When you play the game of chairs, you win or you, uh… don’t. There is no middle.

I’m the old man of our crew here at Sub Cultured, and out of the many shows I grew up on as a young child, one of the few that really stand out was Sesame Street.  Looking back on that show now I can see it was basically sketch comedy for children. In addition to the shenanigans from the residents of Sesame Street all they had were funny sketches for kids – Bert and Ernie, all of the “Muppets and Kids” sketches, Super Grover, Forgetful Jones, and the Count’s counting songs were just a handful of the creative (and slightly warped minds) of the folks at the Childrens’ Television Workshop.

But there was one sketch which I absolutely loved back then as a kid.  For some reason, I always got a kick out of Cookie Monster’s Monsterpiece Theater with Alistair Cookie.  The first one I ever saw was “Chariots of Fur,” parodying the movie Chariots of Fire.  It was one of those things that adults in the room probably enjoyed more than the kids.  They were, and still are, purely laced with in-jokes a kid simply wouldn’t get.

So Monsterpiece Theater is no more, I’m quite sad to say, but its spirit lives on in Sesame Street’s dynamite parodies of popular modern shows.  The last one I saw was a terrific parody of Downton Abbey entitled “Upside Downton Abbey.”  And they just followed it up with a pure killer – a Game of Thrones parody entitled “Game of Chairs.”  And it’s outright phenomenal.  It’s extremely cool to see some of my favorite shows now being parodied by one of my favorite shoes from childhood, which has withstood the test of time and is still running. Check out the video below:

The video speaks for itself, but in case you can’t watch the video until later, the premise is utterly amazing.  The Game of Chairs is legit a game of musical chairs, where the first round has three chairs contested by 4 players – Joffrey, Cersei, Dany and Robb.  It is presided over by Ned Stark, who in this universe never lost his head.  Here’s a few of the references to Game of Thrones that make this so funny:

• Grover plays Grover Bluejoy, who explains how to play the Game of Chairs.
• After making many mistakes, a Melisandre-fashioned puppet emerges out of nowhere with “The monster is blue, and full of errors.”
• When Joffrey loses and asks why he is out, he is told that he choked.
• When Grover wins and Ned is distraught, the line “Don’t lose your head over this, Neddy baby!” is uttered
• Grover asks for a sweater because “winter is coming.”

And the best part about this?  It does what all Sesame Street sketches aim to do – it educates children.  So even if we have a very Westeros-themed backdrop, the sketch still shows kids about counting – and why if there’s four players, there needs to be three chairs.  Way to go, folks.

SWatch. Enjoy. and Rejoice.  Hopefully this can help hold you over until the Game of Thrones season 5 premiere on April 12.

Tushar Nene
Staff Writer
@tusharnene

[p.s. This episode of Sub Cultured was brought to you by the letter T, and the number 0.]