Here is an article that appeared recently in the NY times

There is a new DVD out… Sesame Street: Old School… I really have to get my hands on that one!!!

However, the DVD comes with a warning… Adults only…

here is a bit of the article..

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

and the article continues with other scenarios “that just wouldn’t slide with the kids of today”…

This really disturbs me…

What is so different with the kids of today that they can’t or shouldn’t be able to handle innocent situations at face value. Why would a child of today even have those ideas, those fears? Why are children being taught to fear so young that they could not watch the same shows without being traumatized?

I don’t believe that there is more crime than 30 years ago. I do think that it is more publicized and more heard… but I don’t believe that there is more.

I am tired of all of the “happy-happy-joy-joy”, over protect, always be politically correct, don’t talk to kids about death or anything dark, make them scared of strangers etc… that people seem to be teaching their kids.

We show the kids cartoons from our “Disney Treasures” and “Silly Symphonies” DVD’s and no, they are not always politically correct and one day I will talk about the themes to the kids, but for now they don’t see those themes, they just see the cartoon. … The boys like Charlie Brown, Garfield and other older cartoons and to be honest… Xavier enjoys shows that are older and have darker themes and loves Tim Burton etc…

Coming back to Sesame Street, I would really love to get my hands on those DVD’s and I would rather my children see them than the new ones that are so dumbed down, politically correct and cheery that make them a bit scary…

Do I really think that my kids will be traumatized by Cookie Monster eating cookies and smoking a pipe and eating it? Bert and Ernie living together? The count living in a really Cool old Castle…. (ok… I admit… the count scared me a bit as a kid because I used to be scared of thunder)…

but No, I don’t think they will be traumatized…

Oh… and Elmo makes me nauseous.