Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favourites

Price: €12.00

I mustn’t have watched much TV as a kid, because when people around me have nostalgic conversations about Grange Hill and He-Man and the like I’m utterly lost, but, like everyone else who grew up in the 70s, I did watch Sesame Street. I honestly can’t remember what I thought of it at the time, but then we put this CD on in the kitchen and heard:

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street

Niamh, washing the dishes, just said “Oooooooh!”. Then on came:

Who are the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood

In your neigh-bour-hood …

… and I couldn’t stop grinning, I felt like I was 5 again. Obviously not every song you might have loved in your childhood is here (like the sadly absent “One of these kids is doing his own thing”), but there’s a wide enough selection from across the years to put a smile on the face of any grown-up – from “C is for Cookie” to “Elmo’s song”.

As for Isabelle’s and Heather’s reactions – well, Sesame St is famous for testing everything they do on kids and only using stuff that the kids really engage with, and it shows. They’ve never seen the show, but Isabelle has really taken to the characters just based on the songs – “Who’s singing this? Grover? Is he a boy? He sounds like Mrs. Piggy.” (yes, Mrs. Piggy, she doesn’t really get the Mrs./Miss thing just yet – she calls Heather “Little Mrs. Mischief”) – and now she’s listening to lyrics a bit she’s getting a big kick out of the idea of monsters singing about how much they love rubbish and frogs lamenting their colour. And Heather spent Friday morning squealing with delight while “dancing” her baby dolly up and down on the kitchen floor to “Rubber Duckie”.

So – a fun nostalgic treat for adults, and the kids dig it too.