Elmocize!

Well, my loving lament for the National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum yielded some unforeseen riches, because blurred and tiny in a photo of the old museum's display of fitness artifacts, right next to the aerobics troll doll, is a VHS bearing the unmistakable visage of Elmo. "ELMOCIZE!" I cried, startling my cat, who does not like Muppets.

But it's true.

This isn't a workout so much as a collection of body- and movement-related segments, but as it doesn't take much to get small children bouncing around, I can imagine Elmocize does the trick as well as the Wiggles or whatever the wee ones are wilin' out to these days.

Elmo gets all decked out in a coach-type getup and sings an intro song with his cast of kiddies, one of whom adorably gets to have Slimey the Inchworm bobbing around on her shoulder the whole time. (JEALOUS.)

On our tour of Sesame Street's world of personal fitness, we make a stop at the holy temple of contained rambunctiousness, Gymboree. Talk about flashbacks.

Then, we hear a really odd song by this lady caterpillar who likes to work out. She is now my spirit animal. I took a lot of pictures of her.

Then, we soldier through the truly terrible "Workout in a Chair" song, which I guess is intended to be a sweet nod to the disabled kids out there, but dear lord its abject awfulness is virtually a form of discrimination. 

There's a fantastic segment about elbows and knees, and I've been trying to make a couple gifs from it but they're not working and I can't let it go so I'm whining about it here. I will see these mothergiffing gifs through and post them eventually. Because I care.

Anyway, Cyndi Lauper shows up with awesome hair looking like a sweet squinty weirdo with two backup signers in tow. They're the "Twister Sisters." Cute.

For someone watching this with anthropological amusement such as myself, this video is past-midnight-drinking-a-hot-toddy-and-cruising-the-internet fantastic. For some parents, though, it's enough to drive a person 'round the bend. I can understand. The songs, even the better ones, are confoundingly amateurish --more so if you grew up with beautiful and groovy tunes like "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" or, my favorite, the "how crayons are made" soundtrack. So to close, I'd like to quote one parent who reviewed the video on Amazon and called it "the absolute worst Elmo video out there." Ouch.

It starts with the insipid "Elmocize! Elmocize! Everybody . . . Elmocize!" Repeat, repeat, repeat. You'll be thinking "Elmocide! Elmocide! Somebody . . . commit Elmocide!"