Watch A Special Sesame Street Christmas (Please Comment)

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Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

One fan's public-service announcement

Many thanks to Boober Gorg (owner of the tape-trading page in our links section) for this bit of creative Photoshopping.

It's that time of year again...

Not only is Sesame Street officially 39 years old, but tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Mr. Hooper's death announcement on the show. Although Will Lee--the actor who played Mr. Hooper--died in December of 1982, CTW had two good reasons not to write off the character until a year later. First, each season of Sesame Street used to begin in November; the 1982-83 episodes had already been taped, and included footage of Will Lee while he'd been alive. Second, the producers wanted to schedule the death episode on Thanksgiving Day so that parents would be at home to explain the situation to their preschool-age children. (I personally doubt that CTW had thought the schedule over thoroughly enough. How many TV-watching parents are going to pass up the traditional parades and ball games, just so the kid can see Big Bird grieve on TV?)

Despite that problem, the "death episode" of Sesame Street hit a whole generation hard emotionally. I never saw the show until many years later, but was surprised to hear local news mention both Lee's death and CTW's decision to discuss the situation openly. As far as I know, no other TV program or fictional character has attracted that kind of attention in mainstream newscasts.

Even today, the story of Big Bird mourning for Mr. Hooper attracts curious fans of vintage TV. Adam Koeppe recently posted an essay about his reaction to the scenes; like most latter-day viewers, he reacted more strongly than you'd think. (Not that this is a bad thing, of course...)

The sincerest form of flattery

Of all the places for someone to parody the "opera-singing orange" clip from Sesame Street, I saw a religious-education clip in which God (appearing as a talking orange) teaches Todd, a young Jewish boy, the proper prayers over fruit at Rosh Hashanah. See for yourselves; the Sesame reference runs from time-markers 2:01 to 2:31...




If you haven't seen the original clip which inspired that moment, here it is. (NOTE: the orange has no official name and appeared only in this film. Don't confuse it with Cecille, the orange claymation ball who sang original songs on the show...)

That's a word, too: CENSORED!

Most Sesame Street fans know that CTW has edited several classic clips in the past, because parents objected to violence or rude language in the original version. Still, this has got to be the most ridiculous example of editing-for-language I've ever heard...







What two words inspired CTW to cut this clip off so abruptly? Look and listen for yourselves:







You heard her right: "Darn it!" It frightens me to think that somewhere in 1980s America, a child was forbidden to watch Sesame Street...because of an expletive that most adults would NOT consider rude or obscene. And it frightens me even more that the producers would give in to parental protests like that; Sesame Street used to allow some rude-but-clean language when the characters had good reasons to use it.

If today's Ernie talked to Cookie Monster the way he talked in 1969, I bet that thousands of disgruntled parents would write to Sesame Workshop and demand that Ernie be taken off the show for setting a bad example. But Sesame Street also teaches about emotional honestly, including the right to show grouchy and angry feelings: when a frustrated fairy can't even say "darn it" any more, the show has compromised part of its message.

Big Bird In Japan Question

I was just watching Big Bird In Japan. Now I want to know more about the Japanese Moon Goddess folk story. Is it anything like the Roman Gods and the Planets? What is the story behind the Moon Goddess? Any website with helpful information? I want to know more about the Japanese history behind Big Bird in Japan. Thanks for your help!

I Don't Want To Live On The Moon (YouTube Cover) MP3 Version

Here is the MP3 of the video of the video below. The name of the girl singing is Jamie.



DOWNLOAD

I Don't Want To Live on the Moon (as performed on YouTube)

While browsing through my Sesame Street-related subscriptions on YouTube, I spotted a surprisingly good music video. Normally, I'm skeptical when an amateur tries to "cover" material from Sesame Street; but in this case, the musician truly deserves five stars. Listen for yourself...

Oh no, not the Veggie Monster again!

The same YouTuber who claimed Sesame Park wasn't a genuine Canadian production, also insisted that "they turned Cookie Monster into the Veggie Monster--LAME!" (I've read angry comments like that all over the site whenever someone posts recent Sesame material, in fact. The guy I'm quoting, though, is one of the few users who did it without spamming the comment section or using swearwords. :-) )

By now I'm tempted to have a form-letter response ready for everyone who brings up the false rumor about the "Veggie Monster" change; it'll probably look like what I sent this guy, though I'll have to send it privately because of the web links included as proof.

The Veggie Monster scare is just an urban legend. Sesame Workshop DID have Cookie Monster cut back on his trademark food and act more concerned about his health--but he has definitely not turned into the Veggie Monster. (In fact, a recent episode had Matt Lauer interviewing Cookie, who complained that the media blew everything out of proportion.) Check out these links if you need proof--

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_4115

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Monster:_A_Cookie_is_a_Sometime_Food

and, from another site--

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/veggie.asp

More crazy Sesame Street rumors, eh?

When I checked my inbox on YouTube this afternoon, I noticed that someone had responded to my comments on a clip from Sesame Park (the Canadian production of the show). The user claimed that Sesame Park was not a foreign version, but a renaming inspired by parents' complaints that the original title tempted kids to play in the street. (Come on, was this fellow serious?) For one thing, Sesame Street hasn't lost the "Street" in 39 years, at least not here in the States. Only foreign versions have ever used a different title, and then only when CTW thought the original urban street setting didn't fit the new country. The Norwegian version, for instance, was moved to a railroad station and christened Sesam Stasjon; the version recently produced in Northern Ireland is called Sesame Tree, because its main characters live in a large hollow tree. Similarly, the Canadian version got its new name because "[t]here isn't a Canadian city where you can go more than about six blocks without finding a safe, green park" (according to Peter Moss, director of children's programming at CBC).

Furthermore, some elements of Sesame Park were so Canadian that it's hard to imagine them appearing on the US counterpart. A mail-delivering bush pilot, a French-speaking sea otter, and almost a dozen parody Muppets based on Canadian TV personalities? I doubt that American preschoolers could connect with those characters so easily. And why on earth would Sesame Street teach Americans that "the quarter has a caribou on it", when the only animal most of them have seen on quarters is an eagle?

NOT lost in translation!

I recently discovered this rare clip on YouTube, thanks to a user in Norway who uploads a lot of Sesame Street material. (The subtitles in this copy are my own, but still 100% accurate!) Judging by the style those numbers are written in, I'd suspect that Jim Henson was involved with animating this; even if I guessed wrongly, the cartoon is still funny 35+ years later. (Kids will be kids, in any country and language!)

Counting 1-10 and Back--Sort Of! (Norwegian/subtitled)

A Rare Big Bird Clip

Here is a clip of Big Bird in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Of Make-Believe. If anybody has this whole episode please let me know. I would love a copy of it. Also does anybody remember the winner of the Make-Believe art Contest Big Bird entered in this clip??

I was so glad when somebody posted this. I remembered this episode for years and finally got to see a part of it again.

A classic little number

Considering that Season 39 of Sesame Street is going to focus on teaching basic math concepts, it's a shame that Sesame Workshop would reject some of their best number/counting clips as too old. Here's a tricky little gem from late in Season 1; the characters don't look too dated, but the music might seem that way to some children. Many thanks to user cdkscully for posting it--

Sesame Street - As I Was Going to St. Ives

I miss the days when Sesame Street used that kind of intelligent humor to teach, instead of talking down to kids...and played original musical arrangements, instead of having celebrities parody their own songs. Unfortunately, that won't happen until the Workshop gets enough funding to stop running six minutes of ads in every new episode...*sigh*

The Magic Chain (a rare Bert/Ernie sketch)

Many thanks to NantoVision2 for posting this classic to YouTube; I liked this one so much as a girl that I sometimes acted it out with my mom. (Ernie's throwaway lines when he makes the square and the triangle are hilarious, too...)

Too new to be a classic, but...

I still can't resist posting Sesame Street clips about hugs whenever I can find one! :-)

Papa Gives a Big Bear Hug (song)

Sad News For Sesame Street Fans!!!!

Kermit Love who helped design the original Big Bird costume has died today at age 91. He had a heart failure. He also played Willy The Hot Dog Vendor begining in Season 2 of Sesame Street. He will be missed by Sesame Street fans and Muppet Fans alike.









You can read more about Kermit Love's death HERE.
There is also another article HERE.

Oh no, not THOSE rumors again!

One of my friends at the nursing home noticed that I had Sesame Street on TV again, so our conversation eventually brought up the way Bert and Ernie are being phased out of the show. When my friend asked, "Didn't they make Bert and Ernie gay?" she couldn't believe that the official answer (straight from Sesame Workshop staff) was "no". This 1993 press release should have settled the debate once and for all, in my opinion:

Bert and Ernie, who've been on Sesame Street for 25 years, do not portray a gay couple, and there are no plans for them to do so in the future. They are puppets, not humans. Like all the Muppets created for Sesame Street, they were designed to help educate preschoolers. Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends.

When I denied the "gay couple" rumor, my friend asked: "Well, what about that Muppet with HIV?" She was worried about her daughter growing up too fast, and said there were some things kids that age shouldn't see on TV. I explained that Kami was meant only for the South African production of Sesame Street, where some younger children were born with HIV--and that there were no plans to include that character in the American version. (If some new Muppet character were created to represent a major problem that affected mostly American preschoolers, you wouldn't expect to see that Muppet in a foreign production...especially not if people in the other country associated that same problem with homosexuality and drug addiction!)

Good clean fun?

In honor of Mother's Day (in the US at least), I thought I'd post this classic clip. Many thanks to Mike Statz, an old friend on YouTube, for allowing me to use it: Sesame Street would never show a film like this today, because too many parents equate "nudity on TV" with "not suitable for kids". Never mind that the producers meant to teach preschoolers how mothers take care of babies--a perfectly reasonable lesson for someone who might wonder what Mommy's doing to their younger brother or sister. Never mind that the baby here is getting a bath from its mother, and that the camera never reveals anything too explicit. Parents and other "experts" today no longer trust a kindergarten-age child to figure out whether a TV film is supposed to be innocent and wholesome; at least the old CTW researchers had enough faith in their viewers!

Where have all the flowers gone?

If the rumors I've heard about next season's theme are true, these classic clips would be perfect for teaching about the environment and natural beauty. First, a short film from 1969; younger fans probably remember it as part of Mr. Hooper's death episode, but it's been on Sesame Street much longer than that...

Second, a cartoon from the 70s; I can't trace it back to one particular episode, but the animator must've agreed with the eco-tourist idea that people should "take nothing but pictures" in a naturally beautiful place.

Alphabetically speaking, she's OK!

I stumbled across this re-creation of a classic Sesame Street clip on YouTube tonight. According to the user who posted it: "Ever since my daughter saw the original, she wouldn't sing the alphabet without inserting random Cookie Monsters. We happen to have a Kermit puppet, so here you go... "