Review: ‘Sesame Street Live 2014: Make A New Friend’

Today I took my kid to the 10:30 a.m. showing of "Sesame Street Live." And I lived to tell the tale.

This year, the "Sesame Street Live" production crew said turn down for WHAT(!!) and brought out all the Muppet homies we love, who tresspass on a daily basis near Mr. Hooper's Store. We're talking about Big Bird, Ernie, Elmo, Abby, Oscar The Grouch, Super Grover 2.0, and a slew of no-namers. They even made a new friend (I didn't catch her name, so I'll call her Miss Thang, for short) who has just moved into town from the country of India.

Miss Thang was dressed very nicely, and was very well-mannered, polite and quite naive. She arrives on Sesame Street, and on her very first day, she gets pretty upset that Oscar was a complete BETCH to her when she tried to say hello. (I think she just caught up with him before his morning coffee. Aren't we ALL a bit grouchy in the morning? Maybe she should come back to see him during happy hour.)

Cue Abby The Fairy Muppet to the rescue. Abby showed off her wings and humblebragged that she was the most popular girl on Sesame Street, and if the new chick stuck with her, she'd meet all the cool-kid muppets, and the jocks, too. We find out during the show that The Count has a secret life, and that Bert thinks he's got the moves like Jagger (he sort of does). Grover shows us that he is just as clueless as ever, and Cookie Monster makes a surprise cameo as the one who escaped from Bellevue (insider joke for New Yorkers, Google it), and one of those Muppet cats opines that he knows ALL his ABCs. He better go on with his bad self. The show ends with Little Miss N*SYNC being accepted as one of the new Sesame Street crew. Now they can all go on tour and make a zillion dollars. What a kooky bunch! I just love them!

The show was aptly named "Sesame Street Live: Make A New Friend" because my 3-year-old social bumblebee daughter, Willow, made several new friends by hugging little babies and other toddlers, chasing older "men" around (there was a 5-year-old boy she kept trying to tie up with confetti ribbons), plus she got to give one of the fuzzy Muppet dudes a high-five. I have no idea which Muppet in question it was, since all the no-name characters were the only ones who got on the floor to mix and mingle with us commoners who couldn't afford front-row VIP seats.

Which brings me to my official gripe: Why don't they just let everyone sit in the VIP section for the early shows? They already know it won't be sold out, so why not make all the seats general admission for that particular one? I felt kind of bummed that we all couldn't shake it with Abby when she went down to the floor to dance with the kids, even though there were about 10 whole empty rows in the VIP. (That didn't stop Willow from trying ... and crying that she couldn't get near Elmo or Abby or The Count. She tried to sneak into VIP only about six or seven times. The apple does not fall far from the tree.)

Overall, the show stepped it way up from last year and I wanted to actually watch it instead of playing Farm Heroes on my Android phone. My favorite part of the show was being first in line for a corn dog before the crowd got there for intermission, and the Jai Ho dance was OFF THE CHAIN! I ended up spending $8 on an Elmo balloon, $3.50 on a corn dog, $3 for a salted pretzel, $1.50 on the damn cheese sauce and $3 in ATM fees. BRING YOUR OWN CASH TO THE SHOW!! And crap, I forgot that I bought some cotton candy. UGH, everything is so expensive anymore. I guess we don't really need lights in the house this month; I just spent half the bill money on some freaking junk food that lasted all of 10 minutes!!

I give "Make A New Friend" 4 stars out of 5! I took off a star because I missed 3/4ths of the show since my kid drove me INSANE by running away from our seats every other minute. (She literally ran away EVERY. OTHER. MINUTE. I lost my voice yelling for her to get her little brown behind back in her seat. I am not kidding.)

REESHA'S SHOW TIP OF THE DAY:

GET YOUR ELMO BALLOONS AT THE END OF THE SHOW, B*#@%ES! We cannot see the stage without your $8 ballons getting in the way.

GREAT JOB by the whole cast, crew, sound stage and security team!! But if I may suggest, I hope the SunDome installs a flask section for harried parents at the next show.