My dad believed Sesame Street was subtle commie indoctrination of children so my siblings couldn’t watch it. (I was too old.)
In the 70’s and 80’s it was a good show but sometime after the 90’s it all went down hill. even maria has left
It did indeed have a weird vibe as I remember it, from the early 70s. By that time, I was already out of the phase of early childhood, so wasn't part of the target audience anyway, but I would nonetheless occasionally get a glimpse of it when visiting friends with younger siblings - and immediately felt a weird vibe.
I think that it may have been because the show did not talk down to its audience - and I expected that.
It's like when you as a kid meet an adult, and that adult tries to interact with you on your level, as an equal, as an immature kid - it feels creepy.
I guess my attitude was: Look, you are a large group of adults with millions of $ in funding - you are thus entitled to "talk down" to me. Why are you all instead acting as though you were fellow kids on the block?
Regards,
In the early days of Sesame Street when I had a child who was the age to watch, I complained to my own father that Jim Henson was probably gay, because the only female main character on the show was Miss Piggy. My dad thought that was a terrible thing to say because he played golf with Jim Henson's father—LOL! The Christians in this country were so naïve until recently! Eventually Sesame Street improved the image of females on the show, but up until then, Miss Piggy was like an early version of Drag Queen Story Hour.