I was a child of the 80’s but I vividly remember Oscar the Grouch’s songs…I always thought it was odd that someone/thing SO grumpy could just burst into song…hmm, odd.
Well, to be fair, there was that slew of pissed off women with guitars making it big in the early 90s . . . maybe they took their inspiration from Oscar.
You know the scene: A dark, wet, inner city street at night. A single streetlight illuminates the corner. A man (muppet) wearing a trenchcoat, hat and dark glasses stands under the light on the corner. He hisses out into the darkness: “Pssst! Hey, you wanna buy a Q?”
So not only did I watch the seriously LSD-induced dancing of Disco Grover, but I watched muppets dealing on the street corner at night!!! ACK!!
I also used to get creeped out by the “co-operation lesson”:
A blue-grey, absolutely barren, Dali-esque landscape with a leafless tree. From one branch on the tree was a perfect tangerine and two muppet monsters wanted to eat it, but couldn’t reach it.
And to this day I laugh at Grover as the waitor of the blue-headed, Rob Reiner lookalike guy.
Blue Rob Reiner: “How are you going to remember my order if you don’t write it down?”
Grover: “I make up a rhyme! See? Hungry wanting to be fed… (looks at him)… beady eyes and big blue head!”
Dashes off throught the swinging door. Comes back with an unpeeled orange between two slices of bread.
OMG! I remember that! Actually, wasn’t it that ONE of them was too short to reach it, and the other one had arms that pointed perpetually skyward, so that he was unable to feed himself? So Skyward Arms gets the fruit, and then Shorty feeds it to him?
Oh, yeah, and they couldn’t figure out what to call this new system they’d devised, so SA says wistfully, “Let’s call it . . . Shirley.”
Ahh, Sesame street! One of the joys of now having a toddler.
I remember the next door neighbor from the Jeffersons painting number everywhere - in mustard and ketchup on bread, on windows, etc.
The animals in the zoo: Take a breath, take a breath, take a breath!
The alligator king.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 artichokes. 10 Eggplants, over easy! That’s one of our little jokes. We’d also like 10 mangos, and please make sure they’re washed! (something, something), Brighten our eyes with 10 banana squash.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned C is for Cookie!
And Alaistair Cookie on Monster Piece Theater!
And of course, the classic, Manamana…doo doo, de doo doo. Manamana, doo doo de doo.
howzabout:
*If it says one, I go “beep”
If it says two, then I go “beep beep”
If it says three, then I go “beep beep beep”
And that’s the way it’s done…
Yeah but what if it says four?
I go “beep beep beep beep”…nothing more!*
And then there were a couple of 50’s style songs:
“One way (one waaaay) the sign said one waaaaaaay!” lamenting the fact that motorcycle muppet can’t reach his girlfriend.
and then “Rock rock rock! The Telephone Rock!” where the guy kept calling the operator from a phone booth and singing, until she called the cops who carried him away, booth and all.
