Street Gang Overall Rating: ⭐ ⭐

This book has to be the worst thing that Sesame Street ever produced. Who spawned this man and why did he decide to write this book? I'd seriously like to know because he did an absolutely awful job.

While I can admit that I did learn some new facts about the people behind Sesame Street, I also have to say that there was way too much information that was only potentially, maybe, possibly, a little bit, tangentially related to Sesame Street. So the first, honestly half of the book, first third maybe if I'm generous, was all lead up to the actual creation of the show, Sesame Street. After that I expected it to, you know, focus on the show, maybe share about some episodes and all the different characters and some stuff about its growth and everything. It did some of that. We focus on a few specific monumental episodes. That was actually decent. We got to read a bit of the scripts, get some nice imagery of the scene.

Anyway, otherwise it's just a bunch of drama about the different actors and producers and writers (and, very rarely, the Muppets themselves). I want to be clear, I'm not begrudging the inclusion of some history around the people working on Sesame Street. That would be absurd. They helped the show to come to life and all. However, Michael Davis focuses on some of the most miniscule details about these people. I didn't need everyone's whole life story! I would've been content with a one sentence "so and so worked on x show before coming to work on Sesame Street in x position." Bing bang boom, you're all set to get this show on the road and explain the first season of Sesame Street up until whatever it was doing back in 2008 (when this book was written). But no, Michael Davis had to spend (what felt like) 15 pages on every single little member of the team.

Now, here's where I would add the obligatory "it sure was a COMPLETE history" joke. However, I cannot, because that would play into Michael Davis's complete and utter lack of inclusion of Sesame Street's #1 character, Elmo. Look, I did learn that Elmo actually was only introduced on Sesame Street in the 1980s, but BUT but THE FIRST mere mention of Elmo even existing occurs, I kid you not, is about 80% through the book. 80 PERCENT!!! Listen, I'm not too proud to admit that I came to this book hoping to learn more about Elmo, and mostly just more about Elmo honestly. I could generally care less about the producers' love lives. I just want to learn about the Sesame Street Muppets, thank you. I at least wanted to learn a little bit more about the red Muppet with the squeaky voice who has become the subject of a lot of good memes. Instead, the first and most prominent time Elmo shows up the original puppeteer who played him THREW HIM ACROSS THE ROOM AND SAID "What am I gonna do with this?"

And that's all we get about poor Elmo (who did not deserve this slander, I do declare) until the very end, when I'm more focused on the fact that Michael Davis suddenly decided it was a good idea to bring up, in separate occasions, Donald Trump and Israel. Not that I'm surprised honestly, because the amount of racist and ableist ideas he was already spouting was pretty awful, but like, for real dude??? Now I'm kind of glad that Michael Davis has a vendetta against Elmo, because Elmo shouldn't be associated with this nonsense.

Anyway, the real title of this book should've been "Fuck Elmo! Here's a Complete History of All, and I Mean All, of the People who Worked at Sesame Street at Some Point in Time, but Never Elmo because I Hate Him"

TLDR; not enough Elmo, too much bigotry 🖐️😔