As Dylan has started to become more aware of his surroundings we’ve changed our television viewing habits, as well as numerous others, quite a bit.

We have a full time or part time philosophy when it comes to watching TV. We generally use it as background noise for watching Dylan, working, free time, or some combination, so this would be considered part time TV for us and relegated for shows that we like but don’t care to pay attention to all the time. Full time TV would be dedicated for the shows that we care about what happens.

It used to work out pretty well for us to tivo our normal shows in addition to 1 or 2 syndicated series, so we always had something to watch, whether full or part time. Full time was mostly dedicated to recurring fall, mid and summer shows, although we started with The Practice and then we moved through the Law and Order spin-offs until we had seen most of them. Syndicated shows that don’t have a strong continuous plotline tend to play the same favorites over and over, so we got tired of deleting them and just cancelled the season passes.

So it kind of worked out that Dylan really didn’t care for watching those shows anyway. We started looking for semi good baby shows (other than the creepy Teletubbies, shudder) for him to watch, and Sesame Street ended up coming on several times a day. So, with a bit of nostalgia, we turned on a season pass for it and started watching it at certain parts of the day.

I figured that after 20 years Sesame Street would have changed a bit but it turns out they have pretty much the same characters on the show, they just look a little older, but there are all these odd things about the skits that just seem like they are time traveling to make certain parts. I’ve noted a few of these things because I just don’t know how to explain them.

• Maria from the block was on the show wearing a fanny pack in the episode Elmo Goes to the Firehouse. I guess it takes a fire in Hooper’s store to scare someone into wearing that 90’s leftover.
• Robin Williams was doing a guest spot wearing a shirt that he had to have stolen from Paradise Island. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the skit was about laps and it culminated with him having five kids pile into his lap while he gives a creepy smile. To top it off he follows this all up with “Now I just need more lap!”, and then cuddles the children. WTF?
• During the credits of the show they sometimes show 10-20 children dancing, and I caught 2 or the couples switching back and forth between Can’t Touch This and Ice Ice Baby. They flowed like a harpoon.
• Ellen Degeneres was walking down the street (also borrowing the wardrobe from her old show), jamming to a cassette player that was half the size of her head when she ran into Elmo. She and Elmo then proceeded to stretch the apparently magical headphones over both of their heads so they could both listen. It was just about the cheesiest moment I’ve seen in a while.

Speaking of Elmo, it turns out that he’s like liquid crack for toddlers. When that last 20 minutes of the shows turns into Elmo’s World Dylan will shoot across the room to watch him. The horrible part about this is that the format for the show is exactly the same every time; sp the stupid songs get stuck in your head. Imagine being a grown (grown, that’s hilarious) man walking around sing “La la la la, La la la la, Elmo’s World”.

If only I could find reruns of The Electric Company…