HBO Max’s original series The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo is exactly what would happen if late night talk shows targeted five-year-olds. Unless you are in that target demographic, the first episode is cute. However, by the time you reach the third episode in a row, you will probably be ready for it to end. 45 minutes straight of Elmo is too much for any adult to take, especially one without children.
With that said, it is a child-friendly sendup of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Appropriately, Fallon was Elmo’s first guest. Like Kacey Musgraves, John Mulaney, The Jonas Brothers and Lil Nas X, he was very game for the experience. Fallon put a fake ice cube down his back and danced around like it was freezing. He also engaged in a staring contest with Elmo. Those are the types of antics featured in every episode. Sure, it’s fun to see Mulaney hop on one foot sucking a lemon or ride a tricycle he’s clearly to big for. But it wears thin. The Not-Too-Late Show has one gimmick: making celebrities do silly things.
Unlike Sesame Street proper, The Not-Too-Late Show isn’t educational unless you count singing a song about brushing your teeth. What it is is an impressively accurate recreation of a late night talk show with Muppets that come complete with a sidekick, Cookie Monster, and a band, Momma Bear and the Monsters.
Whoever decided a 15-minutes talk show featuring Sesame Street characters was a good idea needs to reevaluate their priorities. The show should have been a reoccurring five-minute segment, not a series of 15-minute mini-talk shows.
When Sesame Street moved to HBO, corporate interests entered the picture. Now, Sesame Workshop is left with an educational property that only exists because a large corporation can squeeze extra profits out of it through spin-offs like The Not-Too-Late Show. Once you realize that, the whole schtick becomes rather sad. However, if you have kids, you could do a lot worse.
