Sesame Street / Tropes A to C

Sesame Street Trope Examples
A - C | D - F | G - J | K - N | O - R | S - Z

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Tropes brought to you by numbers

• 555:
  • In a 1990s episode, Mumford sets up a magic hotline with the phone number 555-555-5555.
  • In a 2004 episode, Snuffy gets a magic ukulele and the phone number to activate it is 1-555-UKE. After accidentally breaking it the number for an emergency repair hotline in 1-555-OOPS.
  • One toaster ad has the number 555-TOAST.
  • In the "Big Bird Gets Lost" Direct to Video special, Maria's phone number is 555-1234, while Granny Bird's number is 555-6789.
  • In the "Hurricane" story arc, the number that Big Bird punches in to call Granny Bird is 555-BIRD.
• '70s Hair: The human cast had this almost across-the-board during the decade. The first three Gordons all sported an Afro, until Roscoe Orman switched him to being bald. David had an impressive set of sideburns, Luis started out with longish hair, and even the strait-laced Bob let his hair grow out a bit at one point.

Tropes brought to you by the letter A

• Absent Animal Companion:
  • In one segment, Ernie brings home a puppy for himself and Bert. The sketch ends with them coming up with names for the dog...maybe that's why they didn't keep it.
  • In the book Sesame Street Pet Show, Big Bird is shown to have a pet goldfish named Goldie. The fish was completely absent throughout the series, having somehow been replaced by Elmo's goldfish Dorothy.
• Absurd Brand Name: One "Ernie and Bert" skit has Bert reading a book called Boring Stories.
• Accidental Good Outcome:
  • In one "Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures" skit, an anthropomorphic rat named Big Bob phones the bakery Ernie and Bert are working at and asks for "chocolate surprise". When Ernie reveals they don't sell that, he asks for bread, pie, and chocolate cake. They end up making a huge mess due to spilled chocolate sauce, dough going everywhere from too much yeast, and pies flying everywhere from an Assembly Line Fast-Forward. However, when Big Bob arrives, he reveals that that's what "chocolate surprise" is.
  • In one episode, Abby tries to cast a spell to make Baby Bear no longer afraid of bees. It instead turns him and Gordon into bees, however, after temporarily living as a bee, he gets over his fear of his own accord.
  • In a "Hero Guy" skit, Baby Bear and Hero Guy enter a drawing of a boat, only to find no ocean. However, they end up so sad that their combined tears make an ocean, allowing them to sail after all.
  • In another "Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures" skit, Ernie accidentally attracts the missing herd of elephants back by blowing his nose, which they mistook for another elephant.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • Big Bird always addressed Mr. Hooper as "Mr. Looper". He even got away with "Mr. Pooper" on at least one occasion. This mostly waned down in later seasons following his death.
  • Snuffy often called Mr. Hooper's successor Mr. Hanford "Mr. Handfoot".
  • "Hello, Mr. Cunningham—gee, that wasn't even close!"
  • He also called Peter Marshall, host of The Hollywood Squares, "Mr. Marshmallow" whenever he appeared on that show (either a normal episode, or Storybook Squares- a version where kids and parents played and the celebrities played storybook characters or historical figures).
  • Big Bird also misnamed a one-shot character Mr. Flapman accidentally, calling him Mr. Flipman, Mr. Floatman, Mr. Floopman, Mr. Fleepman, and Mr. Flurpman, in that order. At the end when Big Bird rejects the migration, Mr. Flapman calls himself Mr. Flopman, leading Big Bird to correct him in his place.
• Acid Reflux Nightmare: Cookie Monster's cookie-induced nightmare (well known as a notorious Nightmare Fuel moment).
• Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee: The song "ABC-DEFGHI" concerns a character, most often Big Bird, seeing the alphabet written down and thinking it's a long word pronounced "ab-kuh-def-ghee-juh-kll-muh-nop-quir-stoov-wux-izz".
• Actor Allusion:
  • Bob McGrath had a music degree, as well as an established career which predates Sesame Street's run.
  • Savion Glover, who played Gina's tap dancing friend, Savion, from 1990 to 1995, is a tap dancer in real life, and in fact made many guest appearances on TV shows which would feature him tap dancing, including an episode of fellow CTW program Square One TV.
  • Many of the celebrity appearances have jokes involving these, such as a scene where Jay Leno fills in for "Johnny" as Big Bird plays a game with him.
  • In The Magical Wand Chase, after spinning around in the hot air balloon for a bit, Big Bird says "Spinny!" (which the captions spell as "Spinney"). This is a reference to his actor, Caroll Spinney.
• Actually Quite Catchy: Bert is Ernie's best friend, but when Ernie sings, Bert often doesn't like the songs due to them getting in the way of what he's doing. He'll often learn to like them halfway through, though and may even dance or join in. This will usually be punctuated with him noting that the song is admittedly "kind of kickin'".
• Acme Products: The appliance company is called Nologo.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In the sketch where Ernie and Bert go to the jungle in search of Dr. Livingston just so Ernie can ask one question, Bert is among those laughing when the question turns out to be "What's up, doc?". Keep in mind that Bert is the straight man of the duo, the one who Ernie often drags into partipating in his games and foolishness, who upon finding Dr. Livingston when Ernie briefly reconsidered asking his question Bert frustratingly pointed out how far they had traveled.
• Adaptational Sympathy: The Three Bears from Goldilocks are main characters, and unlike their portrayal as antagonists in the fairy tale, here they're just a normal family that happens to be comprised of anthropomorphic bears.
• An Aesop: Many episodes are meant to teach morals to little kids, such as "Don't Get Pushy" which is meant to teach against physical violence. Other examples include:
  • One episode dealt directly with racism, and, in true Sesame Street fashion, the showrunners dealt with the issue bluntly and directly, rather than sugarcoating the idea. In the episode, Gina (who is white) and Savion (who is Black) go to see a movie together, then, on the walk back to Hooper's Store, clown around and generally act like best friends. When they arrive, an anonymous person calls up the store and says some very nasty things about the idea of black and white people being friendly with each other (we don't hear exactly what, but Gina and Savion's reactions say it all). Telly, who's confused, asks what happened, and Gina and Savion explain that there are "some really stupid people in the world who can't stand to see it when people of different races are friends." When asked why, the two are forced to admit that they don't know, but point out that Sesame Street is full of people (and monsters, and birds...) who are all different colors and races, but still friends. Telly sums it all up—"What does color have to do with being friends?" And, in a bittersweet but Truth in Television ending, the show closes with Gina and Savion remarking that the racist who saw them earlier could very well still be watching them, and might never change their mind. They resolve to stay best friends anyway, which promotes a message about doing what's right, but it's also powerful to acknowledge that racism isn't going to go away after forty-five minutes. Check out the relevant scenes.
  • "Meet Julia": Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and Alan introduce Julia to Big Bird. When she doesn't talk to him right away, he thinks she doesn't like him, but Alan explains that she has autism, so she interacts differently than most people. Throughout the episode, Elmo, Abby, and Alan help him understand that although she doesn't say much, stims constantly, and has sensitivities that need to be acknowledged (she doesn't like the way paint feels on her skin and hates loud noises, demonstrated when she has a meltdown when a fire engine siren goes off) she is a happy person and a great friend. The episode ends with the kids playing "Boing Tag", a game Julia invented earlier in the episode.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Big Bird and Snuffy refer to each other as "Bird" and "Snuff" respectively.
  • Ingrid and Humphrey have a host of pet names for Natasha, which they sing about.
  • Oscar and Grundgetta call each other "Oskie" and "Grungie" respectively.
  • Luis sometimes calls Big Bird "pajaro" (Spanish for bird).
• Affectionate Parody:
  • Lots of them, such as "Pre-School Musical".
  • In-Universe: Cookie Monster did a sendup of "Elmo's World", called "Cookie World".
• Affection-Hating Kid: There's an episode focused on Zoe not liking it when her aunt Chloe tickles her and coming up with wacky methods to prevent herself from being tickled.
• All or Nothing: At the end of "The Crying Game Show" with host Sonny Friendly, the grand prize turns out to be Friendly's own teddy bear. So, Sonny cries harder than any of the contestants, And thus, he wins the game. And he leaves the poor contestants sobbing all over again when the announcer blurts out that there are no consolation prizes.
• Alphabet Song:
  • In one skit, a little girl sings the original ABC song, but substitutes random letters with "Cookie Monster".
  • One of the many songs of the show is the "ABC-DEF-GHI" song, which is sung by Big Bird in one sketch, in which he mistakes the alphabet for a word^note Pronounced "AB-kuh-DEF-gee-JUH-kll-muh-NOP-quirr-STOOV-wux-izz:
    ABC-DEF-GHI-JKL-MNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ
    It's the most remarkable word I've ever seen
    ABC-DEF-GHI-JKL-MNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ
    I wish I knew exactly what I mean
    It starts out like an "A" word as anyone can see
    But somewhere in the middle it gets awful "QR" to me
    ABC-DEF-GHI-JKL-MNOP-QRSTUV-WXYZ
    If I ever find out just what this word can mean
    I'll be the smartest bird the world has ever seen!
  • In the Direct to Video release, "Do the Alphabet", Big Bird sings "Do the Alphabet" to help Baby Bear say the alphabet by himself so Goldilocks doesn't have to do it for him. Here is a sample of its lyrics:
    Big Bird: A-B-C,
    Baby Bear and Children: A-B-C,
    Big Bird: D-E-F-G,
    Baby Bear and Children: D-E-F-G,
    Big Bird: A-B-C,
    Baby Bear and Children: A-B-C,
    Big Bird: D-E-F-G,
    Baby Bear and Children: D-E-F-G,
    Big Bird: You can say the alphabet back to me.
  • The "Alphabet Chat" theme is the alphabet sung to the tune of one of Bach's songs.
  • In Episode 1655, Big Bird shows Bob his new phone book and is interested in the fact the names are listed alphabetically; the two then sing "Phone Book Alphabet" as they list the different names accordingly.
  • Big Bird and the Birdketeers sing the song along with Herb the Dinosaur in the "A Dinosaur Visits Sesame Street" street scene.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Normally when Cookie Monster says, "Cowabunga!", he shouts it in an excited voice. At one point, however, he says it in a frustrated voice at normal volume to express frustration at the lack of cookies.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Especially among the Muppets. While humans are not rainbow-colored, monsters and other characters represented by puppets come in many colours, as do some cartoon humanoids.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife:
  • Feff the cat is green.
  • Noodles the cat is purple.
  • Ovejita the lamb is purple.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Often a source of humor and misunderstanding in segments.
  • In a Julius and Jasper segment where Jasper holds one leg in the air, Julius asks why he's holding one leg in the air. It's because if he holds two in the air, he'll fall down.
  • In S.A.M. the Robot's debut, Susan asks S.A.M. if it's unusual to be meeting a cement mixer for lunch, Sam agrees — usually, they meet for dinner.
• Ambiguously Gay: Horatio the elephant has some traits that are associated with stereotypical gay men like wearing a tutu and having a high voice, however, he is never shown to be gay (likely due to Moral Guardians) but not confirmed to be straight (or bi or ace for that matter) either.
• Ambiguously Human: Some of the cartoon characters like Ned and Susie Kabloozie look human, but have weird-coloured skin. Also, the characters who are played by Muppets but look human are hard to determine the species of.
• Ambiguously Jewish:
  • Mr. Hooper. On rare occasions the show would make it more explicit, as when Bob wished him a happy Hanukkah in the Christmas Eve special, or when Big Bird inquired about the different languages the characters could speak and Hooper mentioned that he learned Yiddish as a boy. Actor Will Lee was himself Jewish.
  • The Count may be a Space Jew. (His leitmotif is actually a Roma tune, but it happens to sound identical to Klezmer.) Meanwhile, Oscar the Grouch has Israeli relatives, as seen in "Shalom Sesame", and they don't seem to be Israeli Arabs. Interestingly, in the next incarnation of the franchise in Israel, Oscar’s Expy tries MacGyvering a phone to call him in one sketch. At the end, he pulls it off, only for Oscar to shout in Hebrew (albeit with a thick American accent), ‘Don’t bother me!’
• Ambiguous Situation: The episode where Elmo's dad goes away for a month or so to do "grownup work" is meant for kids whose parents are in the military, but it's left ambiguous as to whether Louie himself is in it.
• American Eagle: One skit is about monsters trying to decide the national bird of America. Bejamin Franklin (played by Telly) suggests the turkey as turkeys were there to welcome the pilgrims (and because they're "nice"). Thomas Jefferson (played by Bert) suggests the pigeon because they enjoy the simple things that improve America (like curbs). Oscar suggests cockatoos since they can be taught rude sayings. John Adams (played by Ernie) suggests the eagle and wins, offending Big Bird.
• Amusing Alien: Some joke scenes involve the Yip-yip aliens trying to figure out Earth things.
• And Starring:
  • Beginning in Season 2 (1970-1971) and continuing until Season 50 (2019-2020), Caroll Spinney received this billing for Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, since they are (or once were) considered to be the most important Muppet characters on the show, having been conceived specifically for interaction with the live actors on the street.
  • Kevin Clash as Elmo began to receive such billing on a regular basis as well as of 2010, until his departure from the show for, ah, very un-child-friendly reasons.
• "Anger Is Healthy" Aesop: The "Mad Goat Song" teaches, in the chorus' own words, "it ain't bad to get mad" by having other animals commit various wrongs to the titular goat, the narrator asking if the goat would react happily to them, and the goat responding with anger.
• Angrish: When Big Bird is mad, he shouts out made-up words and occasionally random actual words (i.e. "basil" and "sassafras".)
• Animal Lover:
  • Elmo likes to play with and talk to animals and he owns a fish named Dorothy.
  • Zoe seems to like animals too, despite being afraid of dogs in one episode. Notably, she wants to go to the zoo in the Grouchland movie and volunteers at an animal shelter in one of the games.
  • Telly owns a hamster named Chuckie Sue and likes to play with other people's pets.
  • The reason Gina became a vet was because she likes animals.
  • Oscar, despite being a traditional Grouch, seems to have a soft spot for animals, as evidenced by his owning heaps of them, even clean animals, such as a cat.
• Animal Sweet on Object:
  • A turtle falls in love with an empty shell, thinking it's a female turtle. When he sees that "she" isn't moving or breathing, he thinks "she" is dead, but then realises it's just an empty shell.
  • S.A.M. the Robot has gotten crushes on a toaster and blender, and he once took a vacuum cleaner to the movie theater for a date.
  • There was one episode where Artoo and Threepio guest starred and Artoo fell in love with a fire hydrant.
• Animated Adaptation: HBO Max released an animated special, The Monster At The End Of This Story, that adapts exactly what you think. It also doubles as an Art Shift since it's animated as opposed to being filmed with puppets. It's also a musical, 'natch.
• Annoyingly Repetitive Child:
  • In one skit, Snuffy is frustrated by his two-year-old sister Alice asking, "Why?" about everything he says.
  • One episode is about Oscar trying to get Natasha (a baby) to stop kissing him over and over.
  • Another episode about Oscar has him babysitting his toddler niece Irvine, who keeps singing. Being a Grouch, Oscar hates her singing.
  • In one episode, Maria is annoyed by Frazzle (whose exact age is unknown, but he appears to be a child as he's seen going to daycare) demanding she read a book about a horse and a hen again and again.
  • One episode sees three-year-old Elmo wanting the adults to read him a book called Lucy the Lazy Lizard over and over, annoying them.
  • In one episode, Ruthie is bugged by Elmo repeatedly singing the alphabet. She tells him to sing a different song, but finds that one just as annoying since it's to the same tune.
  • In one episode, Alice invents a dance in which she spins in circles. Snuffy is initially amused until she keeps tripping and falling.
  • In one episode, Natasha and Zoe look after Natasha the baby. Natasha won't stop saying, "Hoongie!", so Natasha and Zoe try to find out what that means. They become increasingly overwhelmed when their attempts to quiet her down are useless, but as it turns out, she just lost her doll named Hoongie.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Talking food features a lot.
• Anthropomorphic Typography: There are a number of skits that featured sentient letters and numbers.
• Anti-Christmas Song: Sung by Oscar. He sings a song called "I Hate Christmas", about how he (and Grouches in general) hate Christmas and want to have a more grouch-like holiday.
• Appetite Equals Health:
  • In one episode, Barkley has the dog equivalent of a cold and isn't eating. Maria and Big Bird think this is serious.
  • Played for Drama when a little girl's fish looks sick and doesn't eat his food, then dies.
  • In a live-action skit with the song "You Have to be Patient to be a Patient", a little girl is seen refusing her porridge, so her father takes her temperature and shakes his head.
  • In Sesame Street Home Video Visits the Hospital, when the hospital is working to diagnose Big Bird's lung infection, Maria is asked about his appetite and replies that lately it's been so-so. Toward the end of the special, he's shown ordering every item on the hospital menu for lunch: an obvious sign that he's getting better.
• Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: In Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Mr. Hooper asks Bert and Ernie for confirmation before allowing each of them to trade their most prized possessions for gifts for each other. Later on, he catches up with them at home and gives them their treasures back.
• The Artifact:
  • Telly was originally "The Television Monster", an example of a child who watched too much television - the prototype even came complete with wildly spiralling eyes from sitting too close. This characterization has largely died away, leaving only his trademark nervous personality.
  • Cookie Monster's extreme omnivorous trait is due to him originally starting out as a generic monster who simply devoured nearly everything he came in contact with. Despite focusing on cookies, they have not dropped his omnivorous tendencies.
  • The famous closing dialogue, "Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letter __ and the number ___," was originally reflective of the idea that the cartoons, songs, etc. between street scenes were commercials. When that format was changed, the dialogue remained through 2016.
• Argument of Contradictions: The "We Worked It Out" sketch starts with Big Bird and Snuffy arguing over what game they want to play; the latter wants to play tag, while the former wants to play hide and seek.
• Artifact Name: Baby Bear is still named that even though he's no longer a baby. There was actually an episode where he tried to rename himself Not-a-Baby Bear, but it didn't stick.
• Artistic License – Botany: In the "Coffee Plant" sketch, Grover prepares Mr. Johnson a cup of coffee from scratch by picking coffee cherries from a bush and placing them into a coffee maker. Before the fruit can be made into a beverage, the seeds (aka. coffee beans) must be separated from the fruit, then left in the sun to dry for a few days, then the parchment around the seeds—which forms during the drying phase—must be removed, then the seeds must be roasted, cooled and finally ground up in order to be turned into a cup of joe. If Grover did do all of these things, it would have taken at least a week for Johnson's coffee to be made.
• Ascended Extra: Cookie Monster, Grover and Elmo all began as anonymous Muppet monsters who gradually developed into distinct characters. Cookie Monster, still nameless and voiceless, appeared in the first episode in 1969, ruining a Kermit lecture about the letter W by eating the letter piece-by-piece. Some later sketches established his love of cookies, before he finally became a regular. Grover made a smattering of appearances in season 1, eventually getting his name late in the season, but it was actually a sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show in May of 1970, where he constantly interrupts Kermit's performance of "What Kind of Fool Am I?", that marked the first appearance of Grover in his familiar characterization. Elmo first showed up as a background character in the first part of The '70s, and was sometimes referred to as "Baby Monster". It wasn't until 1984 that Kevin Clash gave him his famous voice and identity. A video showing Elmo's evolution can be found here.
• Aside Glance: Looking at the screen is very common in a show that commonly Breaks The Fourth Wall including the people and Muppets alike. However, the most noted would probably be scenes when a human character is dealing with an annoying or eccentric character (usually a Muppet). Big Bird also looks at the screen when frustrated or sad.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: When the show made the jump to HD in 2008, only so much new footage could be made, thus the show would flip back and forth between new 16:9 material and pillarboxed 4:3 material. By 2014, the show went completely HD.
  • The home video releases are produced in widescreen and pillarbox any older material.
• Assuming the Audience's Age: The episode "Elmo's Potty Time" assumes you're a toddler. It has a song about how you will be able to "use the potty" someday.
• Asymmetric Dilemma: The newspaper comic had a variation on the "bacon and eggs" archetype
  "If I had more light, I could read a book... if I had a book... if I could read."
• Audience Participation Song: Which naturally requires Breaking the Fourth Wall, notably in the famous "One of These Things is Not Like the Other".
• Audience Surrogate: in the debut episode, the wraparound has a young girl named Sally move to Sesame Street, and Gordon introduces her (and, by extension, the audience) to the setting and the other characters.
• Awkwardly-Placed Bathtub: In the very first episode, Ernie is taking a bath in a tub located right in the middle of the living room, during which he matter-of-factly chats with Bert. Granted, the layout of Ernie and Bert's place had not really been established yet. Later episodes had the tub relocated to an implied separate bathroom, including the classic Rubber Duckie sequence.
• Awkward Poetry Reading: In one sketch, Ernie tries to write a poem, but all he ends up doing is reciting the alphabet in a very dramatic way.

Tropes brought to you by the letter B

• Baby See, Baby Do:
  • When the Count sings to Natasha at one point, she copies him at random instances. He believes she is trying to count, but she mainly copies the nouns, such as "kiddy-dats!" after the Count counts the "kitty-cats".
  • Natasha's first words were, "Oh dear" after Snuffy said the phrase when she didn't talk.
  • Inverted once when Humphrey copies Natasha's babbling.
  • In "Elmo's Potty Time", Baby Bear explains that he calls pee "wee-wee" and poop "woo-woo". Curly begins to chant, "Wee wee woo woo!".
  • In one episode, Baby Bear says that his parents are going out to dinner and Curly Bear says, "Dinner!".
  • Once, a girl sings a song, repeating the word "tortellini" to her baby sister in hopes of her learning the word. Eventually, the baby manages to say, "tortellini", although at first, she can only say the "ini" part.
  • When Ernie tried to find similarities between himself and his niece Ernestine, she copied his laugh.
• Baby's First Words:
  • In the book "Me Cookie", Cookie Monster says his first word ("cookie") around the beginning of the book.
  • Natasha's first words were "Oh, dear". This was because it was what Snuffy said whenever she failed to say a word he wanted her to say.
  • Curly's first word is "Bebo", her nickname for Baby Bear.
• Baby Talk: Several characters coo at Natasha and call her "little Natasha-pie" and stuff like that.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In a 1979 News Flash segment where Kermit asks baby monsters in a daycare center what they want to be when they grow up and rewards each one with a cookie after they explain their future career, just as Kermit starts to sign off Cookie Monster comes in posing as a baby monster by flatly saying "Cry cry cry, sniffle sniffle sniffle." "Me baby monster. Cry cry, waaaah." Naturally, Kermit isn't fooled and recognizes him right away, knowing Cookie Monster wants a free cookie.
• Bad Mood Retreat:
  • The "Sad Cafe" song is about a cafe where cowpokes go to cry.
  • Alice has two walls she stares at. One for when she's very sad and one for when she's only a little bit sad.
• Baffled by Own Biology:
  • In the book Grover's Bad Dream, Grover has a nightmare about Big Bird losing his feathers and wakes up in tears. He fears that it'll happen in real life until his mother tells him that things don't occur just because of a dream.
  • When Big Bird gets Birdy Pox^note A fictional disease that infects only birds of his age and species for the first time, he's surprised to find spots all over his legs.
  • In one cartoon skit, an old man catches the flu (and it's only a 24-hour flu to boot), and he doesn't know why he feels so tired and his throat feels so sore and dry, and even wonders if he's dying until the doctor tells him it's the flu.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In one episode, Big Bird's plans to have someone take him to the beach are ruined because they are too busy taking care of a baby. When he gets to Gina, she tells him she's not taking care of a baby... she's taking care of three babies.
  • In the "Move It" episode when Elmo and Abby check on Cookie Monster after working out with Big Bird, he tells him he's going to take a break from eating cookies. At first the two assume he's going to work out with them, but he is really going to play a video game and sit out more.
• Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: In the song "I Cry", a baby named Rocky is introduced as a normal baby, crying. When his mother and sister leave, however, he bursts into a song about why he cries. This cements him as a baby who's Prone to Tears, which is typical of a baby, but at the same time, secretly a Brainy Baby.
• Bald of Authority: Gordon is bald and becoming a leader was necessitated by the events of Follow That Bird.
• Balloonacy: Several examples of balloons making things fly, such as the very end of Kermit's What-Happens-Next machine demonstration, and the Light and Heavy Lecture.
• Balloon-Bursting Bird:
  • One animated segment had a Jerkass asking for a big, bigger, and biggest balloon (popping the first two he's offered); the biggest balloon causes him to fly up into the sky, but it gets popped by an equally big bird soon after.
  • In another insert, balloons shaped like the letters from A to Z were popped by a speeding bird.
  • In yet another animated insert, produced by Cliff Roberts, a bird demonstrated subtraction by popping balloons with its beak.
• Banana Peel:
  • In one of the "Global Grover" segments from 2004 Grover pours out an entire basket of banana peels from Jordan and calls out the viewer's expectation that he will slip on them but points out that it won't happen (Comedy 101), but in the end he still manages to.
  • Around the same time in one of the recurring "Monster Clubhouse" segments a Muppet shows up at the Clubhouse looking for the "National Slip On The Banana Peel Club".
  • In Episode 5023, Joey and Davey toss their banana peels on the ground, and Zoe, who attempts a ballet leap, slips on them, breaking her arm as a result.
  • Watch Out For Banana Peels (and Other Important Sesame Safety Tips) is a book based on the series. The book's cover art features Grover slipping on a banana peel that Elmo tosses on the ground, and the page for Safety Tip #2 features a similar thing happening.
  • In The Sesame Street Dictionary, the illustration for "Slip" depicts Oscar slipping on a banana peel. He then tells the reader "Banana peels are slippery. If you step on one, you may slip."
• Baseball Episode: One sketch features Mr. Johnson at a baseball game, attempting to catch a foul ball. To his horror, Grover is working as a hot dog vendor at the ball game. Grover's attempts to protect Mr. Johnson from incoming foul balls interfere with Mr. Johnson's attempts to catch one. Eventually, Mr. Johnson becomes so frustrated with Grover's attempts to protect him that when he tells Grover to leave him alone, he doesn't listen to Grover trying to tell him that another foul ball is coming. Mr. Johnson ends up missing the ball, which Grover ends up catching.
• Baths Are Fun:
  • Any number of skits and songs are on the series to promote this, the most well-known being Ernie's ode to his "Rubber Duckie." "Baby Bear's Bath Song" is another major one. Many of them were released on the album Splish, Splash, Bath-time Fun.
  • The animated special Furry Friends Forever involves Elmo adopting a pet dog named Tango. One of the special's songs is "Hooray for Getting Clean." Although a lot of it is actually about getting Tango clean, but they also sing about how it's a "bubbly party" and how once they've gotten Tango clean, there's time for just playing in the tub, with a beach ball and rubber duck in the tub.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • An animated segment features a cat who hates the rain. Meeting a fairy he gets three wishes. His first is for the rain to stop. Eventually everything dries up and he wishes to know what's going on. After finding out he uses his third wish to wish for rain to happen again. Knowing from his experience that the rain is important, this is the lesson he's learned.
  • Another animated segment tackling this lesson centers on Suzie Kabloozie and her hatred of the letter F. In that segment, Kabloozie wishes for the letter F to disappear, but soon regrets it after all the F objects vanish.
  • The climax of Elmo Saves Christmas has Elmo learn this when he sees that Sesame Street is in ruin after one straight year of Christmases.
  • In the book It's No Fun Being Sick, Herry is jealous of the attention Flossie is getting due to being sick. However, he then catches her illness and finds he can't enjoy the attention due to his symptoms.
    • Nobody Cares About Me!, an earlier storybook starring Big Bird, has an almost identical plotline, except that it's Ernie who's sick and Big Bird, jealous of the attention Ernie is getting, who catches Ernie's cold.
• Beach Episode:
  • The "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" video takes place on the beach, as do the songs "Hello Happy Happiness", and "Skin".
  • There is also a clip from the mid 90's where a girl and her dog play on the beach set to the Bobby McFerrin song "Simple Pleasures".
  • One Elmo: the Musical sketch is entitled "Beach: The Musical". In this sketch, Elmo visits Happy Crab Beach. On Happy Crab Beach, everyone is happy, except for a little shrimp who is unhappy with her diminutive size. When a wave washes King Crab's crown into a narrow cove, the shrimp is the only one small enough to recover it, and when she does, she realizes there are advantages to her diminutive size.
• Beanstalk Parody:
  • In one episode, Jack grows a beanstalk but refuses to climb it for fear of damaging it.
  • In one of the news skits, Kermit climbs a beanstalk and meets a giant.
• Bears Are Bad News: Averted with the Bear family, of course. It's also played with this "Camp Wannagohome" segment about trees, near the end they spot a wild bear on the tree they were observing and flee in terror, unaware that the bear wants to be a camper too!
• Bedsheet Ghost:
  • This is Big Bird's disguise in the picture book Who's Afraid of Monsters? It gets a good scare out of everyone until they figure out it's him.
  • In a Bert & Ernie sketch, Ernie dresses as a bedsheet ghost to try and scare Bert. In the end Bert is not the one who's scared.
• Benevolent Monsters: Sesame Street has long made a point of featuring the cuddliest of monsters, from Elmo to the easily-amused Count, to the ever-hungry Cookie Monster. The worst of the lot is usually Oscar, who's just the Grouch. Indeed, some of the nicest monsters are the toughest, scariest-looking, like Herry and Frazzle. In many of Herry's early appearances, he appears to be mean or frightening, but ends up showing his friendly side (often after he unintentionally scared others off).
• Big Applesauce: Sesame Street has been shown to be in New York City on maps in both Follow that Bird and the five-part hurricane story arc.
• Big Blackout: One segment with Ernie & Bert has Ernie waking up in the middle of the night to find it's extra dark, because the streetlights outdoors and the nightlight in the room are out. Bert tells him it's a blackout in progress but Ernie suggests doing things like watching TV, listening to the radio, or playing a record, all of which cannot be done during a blackout since they all need electricity. He decides to call someone to tell them about the blackout and winds up contacting Oscar, angry at being woken in the middle of the night.
  • This segment aired as a part of three episodes featuring a Power Outage Plot: episode 652, episode 2071, and episode 2210.
• Bilingual Rhyme: In the song "I Love Words", there's one lyric "French words like 'chapeau' and 'tete', music words like 'clarinet'."
• Big Budget Beefup:
  • 1985's Follow That Bird, which required a bigger, more elaborate street set in Toronto (and in the same studio where Fraggle Rock was shot) to make it look good on the silver screen.
  • 1999's The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, which featured the expansive home region of Oscar, as well as another recreation of the street set in North Carolina.
• Big Eater:
  • Cookie Monster. In addition to eating just about anything, he is incredibly hard to satiate.
  • The monsters of Monster Clubhouse during snack time, where they are known to have very big snacks.
  • "Never invite a letter M to your house for dinner!"
• Big Friendly Dog: Barkley is very affectionate, and he goes up to just above Maria's waist.
• Big "NO!":
  • In the Hunger Games parody, after Cookieniss wins the second Hungry Games only to find out there is going to be a third movie (followed by the camera zooming in on his mouth).
  • Big Bird screams this in the "Learning to Share" video just as Elmo and Zoe's toy train is about to knock over his block tower.
• Big Ol' Unibrow: Bert and Oscar both have a unibrow.
• Big Storm Episode:
  • An episode aired March 3, 1972 depicted a big rainstorm coming to the Sesame Street region of New York, with various characters dealing with situations that come up – whether to set plants outside in the rain, dressing appropriately to go outside, worrying about slipping on a certain spot, Oscar getting splashed by water from a passing car, taking out the garbage, etc. The episode was aired on Noggin in 1999 and is among the most frequently uploaded to YouTube.
  • The highlight for S32 (2001) was a week-long arc involving Sesame Street being hit by a hurricane. While damage was minimal, Big Bird's nest was completely destroyed, and his friends and neighbors worked together to help him clean up and build a new and stronger nest to call home. Since then, PBS has aired repeats of this episode in response to particularly destructive hurricanes such as Katrina and Sandy to help children cope with fear and trauma. More recently, parts two through five have been cobbled together into an hour-long special for such occasions.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: The new neighbors' baby was born around the time Mr. Hooper died.
• Birthday Episode:
  • For Linda, where Bob teaches everyone how to sign "Happy Birthday to You".
  • Big Bird's birthday was the focus of a PBS pledge drive special in 1991.
  • Also Gabi had one that was also a Sick Episode because she had the flu.
  • Rocco once had a "birthday", although as Elmo pointed out, rocks don't actually have birthdays.
  • In one "Ernie and Bert" skit, Ernie sings Happy Birthday to a letter U.
  • In one Season 29 episode Slimey had to celebrate his birthday on the Starship Wiggleprise with the other worm astronauts.
  • Elmo celebrates Dorothy's birthday in the Elmo's World episode about birthdays.
  • In Episode 0711 (Season 6), S.A.M. the Robot celebrates his "Wiring Day", the day that commemorates the first time he was wired up and activated. At the party, S.A.M. serves a stainless steel cake with aluminum icing, the guests are various machines (including a fan, radio, washing machine, and toaster), and he plays a party game called Pin the Tail on the Toaster.
  • Biff celebrates his 40th birthday in Episode 3387 (Season 26), and feels down in the dumps because he feels he's growing too old. Luckily, his niece Roxie Marie, Elmo, Gina, and the kids throw him a birthday party to cheer him up.
  • Part of the Don't Be Shy book takes place on Snuffy's birthday. Snuffy is too shy to come out of the kitchen and open his presents, but comes out when he decides to blow out the candles on his cake.
  • The Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster! book takes place on Cookie Monster's birthday. Cookie bakes his own cake for his birthday to share with his friends, but gets carried away and eats the whole thing after tasting it, feeling guilty afterwards. Fortunately for him, Big Bird, Grover, Ernie and Bert each brought their own cakes as presents.
  • The When is My Birthday? book takes place on the sixth birthday of Daisy, Elmo's older sister. Elmo becomes jealous of the attention that Daisy receives and wishes it were his birthday. At the end of the book, he finds out from Daisy that his birthday is just one week after hers.
  • The The Case of the Missing Duckie book combines this with Mystery Episode; Ernie's Rubber Duckie goes missing on the day of his birthday just when Ernie is about to take a bath, so Ernie enlists the help of Sherlock Hemlock to find it. In the end, it is revealed that Cookie Monster borrowed Rubber Duckie to use as a decoration for Ernie's birthday cake.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Episode 1839, in which the death of Mr. Hooper was explained to Big Bird. In the final scene, just as Big Bird is hanging up Mr. Hooper's picture as a sign that he's beginning to come to terms with his loss, he meets some new neighbors and their baby.
  • The song "Don't Walk," where a Muppet groom can't meet his bride-to-be across the street because the stoplight won't change from "Don't Walk" to "Walk." Although the two can never get together, he affirms he'll love her forever and that she'll save her heart for him.
  • One episode ends with Gabi happy, but still sick on her birthday.
• Bizarre Instrument: The "Shpritzer Honker Splasher Sprinkler Tweeter Squirt", which looks like a cross between a synthesizer and a sprinkler system. It takes four people to operate it, and it's played on a giant foot-operated keyboard, a series of buttons, a set of foot pedals, and a panel of electronic drum pads.
• Blanket Fort: In this YouTube video, Louie gives parents advice on taking a bit of time for themselves while cooped up with their kids during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic, while his son Elmo shouts in the background for him to come help build a pillow fort.
• Blessed with Suck: Everything King Minus touches ceases to exist. This includes the princess he wanted to save; he annihilated himself in horror (possibly by accident) after that.
• Blind Date: The premise of the song "Wet Paint Sign," where two Muppets are arranged for a blind date to meet on a bench on the park, but a "Wet Paint" sign hanging from it prevents them sitting. They each think they'll never meet their date and wind up going off together on their own.
• Blowing a Raspberry:
  • The movie in which Elmo goes to Grouchland features the Queen of Trash demanding one hundred of these "raspberries" in a set time.
  • Natasha blows raspberries a lot.
• Bowdlerize:
  • Linda Ronstadt appeared with a mariachi band on one episode to perform "Y Andale," a Mexican song whose original Spanish lyrics are about a woman who mocks her lover for criticizing her drinking binges. The Sesame Street version of the song was sung mostly in English and became a song about the meaning of the song's title ("get on with it" or "let's go").
  • After Season 1 (except for Episode 211), the line "Ya sissy!" was dubbed over with "birdies" (in response to another comment) in the song "Everyone Likes Ice Cream". When Episode 83 aired on Noggin, the line was muted out.
  • Starting with Episode 414, "Ten Song (Song of Ten)" had the "ten little Indians" scene replaced with "ten bells".
• Bratty Food Demand: Mr. Johnson is demanding, especially when it comes to food, and often shouts at his servers (usually Grover).
• Bravado Song: In episode 1004, Grover and a marching band sing a song called "I Am Not Afraid", which is about how they fear nothing, but each member of the band runs off in fear every time Harvey Monster startles them.
• Breakout Character:
  • Bert, Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, Count von Count, Grover, Big Bird and Elmo all became major hits after debuting, with Elmo even displacing Big Bird once he arrived.
  • To be honest the Sesame Street Muppets as a whole when the show was originally about Gordon and the humans and the Muppets was just a feature along with cartoons and live action skits. But kids loved them more than anything else.
• Broken Aesop: During Season 36 which had a focus on healthy lifestyle habits, the show featured a Cold Open which had one of the characters from the day's episode discussing its topic. The cold open would immediately be followed by a sponsor for McDonald's.
• Broken Record: In one episode, Elmo pretends to be a wind-up toy whom once "wound up" will say over and over: "HELLO, I'M ELMO THE TOY! HELLO, I'M ELMO THE TOY! HELLO, I'M ELMO THE TOY! HELLO, I'M ELMO THE TOY! HELLO, I'M ELMO THE TOY!"
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Sesame Street is the Trope Namer; the leading example for the trope on this show is Super Grover, who wears a G on his chest.
• BSoD Song: Big Bird's song "Where's My Bear?" from the Episode 3884 street scene, as he sings his sadness and depression over misplacing Radar and unable to find him anywhere.
• Buffy Speak: In one episode, Telly talks about how "boingy" his pogo stick is.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • As of late 2018/2019, several old characters who were Demoted to Extra or simply disappeared have popped up on the show, or in side projects, with new puppeteers, including Herry Monster (Peter Linz), The Amazing Mumford (John Kennedy) & Roosevelt Franklin (Ryan Dillon) ^note  While Franklin hasn't made any new speaking appearances on the show as of yet, he did appear at Carroll Spinney's retirement party, and on an episode of the Hallmark Channel series Meet the Peetes when Holly Robinson Peete visited the set (since her father, the late Matt Robinson, was the original voice of the character, while Frank Oz controlled the puppet itself. In keeping with this, Chris Knowings provided the voice for this appearance, to Dillon's puppetry).
  • Retired since Jim Henson's death, Guy Smiley made a comeback in 2005, now performed by Eric Jacobson.
  • The 50th Anniversary special features the surprise reappearance of Kermit, who had been phased out of the show a long time ago even before Disney bought the Muppet Show characters.
• Bus Crash: Invoked in order to explain death to children; Mr. Hooper died after actor Will Lee's death.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Bert is quite unlucky, normally because Ernie unwittingly does something Bert doesn't like.
  • Oscar sometimes has his moments, especially with his pranks backfiring on him.
  • Mr. Johnson is also a Butt Monkey because, due to both his fussiness and, probably a better example, Grover's incompetence, he never gets what he wants.
  • Grover himself is often a victim of slapstick and general bad luck.
• Bystander Syndrome: This happens during the song "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco". After Cookie Monster sings about his lost cookie and starts looking for it, he desperately cries out for help to find it, but everyone in the room just ignores him and keeps dancing.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes:
  • When Maria has to go into Oscar's trash can, in order to hide what the actual interior looked like. Oscar's glowing eyes were identical to his normal ones, though Maria's were clearly Muppet approximations. Done in another episode when Abby Caddaby magics herself into the trash can.
  • In one classic sketch, Ernie and Bert run so many appliances in their apartment that it blows a fuse, and the blackout is presented with their eyes floating around in complete darkness.
  • In one sketch, Forgetful Jones and Clementine arrive home to find their cabin dark because Forgetful needs to be reminded to turn something on. After Forgetful turns on the faucet, fan, and radio to no avail he remembers that the right thing to turn on is the light. Until he turns on the lights his eyes, Clementine's eyes, and Buster's eyes and teeth are all floating around in the darkness.
  • In the song "If Moon Was Cookie", this is what happens after Cookie Monster finishes eating the moon.
  • In the Elmo's World segment on farms Elmo goes inside Oscar's trash can to film him feeding his farm animals. Oscar's glowing yellow eyes and Elmo's glowing eyes are the only things that are visible on screen.
  • In an animated sketch we see two characters talking about how it's dark and that even though one of them knows there is a light switch, it is too high to reach. Naturally, we only see their cartoon eyes. After the two cooperate and turn on the light we see that the two characters are a man and a monster. Surprised that the man has been lifted by a monster he turns off the light again, this time ending the sketch on a black screen.
  • In another sketch, Kermit tries to demonstrate "light" and "dark" by showing that the single source of light in his room is a lamp. Right as he turns it off Grover opens the door and comes in causing light to come in through the door. When Grover closes the door at Kermit's direction the entire room becomes pitch black and we only see their eyes floating around as they scramble to fill the room with light. Grover eventually finds the door and opens it only to find that, in their scramble, they've trashed the whole room. Kermit ends the sketch by having the lamp shade stuck on his head when he tells Grover to leave since he's "helped enough today".
  • During the hurricane arc, Baby Bear shows the group a picture he drew by flashlight during the storm of his family which consists of only four pairs of eyes: his, Papa Bear's, Mama Bear's, and Golidlocks to stayed with them during the storm.
  • The "Alphabet Jungle" song ends with the screen going dark and every character's eyes being seen at the same time the song fades out and crickets are heard chirping.

Tropes brought to you by the letter C

• Cacophony Cover Up:
  • In a Bert & Ernie sketch, the group finds a dripping faucet would keep them from sleeping. When he asks Ernie to do something about it Ernie turns on the radio at full blast. When Bert points out that he can no longer hear the faucet but that the radio is a problem Ernie drowns out the radio by tuning on the vacuum cleaner. That leaves Bert to deal with the sounds himself only to be annoyed by Ernie's snoring.
  • An older sketch has Bert get annoyed by the sound of Ernie's TV show, so he decides to drown it out with a record. When Ernie complains that the record is too loud, he drowns it out with the radio. Bert one-ups even that by turning on a blender to drown out the radio, promptly blowing a fuse.
• Cactus Person: "Here We Are" is sung by two anthropomorphic cacti who want to be "there" (someplace different) instead of "here" (the desert).
• Call-and-Response Song:
  • "Sing After Me", a singing "echo" game in which the leader sings a verse and the other(s) sing that verse right back to them.
  • Episode 3385 features the song "Yes-O!", led by visitors Michael and Maduka in which the responders sing their names and what they like.
• Call-Back: In "Sesame Street, Special", also known as "Put Down the Duckie" in its home video release, Maria reminds special guest Phil Donahue that the last time he came to Sesame Street, she had told him he didn't need to use his microphone. That visit was from Episode 2096 ("Snuffy Is Real"), and yes, she did tell him in that episode that he didn't need to use his microphone.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Big Bird actually did this to freaking Osiris after encountering him in Don't Eat the Pictures, in which BB demands he give a little Egyptian ghost prince he helped get this far another chance on the weighing of the heart.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks:
  • Curly Bear does it (saying she has to 'woo-woo') in "Elmo's Potty Time"; it's enforced as the episode's about toilets and justified as she's a young cub.
    • Earlier in the episode, Grover says that he "has to get to the bathroom pronto".
  • Maria also does a more polite version of this (she simply states "I'm going to the bathroom") in the episode where Big Bird wants to be a grouch.
  • In the two licensed games about bathrooms, "Elmo's Potty Time" and "Potty Plan", the characters who need to go to the bathroom directly say so.
• Camping Episode:
  • The "Camp Echo Rock" arc in Season 14 focused on Big Bird going to sleep-away camp with others.
  • A Season 51 episode deals with Elmo, Abby, Rudy, and Charlie going on a camping trip and solving a mystery of their disappearing marshmallows.
• Canine Confusion:
  • Played for Laughs in one episode where Maria imagines being the only human in a world populated by dogs, and the dogs all look like Barkley.
  • One animated skit shows a dog crying when it loses its bone, even though dogs are incapable of shedding tears out of emotion in real life.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • Because of the passage of time and as their child audiences grow up, some concepts need to be retaught. One 2006 episode saw Bob introducing his deaf niece to Telly and Elmo and teaching them the concept of deafness, never mind the fact that they had previously known (and in Bob's case, even courted) Linda.
  • A season 35 episode showed a flashback from the 1970s in which teenage Gordon, Bob, and Luis formed a garage band, despite them actually all being grown up when the show began (Luis wasn't even there at the beginning). In the flashback Luis already has the hots for Maria, while in canon they wouldn't fall in love until season 19.
  • A Season 50 episode shows the gang going on a Grouchy treasure hunt using a map of the street from 1969. All the locations are foreign to Elmo and Abby, despite them being around when they were still part of the set. One of the locations is the Fix-It Shop, which was prominently featured in the episode introducing Abby to the street.
• Captain Crash: Super Grover. Whenever he comes down from flying, he almost always ends up crash-landing.
• Captain Ersatz: Sherlock Hemlock, obviously based on a certain other Sherlock, was a green Muppet that sported a detective cape, a magnifying glass, and a (much smarter) puppy sidekick named Watson. He's only made minor appearances since The '80s, though.

• Cartoon Juggling: This clip uses shower juggling.
• Catchphrase Insult: Bert's favourite insults for Ernie are "dodo" and "meatball", while Oscar insults Big Bird by calling him "Turkey".
• Catch Your Death of Cold: This is occasionally discussed, but never played straight:
  • In one skit, Ernie tells Bert not to stand around in the cold weather or he'll "catch cold".
  • In the song "Achoo", the animals sing that one reason to sneeze is when they "catch cold in the rain".
• Cats Are Mean: Chip and Dip, twin cats who would often prank Oscar. However, this Muppet/kid moment subverts it and other cats avert it.
• Changing Chorus:
  • The song "Be-Doodle-De-Dum" usually has "It's such a good thing to say" in the chorus, but the last one changes it to "An excellent thing to say."
  • The song "Accidents Happen" mainly has a consistent chorus, but in some verses, the line "Night or day" is repeated and other times it's followed by "They happen night or day".
  • "You've Got to Be Patient to Be a Patient" not only has a changing chorus, but several different versions. In the version sung to Big Bird, for instance, one chorus mentions "taking medicine and eating off a tray", while in the one with the little girl, this isn't mentioned. The only thing common amongst all choruses in all versions is the song title, plus all the rhymes are "-ay" words (say, play, day, way, etc).
• Chaos Architecture:
  • For the first season, the street was completely straight (as are actual New York City streets) with only a plank fence separating Hooper's Store and 123 - the backdrop usually seen behind the fence in the arbor was behind the construction doors of Big Bird's nest (and there were more doors), and the end of the street is blocked off by an incredibly tall fence (as Big Bird's nest area was actually a construction site). By the second season, the street was curved and gained its familiar arbor area with the garage and tire swing; while no in-universe explanation is given, in Real Life, this was done to give the show a greater range of camera angles, since the straight street (along with being shot on videotape) made the show feel as if it were a televised stage play.
  • Later, the Around the Corner era involved an entire elaborately-designed new section of street past Big Bird's nest. It was also later dismantled (as research showed the large amount of new characters and locations confused kid viewers), and turned into a dead-end alley.
  • From Season 30 (1998-1999) and into The New '10s, Hooper's Store had gradually been updated to a more modern and contemporary convenience store, but for Season 46, the entire exterior has been retroactively redesigned to look as if it has sat and aged for 46 years.
• Character Blog: The Muppet cast shares one Twitter account.
• Character Catchphrase: Dozens; learning is all about repetition, after all.
  • "Hi! Welcome to Sesame Street!"
  • "That's Hooper, Big Bird, Hooper!" - Mr. Hooper
  • "A la peanut butter sandwiches!" - The Amazing Mumford
  • "Ah, hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here for Sesame Street News..." - Kermit the Frog
  • "Heyyyyyy, Froggy babeeee...!" (Gives Kermit a Smack on the Back) - Grover
  • "I'LL NEVER GET IT! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! (Hits head on piano)" - Don Music
  • "Are we having a nice day, or what?" - Sonny Friendly
  • "Scram!" - Oscar the Grouch
  • "Sesame Street was brought to you today by the letter (X) and the number (n)."
  • "Sesame Street is a production of The Children's Television Workshop."
  • For a while from the late 70s to the early 90s, Oscar seemed fond of saying, "Ding-dong! You're wrong!"
  • Bert used to downright insult Ernie by calling him a "meatball".
  • Abby calls things "magic" or "magical".
  • Cookie Monster says, "Cookie!", "nom nom nom", and "Cowabunga!".
  • Mr. Johnson says, "Oh no, not you again."
  • Sherlock Hemlock often says "Egad!" or "Gadzooks!".
  • The one-shot Minnie the Mynah says "Mine, mine, mine, mine, MIIIIINE!".
• Character Death: Mr. Hooper, Elmo's uncle Jack, and Elmo's goldfish Bubbles (different from Dorothy) all died.
• The Character Died with Him: Mr. Hooper famously died in a 1983 episode after his actor Will Lee died earlier that year. Bob Johnson and Luis Rodriguez are implied to have died after the passing of Bob McGrath and Emilio Delgado.

• Characterization Marches On:
  • Big Bird started out as an adult-aged country bumpkin rather than the innocent six-year-old he's become.
  • The Count also acted a bit more like a vampire in his early appearances, moving his hands around as if hypnotizing others as well as walking around with his cape across his face. His laugh was also louder and more sinister as opposed to the softer chuckle of today.
  • Snuffy started out with a rather odd and perpetually sad personality as well as speaking with a rather creepy, echoing, sad voice; he also originally had a pair of rather disturbing yellow and green eyes. It wasn't until when Marty Robinson took over as the character's performer was when, though still sad occasionally, his personality became relatively more cheerful and his voice had a wider range of emotions.
  • Instead of his later and more child-friendly slow-burning frustration, Bert just flat-out insulted Ernie in a few early episodes, calling him a "ding-a-ling" or a "meatball". Actually, there were a lot of characters openly insulting another in those earlier seasons, possibly the result of parental action groups having yet to be invented.
  • Cookie Monster behaved more like a toddler: he interfered with others (though unaware he was doing so), was occasionally fussy when he didn't get his way and was scolded by other characters when he misbehaved. It wasn't until "C is for Cookie" in 1971 that Cookie Monster's personality was firmly established.
  • Herry Monster debuted in Season 2 as a loose replacement for The Beautiful Day Monster and had shown a few traits that were not so less abrasive than his predecessor's. Many earlier sketches from Season 2 would depict him with slight aggression and even deliberately trying to scare other characters albeit as a "harmless" prank. Several seasons later, as his character matured and mellowed out, Herry would now be known as one of the most affable monsters on the show, albeit one who Does Not Know His Own Strength.
• Character Outlives Actor: Northern Calloway, who played David, left the show in 1989 due to being ravaged by stomach cancer. He died the following year. David was said to have moved to a farm to live with his grandmother. Gordon's sister Olivia moved away, never to be heard from again, when her actress Alaina Reed Hall left the show to play Rose on NBC's 227. She died back in 2009. Both of these actors had been long mainstays who played major characters. You can see David in this clip and Olivia in this clip.
• Character Tics:
  • Natasha shakes her shoe when she's happy and often blows raspberries.
  • Don Music bangs his head on the piano.
  • Bert and Prairie Dawn facepalm a lot.
  • Bert and Mr. Johnson keel over when frustrated.
  • Elmo and Zoe walk slowly when sad.
  • Alice stares at the wall when sad.
  • Abby levitates when excited.
  • Julia flaps her arms when excited.
  • Elmo's left eye sinks in when he's shocked.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Elmo was this in the Season 17 premiere, prior to becoming an Iconic Sequel Character in later years, as he plays a crucial plot in helping Big Bird get the adults to finally see Snuffy, by holding onto his snuffle so he does not leave early.
• Chicken Joke: In one segment, a rooster tries to tell the old "cross the road" joke to a hen. However, she keeps answering the wrong question, instead explaining where or how the chicken crossed the road, making the rooster grow more and more exasperated, until finally:
  Rooster: Yes, yes, yes, but... WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?!
  Hen: How do I know? (removes mask) I'm a duck. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
• Chickenpox Episode: A variant in Episode 3735, when Big Bird gets green, itchy spots called the "birdy pox". The spots first show up on his legs before moving to the rest of his body. Dr. Matthews tells him that his birdy pox will disappear by bedtime. Sure enough, by the end of the episode, they're gone.
• Children Are Innocent: The world of "Sesame Street" is carefree, including the kids.
• Christmas Carolers:
  • In the Elmo's World special, "Happy Holidays", Elmo is repeatedly visited by a quartet of carolers who keep singing, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - they have lovely singing voices, but screeching and irritating speaking voices.
  • In Elmo Saves Christmas there are Christmas carolers that sing "It's Christmas Again" even doctoring the lyrics as time progresses to different seasons within the special. By the time Christmas has been occurring non-stop for a year they have all lost their voices.
  • In Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas, the ancestors of Elmo, Big Bird, Grover, and Cookie Monster (joined by Audra McDonald) go from door-to-door singing "Deck the Halls" to spread kindness to the street.
• Christmas Special:
  • The utterly adorable Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Not to mention A Special Sesame Street Christmas, which first aired on CBS — the same year as Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (and the same network as The Star Wars Holiday Special) — and is known primarily for being less utterly adorable than it was utterly awful.
  • Most of the Muppet cast also hit the road for A Muppet Family Christmas.
  • Then there's the brilliant Elmo Saves Christmas featuring Harvey Fierstein and Maya Angelou.
  • And there's Elmo's Christmas Countdown, and ''A Sesame Street Christmas Carol'', the latter of which is a Clip Show of sorts comprised of the plot, with clips from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Elmo Saves Christmas and Elmo's World: Happy Holidays connected with the plot.
  • The first HBO special was "Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas" where Elmo's father Lou tries to tell the story of why people leave cookies out for Santa Claus.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Sadly, numerous Muppet characters have gotten the abrupt hook over the years. One, Don Music, the piano player who would bang his head against the piano in frustration, had to be discontinued when kids at home started doing the same thing. Another, Harvey Kneeslapper, was let go because his signature laugh was too much of a strain on Frank Oz's vocal cords. Then there was Roosevelt Franklin, who had to go as he was considered to be a negative cultural stereotype (he was the only African-American Muppet at the time (despite being purple) and was seen mostly in what appeared to be detention after school), however, see The Bus Came Back above. Lefty the Salesman may have vanished due to his criminal nature, something that was probably later deemed inappropriate for a children's show. Finally, Professor Hastings, a teacher whose lectures were so dull that he'd put himself to sleep while he was giving them, was discontinued because he was... wait for it... too dull.
  • Many of Richard Hunt's characters (such as Forgetful Jones and Placido Flamingo) disappeared upon his death in 1992. Similarly, a good number of Jerry Nelson's characters were phased out as his health problems started to worsen and forced him to limit himself to mostly just performing The Count.
  • Virtually all the human characters members as of Season 46 that aren't Alan, Nina and Chris, due to budget cuts with the show's production. Even more newer human characters like Leela have been dropped as a result. The most notable example is Mr. Handford. Occasionally a veteran cast member may come back for a special segment or episode.
  • Deena & Pearl were a pair of Muppets. Deena was hyperactive and loved to play, while Pearl was her caretaker. Their sketches were rather unpopular, and were often criticized for attempting to copy the formula of Bert & Ernie. They were later retired, and their sketches are hard to come across online.
  • Bruno the Garbageman, who often carried Oscar around when the plot called for it, disappeared due to his suit deteriorating.
  • Biff and Sully, a pair of construction workers, were removed from the show for unknown reasons. They came back in Season 50, and are now puppeteered by Matt Vogel.
  • Benny was a grumpy rabbit who worked at the Furry Arms Hotel. After the "Around The Corner" concept and its locations were shuttered for good, Benny was taken along with it.
• Circus Episode:
  • In an early episode, Sesame Street gets a visit from ringmaster P.T. Bunkum and everyone on the street auditions for his special act.
  • The Season 51 episode "Sesame Circus" has the street put on a pretend circus with Big Bird as the ringmaster, Grover doing a balancing act, Charlie doing a hoop trick, and Elmo getting inspiration to do a motorcycle jumping act.
• Clark Kenting: Parodied by Super-Grover, whose bespectacled alter-ego is "Grover Kent, ace doorknob salesman for ACME Inc."; which leaves the fact that they both just happen to be furry blue monsters wholly unexplained.
• Classical Movie Vampire: Although Word of God frequently tries to downplay the implications, the Count does sport the high-collared cape, slicked-back hair, fangs, vaguely aristocratic Eastern European accent, affinity for bats and sinister theme music. In one of his earliest appearances, he even shows no reflection in a mirror!
• Clothespin Nose Plug: In one episode, three Grouches travel from their home in Grouchytown to take a tour of Sesame Street. Besides sunglasses to shield their eyes from sunny smiles, they've brought clothespins for their noses, which they quickly put on when they notice the "horrible smell" of the vanilla ice cream Bob is eating.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Most Sesame Muppet characters are wacky to at least some degree, and a few of the humans such as Wally (who's dramatic and stoic at the same time).
• Clown Car: One of these is used for a counting lesson. A mini hatchback drives up and stops to let out 10 clowns, each counting from 1 to 10.
  • When Ernie took over a game of Journey to Ernie and made it a game of Journey to Big Bird he finds Big Bird hiding in a clown car, even doubting that he could possibly be in there.
• Clown-Car Base: Oscar's trash can, which among many other things contains a pet elephant named Fluffy. And an indoor pool.
• Clue of Few Words: One episode involves everyone trying to figure out why Natasha, a baby, keeps tearfully yelling, "Hoongie!". It turns out that's the name of her doll, which she lost.
• Clueless Detective: Sherlock Hemlock. Even more so in the early 1990s Mysterious Theater segments, where it was usually his puppy Watson who figured out the case.
• Clutching Hand Trap: In an episode from the mid-70s, Oscar has his hand stuck in a jar. Throughout the episode, the human adults try many methods of prying his hand out, even by greasing it with lard. Turns out he wanted to look at his rock collection that he kept in the jar. The adults convince him to let go and his hand comes out easily; the adults then pour the rocks into his hand. Immediately after, Luis comes by with an old alarm clock in pieces as a gift to Oscar. Luis puts the pieces in the jar, which Oscar immediately grabs. He finds his hand stuck once again as the closing credits begin.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship:
  • Since "The Happy Birthday Song" was copyrighted until 2015 (believe it or not), DVDs that feature a character's birthday removed it. For example, Old School Vol. 2 has a street scene in which Maria brings David a typewriter for his birthday, but before she sings happy birthday to him, the scene fades out.
  • The entire Old School Vol. 3 set falls victim to this, because they couldn't use their own theme song. None of the episodes on the set have their main titles and two episodes that originally featured a special instrumental rendition of the theme song for travel montages have music replacements.
  • Some of the classic clips had to replace the audio tracks because of the music copyright lawsuit (For example: A film insert had a little girl playing catch with her dog originally had Bobby McFerrin's "Simple Pleasures" song on it. The audio track was later removed and replaced with a jazz piece.)
  • That human and Muppet casts' covers of existing copyrighted songs (see Early-Installment Weirdness below) only occasionally make it to official DVD, digital download and streaming releases. Gordon and a Muppet family singing "Consider Yourself" in the first episode is cut on the "Old School" Volume 1 DVD, but not on iTunes or HBO Max. HBO Max cuts Grover's cover of "I Whistle A Happy Tune", but retains the Muppets' covers of "Lulu's Back In Town" and "Windy".
• Coconut Meets Cranium: In "Birdie and the Beast", whenever the Beast loses his temper, he backs into the coconut tree that takes the place of the rose from the source material and causes one of the coconuts from it to fall and hit him on the head.
• Coincidental Broadcast: Happens during the hurricane 5-parter.
• The Collector of the Strange: Bert and bottlecaps/paper clips. Telly and triangles. Ernie tried to collect ice cubes once, but they melted on him.
• Community-Threatening Construction:
  • It had a special in The '90s that starred Joe Pesci as a Donald Trump expy who wants to tear down Sesame Street and build his new Grump Tower in its spot; the residents of the Street get together in protest.
  • This was recycled in one of Mad TV's many Sesame Street parodies, in which Donald Trump himself (actually Frank Caliendo) becomes new best friends with Gordon, and evicts the residents of the Street so he can build "the most lavish, luxurious, opulent, extravagant Starbucks ever known to man."
• Commuting on a Bus: This has been the status of several of the human cast, but most notably Bob and Susan, since season 29.
  • Also happens to the Muppets from time to time, as per Chuck Cunningham Syndrome and/or Put on a Bus above usually due to concerns over the character's particular impact on young audiences, as well as the death or retirement of the original performers (and in the case of Kermit the Frog, ownership changes).
  • Baby Bear has been relegated to a minor character of this status ever since his performer David Rudman took over Cookie Monster from Frank Oz.
  • When Alania Reed hall joined the cast of 227, Olivia made sporadic appearances on Sesame Street for a few more years before she completely left the show, as 227 was shot in Los Angeles while Sesame Street is shot in New York.
  • During the years when Buffy and her family were regulars, they would usually just stay on the street for multiple-week visits before departing for their home in Hawaii.
• Companion Cube: Big Bird's teddy bear, Ernie's rubber duckie, Zoe's pet rock.
• Company Cross References:
  • They did a PBS Kids cross-reference at least once: Bert composes a letter to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in one skit.
  • They've also done one for another Sesame Workshop series. Right before Big Bird's Fairy Godperson left in a 2006 episode, he gets a call on his wand phone, telling us that there are a couple of kids who want to fly with dragons... He even repeats their Invocation word for word.
• Confetti Drop: Happens on occasion, mainly in direct-to-video material or specials.
• Conforming OOC Moment: In the "Do de Rubber Duck" song, a whole crowd of Sesame Street citizens is singing about how Baths Are Fun. This includes Oscar, who's normally proud of his bad hygiene and hates happy songs.
• Content Warnings:
  • On the "Old School" DVDs, prior to the first few episodes: "These early episodes of Sesame Street are intended for grown-ups, and may not meet the needs of today's preschoolers." According to Word of God, this mostly has to do with the fact that the early version of the show is so different from the incarnation familiar to today's toddlers ^note  having been developed for kids in early elementary school it's liable to completely discombobulate them. The significant changes in educational theory since then probably don't help either.
  • Prior to the episode where Big Bird learns about Mr. Hooper's death, parents were thoroughly warned about the content, and encouraged to watch the episode with their children, if at all.
  • Certain online videos, especially those pertaining to military service, start with a suggestion that parents screen them in advance before watching them with their children.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!:
  • In one game, that involves clicking on the picture to see an animation, the instruction "Click on the picture to see what happens next" will be repeated by the narrator about once a minute if you don't do anything.
  • In "Elmo's Potty Time", if you idle, the narrator will keep repeating the instructions. Occasionally, she will say, "If [character] doesn't go to the bathroom soon, [he/she] may have an accident" to create a false sense of urgency, when actually, there is no way of losing.
  • In "Bert's Bottle Caps", Bert will occasionally whine, "Please help me sort my bottle caps!" if you take too long.
  • In "Magical Numbers", if you go too long without doing anything, Mr. Mumford will ask, "Did you forget what to do?" and repeat the instructions.
• Cool Old Guy. Hooper (until his death), then Bob's Uncle Wally, and more recently Bob himself, have all fit this trope over the course of the show's history due to being elderly and fun to be around.
• Cousin Oliver: (Unintentionally) Lampshaded in the late 90s and early 2000s, when Baby Bear would occasionally be seen babysitting his baby (as in infant) cousin, who always garnered attention from other residents for how cute he was. Oh, and his name? Cousin Oliver. This was before Curly Bear.
• Counterpoint Duet:
  • In one episode with Big Bird and Rosita playing family with Elmo as the baby, they attempt to sing him to sleep with lullabies their families taught them. Rosita sings her lullaby first, followed by Big Bird singing his lullaby over her part.
  • In the "Birdseed Cookies" episode as Alan is mixing the cookie batter, he sings about the ingredients being mixed with Big Bird singing "Mix, mix, mix" over him.
• Counting Song: The show has a lot of them, usually with thanks to Count von Count:
  • There's of course the "Song of the Count", which doubles as an "I Am" Song as he sings about how he loves counting.
  • The "Birdy Pox Counting Lullaby" from Episode 3434 is the special lullaby the Count sings to help Big Bird take his nap as he counts the various spots of his Polka-Dot Disease all over him. He gets to 20 total before the bird finally dozes off.
  • Episode 1447 starts off with Big Bird wondering where everyone is; this in turn cues the "Big Hello" song which begins with just him singing to welcome the viewer to the street, before he is joined by various other street residents who sing along with him, bringing to a total of 20 all together.
  • A Season 33 episode starts with Maria, Big Bird, and the children singing a Call-and-Response Song about counting to 10 in Spanish.
  • In another Season 33 episode, Big Bird sings and counts the friends he meets (including the viewer) until he reaches a total of ten all together.
  • One song is about counting backwards from ten to zero, sung by Gina to teach her daycare students to count backwards.
  • "Pinball Number Count" is a song about counting to twelve as a pinball machine plays.
  • "Baby, You Can Count on Me" is a song sung by the Count to a baby named Natasha, as he tells her how many of each body part he has.
  • In another song with the Count and Natasha, he tries to teach her to count by pointing out four butterflies, two cats, three birds, and three bats.
  • "12 Little Chicks" is about twelve chicks being sorted into different sized groups (6 + 6, 7 + 5, etc.)
  • One song is a parody of Old McDonald, which is counting a woman's farm animals, each species of which she has fifteen (fifteen hens, fifteen pigs, etc.)
  • One song is sung by the "King of Eight", about how there is eight of everything in his kingdom, which he counts... until the Queen's new baby turns out to be a girl, meaning that he now has nine daughters instead of eight.
  • Episode 4180 features the song "Elmo's Ducks". The song starts with Elmo singing "Elmo has four ducks" and the four ducks quacking, but they each move away or get lost in different ways. Elmo sings each verse saying he has one fewer duck, until he has no ducks. Then he hears a "quack" and all four ducks come back.
• Counting to Potato: In this skit, a little girl trolls Kermit as he attempts to recite the alphabet with her. What makes it more adorable is that according to this Jim Henson biography, the girl thought up the joke without prompting, and Henson improvised Kermit's responses on the spot.
  Girl: A, B, C, D, E, F, Cookie Monster!
• Crazy Consumption:
  • Cookie Monster eats almost any edible item in sight.
  • The "Monster Clubhouse" monsters will often eat a cardboard version of the snack very quickly.
  • During one "Cookie's Crumby Pictures" segment, he dates a girl who gets his appetite for cookies. She proceeds to devour their wedding cake.
• Crazy-Prepared: An Ernie and Bert sketch has Ernie heading off to take a bath with a flashlight (in case the power goes out), an umbrella (in case it starts to rain in the bathroom), and a bowling ball (in case somebody drops by and asks to borrow one). Bert, naturally, thinks that Ernie is being ridiculous... until all that stuff starts happening.
• Creepy Good: In the first season, the Beautiful Day Monster was like this. He had a rather scary appearance, but was generally curious and well-meaning, even though he often ended up (unintentionally) scaring other Muppets away. Several other minor/one-off first season Muppet monsters were like this too.
• Crossover:
  • Mister Rogers passes through the neighborhood and times a footrace between Big Bird and Snuffy in one 1981 episode. Later that year, Big Bird appeared in turn in an episode of Rogers' show.
  • Big Bird, Oscar, and Grover all made appearances on The Electric Company (1971).
  • The 1974 ABC special Out to Lunch features several of the Sesame Street Muppets along with the main cast of The Electric Company and guest stars Carol Burnett, Barbara Eden, and Elliott Gould.
  • Kermit the Frog became the host and main character of The Muppet Show, of course. Another early Muppet, Rowlf the Dog, appeared with Kermit in the promotional pitch reel for Sesame Street (and made a single cameo appearance in the "Song of 9" from the show's first season) before becoming a Muppet Show regular himself. Big Bird guest-starred in one Muppet Show episode, Ernie and Bert in another. Still another episode had practically all of the Sesame Muppets turn up in one sketch. And then there was A Muppet Family Christmas...
  • One 1980 episode has C-3PO and R2-D2 stop by Sesame Street to deliver a message to Oscar the Grouch; the duo would later return later that year for another episode.
  • A 1996 episode revolves around Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop visiting Big Bird's nest.
  • The early seasons feature inserts with the stars of other popular shows at the time, for example:
    • Carol Burnett does a few brief inserts from the set of the Carol Burnett Show.
    • Lily Tomlin reprises her Edith Ann character from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In for a few inserts.
    • Batman and Robin demonstrate how they use educational techniques in nabbing villains.
    • The Cartwrights recite the alphabet, though Hoss has to have a little help in the end.
    • Fonzie demonstrates "on" and "off" with his favorite jukebox, and also once showed Richie how cool it is to brush your teeth.
  • In one episode, Abelardo from Plaza Sésamo (the Latin American co-production of the show) visits Sesame Street.
  • In an episode of Season 48, Chamki from Galli Galli Sim Sim (the Indian co-production) comes to visit. She reappears in the next episode, along with Zuzu from Takalani Sesame (the South African co-production) and Lily from Zhima Jie: Da Niao Kan Shijie (the Chinese co-production).
• Crossover Relatives: A 5-part crossover special with the Israeli version of Sesame Street revealed that Oscar the Grouch and his Israeli counterpart are cousins.
• Couldn't Find a Pen:
  • In Alphabet Soup, a Licensed Game, Cookie Monster writes with his alphabet soup.
  • In one skit, Ernie writes a shopping list with chocolate pudding, being sure to add writing implements to the shopping list.
• Counting Sheep:
  • In one skit when Ernie has trouble sleeping, he begins to count sheep, progressing to fire engines, and then to a balloon, which bursts with a loud bang. The noises of everything keep Bert awake.
  • In another sketch where the Count is sleeping over at Ernie's and can't sleep, Ernie suggests counting sheep. The Count obliges but winds up being awake all night counting sheep. He feels refreshed but Ernie on the other hand is not.
  • On another Bert & Ernie sketch Ernie can't fall asleep on a night Bert is away. He calls Bert and Bert suggests he count sheep. Ernie begins to count sheep but he keeps Bert on the line to hear him count.
  • In another sketch The Count has to deal with the sheep quitting their job after being tired of getting counted every night. The Count is given substitutes by the 24-Hour Emergency Counting Service by they ultimately oblige with his plea for sheep by offering the worker in a sheep costume who jumps over the bed again and again.
  • In one sketch Bo Peep is at the Lost & Found for sheep. She asks the clerk at the counter to count the sheep because she's never thought to count how many she has. The clerk counts the sheep and the result is what you expect.
  • In one of the later seasons, the Number of the Day segment features the Count counting sheep. The appearance of an elephant signals the Number of the Day.
  • One of the recurring "Singing Number Guy" segments asks how many sheep will fly over his bed before he falls asleep. The answer is nine.
  • In Episode 2620, Mr. Handford is trying to take a nap when Snuffy tasks him with looking after Alice. When Mr. Handford tries to figure out how to get Alice to take a nap so he can take his nap, Meryl Sheep suggests that Alice count sheep, since that's what people do when they have trouble sleeping. Since Alice hasn't learned how to count yet due to being only two years old, Mr. Handford counts for her as Meryl jumps. Unfortunately, both Mr. Handford and Alice are still wide awake, as Meryl gets tired when Mr. Handford gets to 12.
• The Cover Changes the Meaning: This show does this a lot, since many times the songs are sung numerous times, by different characters, and in different contexts:
  • Whether "Somebody Come and Play" is a sad song about loneliness, or a happy invitation to come play with the singer seems to depend on who exactly the singer is. When Ernie sings it, when Big Bird sings it, and when a group of kids sing it, it sounds happy, but when Suzie Kabloozie sings it, it sounds sad. Perhaps this is because she has an emotive voice at the best of times, and she was singing it because her cat ran away.
  • "C is for Cookie" is usually a cheerful song about the letter C and about cookies. However, the opera version featured in one episode adds an intro "The sky has turned grey and the world seems sad and blue. All the laughter's gone away so there's just one thing to do", making it seem like the cookies are the only good thing happening.
• Crying a River: In one of the "Hero Guy" skits, Baby Bear and Hero Guy are so sad about there not being an ocean that their combined tears form one.
• Crying Wolf:
  • One segment has Maria read the story of The Boy Who Cried Monster, where a town plans for people to yell "Monster" whenever Cookie Monster is around so they can stop him from taking their cookies. A boy cries "monster" a couple of times for fun, so when Cookie shows up, nobody believes him.
  • In episode 555, Big Bird makes plans for his friends to see Mr. Snuffleupagus by getting them to agree to show up whenever Big Bird shouts "Snuffleupagus!" When Snuffy does show up and Big Bird shouts it, nobody comes, as he had "cried Snuffleupagus" too many times. Similarly, in episode 2096, the adults agree to run over when Big Bird shouts a secret word, at one point Big Bird does it just as practice, and while Big Bird promises not to do any more practice, the next time Snuffy shows up and Big Bird yells the secret word, the adults (including the few who had started believing Big Bird for the last year) all hesitate. Although they all do decide to see that Snuffy is real, and this time they finally do.
  • In Episode 678, S.A.M. the Robot spends the day imitating various sounds, such as a windstorm, thunder, a fire engine, breaking glass, a marching band, an electric drill, and a whistling tea kettle. He ends with his imitation of an airplane, which Susan, Luis, and David mistake for Alphabet Bates' airplane until they find out the truth from Big Bird. When Alphabet Bates really does show up in his airplane, the adults think S.A.M. is still making imitations, even when Big Bird tries to tell them that Alphabet Bates' plane really has shown up.
  • In episode 2042, Gordon plans to meet Snuffy by staying by Oscar's trash can with everything he expects to need so he won't miss out on meeting Snuffy, while Oscar (believing Snuffy to be imaginary) wants Gordon to leave. At one point, Oscar makes a Snuffleupagus costume to trick Gordon into thinking they've met, which Gordon sees through. Later, when Gordon has to go inside, Snuffy shows up and Oscar sees that he is real. When Gordon comes back, Oscar tells Gordon that he just missed Snuffy, and Gordon thinks it's another trick to get him to leave.
  • In Episode 3430, Maria hears Elmo crying, but soon finds out that he is pretending to cry as part of his new Crying Game. Elmo plays this game throughout the episode, and as a result, Maria thinks he's still playing the game when he really does become sad near the end of the episode after another monster calls both Elmo and his game silly.
• Crying Critters:
  • Big Bird cries occasionally.
  • One animated skit involves a girl trying to figure out why a dog is crying.
  • The song "All I Can Do is Cry" has the Three Little Kittens cry about losing their mittens.
  • Curly Bear's crying was one of the things Baby Bear complained about when she was born.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: In an Ernie and Bert sketch, Ernie prepares to take a bath. At first, he takes things one would expect to have in the bathtub with him, such as a bar of soap, a towel, and his Rubber Duckie. However, he soon starts taking things such as a flashlight, an umbrella, and Bert's bowling ball. When Bert sees these things, he asks Ernie why he's taking them into the bathtub. Ernie tells Bert he took the flashlight in case a fuse blows out, the umbrella in case it starts to rain in the bathroom, and Bert's bowling ball in case somebody comes by asking to borrow it. Bert dismisses Ernie's idea as silly, but as Ernie begins to bathe himself, all the stuff he described begins to happen.
• Cultural Translation:
  • One of the title sequences for Sesame Street's Bangladeshi co-production, Sisimpur, is similar in style to the intro to seasons 33 to 37 of the flagship program; it features computer-generated bouncing blocks with Bengali script instead of letters of the Latin alphabet.
  • The Count's song "The Lambaba" is all about this.

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