good kind of special. There's a reason it was in Pulp Fiction and the Retail comic strip. In not too different news, that Rubik's Cube show looks like the stuff of nightmares. Just... yikes.

Hopefully Zaslav's impact is minimal. I don't understand how it's "cost-cutting" to shelf things that are literally almost finished. It can only make money at that point. I'm mad that some things I could've enjoyed may very well be lost forever because of him. Here's hoping he gets the boot soon.

Kid Nation was a good idea executed poorly. Like you said, better-made shows like Endurance had adult supervision and utilized pubescent teens, not 8 y/os. Could have easily had the kids boss around the adults, but the adults do the laundry and cooking that way.

poor Greg Weisman. And poor us for never getting to see his shows to completion

Inviso posted...

I barely watched that show, but Taylor will forever remain one of the most memorable reality television contestants of all time.

Lmao at age 10 Taylor became one of the most infamous RTV villains ever. That's got to be a record.

#13: The Anti-Barney Crusade

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/6/8/AAAG8cAAEo9w.jpg
Didn't Barney play basketball that one time? Maybe he just hit three shots in a row.

Barney and Friends was a children's show that debuted on PBS in 1992, about a purple dinosaur and his friends, involving lots of singing and dancing about love and friendship. The show exploded in popularity that year like few things before or since, and came back down to Earth fairly quickly, though it went on for about 20 years and remained at least decently popular until it finally went off the air. The show itself wasn't all that good... it lacked the wit of Sesame Street or the wisdom of Mister Rogers, and honestly could've been a borderline honorable mention for this list with its all-too saccharine antics and just how silly that dinosaur got sometimes. It naturally attracted an enormous hatedom... and I do mean enormous, with dark nursery rhymes about violently killing Barney and even a tabletop RPG campaign called The Jihad To Destroy Barney. There were anti-Barney parodies, all sorts of those in the media... but, again, those were all harmlessly poking fun at a hated character. This entry on the list is about the people who made it personal. Countless death threats and violent letters sent to the show's creators and staff, kids who chose to keep watching Barney and Friends being relentlessly bullied, and all over a dumb purple dinosaur who never did anything to hurt anybody. Seriously, apart from a few small nitpicks about kids doing dumb stuff in the show (catching stinging insects, a bit of name-calling), Barney's about the least problematic IP that ever existed, and yet the show's creators had to deal with so much real-life violence and hatred that a literal documentary called I Love You, You Hate Me was made to chronicle it all. This isn't about a shipping war, or problematic fanart, literally all these people did was put an annoying character on a screen for thirty minutes a day. That's all it took. As annoying as Barney could be at times, no creator deserves that or anywhere near that, and it's definitely telling when a dinosaur who only wanted us to love each other became the target of so much hate that it spilled into the real world.

Still incredibly mad about what happened to Spectacular Spider-Man.

As a lover of "classic" (basically pre-90s) Sesame Street material, everything Ry and Keeby have said lines up with what I know about the show's current state. Very sad indeed.