Sesame Street's Monster Of A New Year's Eve Party

"A lot of us have taken naps so we can stay up until midnight," says Big Bird - or is it Gina? It doesn't really matter. The key thing is not to let your 5-year-old hear it, because then he or she will want to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve, too.

The potential for that dangerous precedent is about the only down side to "Sesame Street Stays Up Late! A Monster New Year's Eve Party."

It airs at the very civilized hour of 7 p.m. on Friday (on Channel 9) and gives little folks a chance to have their own New Year's Eve party without putting parents through the wringer.

"We're gonna stay up late and party," goes the opening song. "We're gonna make a lot of noise." And while the show's doing that, it will also visit around the world to see how other children mark the new year.

You don't have to look very hard for the message of tolerance of diversity. After all, it is "Sesame Street."

In Mexico, people make pinatas by buying clay pots and filling them full of fruits and nuts and other neat things. Then, blindfolded children take turns with a stick, trying to break the hanging pinata. It's a little like pinning the tail on the donkey.

In Portugal, people eat 12 grapes at midnight as the new year begins, making a wish on each one. Delightful animation accompanies the show's visit there. In Japan, children play a rudimentary form of badminton and paint one another's faces. In Norway, they have ski races. In Germany, New Year's Eve seems a lot like the American Halloween. In Israel, they eat sweet stuff till it comes out of their ears. (Naturally, this is very upsetting to Oofnik the Grouch, who would rather see children forced to drink castor oil.)

Meanwhile, back at Sesame Street, plans proceed apace for a good old American New Year's Eve. Naturally, this would include a big ball falling at the stroke of midnight. In this case, it's a beach ball tossed from a seal's nose at the exact moment that the estimable Count von Count, counting the seconds of the evening backward, reaches zero.

For those of us new to "Sesame Street," the good count announces that he is accurate to within one-and-three-ten-millionths of a second. No, it doesn't make much sense, but then neither does a snoozing Snuffleupagus.

Will Snuffy wake up in time for New Year's? Will the fearful Telly ever figure out that just because a new year is beginning doesn't mean that all the nice things of the old year are ending? Will Elmo ever untangle things at the Monster News Network?

And will Ernestine the Operator, played, of course, by Lily Tomlin, and something of a grouch herself, ever complete the transcontinental Grouch family conference call?

When Mama Grouch gets on the line and says to Oscar, "I hope you're having a lousy New Year's Eve," you know there's a good chance things will turn out fine and that at least in the land of "Sesame Street," all's right with the world.