Would you like to buy an O? It will cost you just a nickel.

One time when my brother and I were adolescents, we were watching Sesame Street out of nostalgia. For some reason we had started singing "would you like to buy an O?" so the logical next step was to go see if Sesame Street was still the same.

We found it on TV and waited to see if it was the same. Yep, sure seemed like it: a bunch of kids hanging out on the porch in the hood not thinking it was weird that furry monsters were wandering around blabbing about various delusions, cool geometric patterns made out of household items, little segments that showed what happens at places outside of the inner city such as riverbanks and corn fields. A segment came on that we remembered from the '80s -- a couple of Muppet construction workers up on scaffolding, hammering and chanting in rhythm ("hammer hammer!" *tap* *tap* "hammer hammer!" *tap* *tap*). This was followed by some crazy video-game-looking graphic segment where hammers popped up randomly in the middle of pixelly graphics, all to the tune of some rapid beepy melody -- basically an updated version of my memories of such things popping up in front of swirly psychedelic graphics accompanied by what I now would describe as drug music.

Suddenly the hammers began flying onto the screen like crazy, spinning around. The beeping became faster, and everything screeched to a halt. A stop sign appeared and a stern voice said "stop." My brother and I, being probably 14 and 19, and it being the '90s, instinctively yelled, "Hammer time!" Boy were we surprised when the TV yelled it too, then a bunch of people appeared wearing M. C. Hammer pants! Suddenly we realized why our mom had been so eager for us to watch it even when my brother was way too old for it. We pulled out our old Sesame Street cassette tapes, and sure enough, they were full of '70s/'80s humor that we had just now realized had another level to it beyond just being animated and goofy. I've since found this website of classic clips, and found even more hilarious stuff that I of course totally missed when I was Sesame Street age.

Today on NPR, they played a great piece celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, complete with a lot of clips of particularly controversial moments on the show. Wow, even though my brother and I frequently offer to sell each other an O for a nickel, it didn't occur to me until earlier today that the letter salesperson dealer was selling anything but, um, letters. But, um, yeah, he's sneaking around in alleys, offering to sell people something and telling them to quiet down when they talk about the price too loudly. Yyyyeah.