Children of the 70s . . . what do you remember from Sesame Street?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Wow… to this day I still bust out into “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12” with some friends. It’s just a hell of a lot of fun. And I agree… SS jumped the shark when they introduced Elmo. Elmo sucks.

And how about this one from “Electric Company”:

(Silhouetted people)
1st person: “gruh-”
2nd person: “-ayte”
Together: “Great!!”

Sometimes my friends and I do “buh-” “-eer” “BEER!!”

And Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader… sometimes when I watch a movie with Freeman in it I think of him as Easy Reader hehe can’t help it :smiley:

102

I remember when Bert was writing a fan letter to Mr. Rogers. I thought that was the GREATEST THING EVER. “Bert watches Mr. Rogers too!”

Of course, that’s when Ernie comes in with a fan and blows all the pages of the letter everywhere, making Bert yell that he is hot and bothered. Of course, the solution to this is to turn on a fan!

I always wanted to play the pinball game that the “1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12” song went with.

Oscar the Grouch was always my favorite character. I thought it was great when he would call Gordon “Curly”. I also remember one time when, all of a sudden, Oscar started acting nice, and everyone took him to the hospital, because he was OBVIOUSLY sick. He had the Grouch Flu or something like that.

I also remember when Luis and Maria had a baby. Oscar was in charge of communications between the hospital and Sesame Street. He had a HUGE moral dilemma. He was happy that Luis and Maria were having a baby. Being happy made him mad. But, being mad made him happy. I think he was a bigger emotional mess than anyone else that day.

I also remember when C-3PO and R2-D2 arrived on the Street. R2 was trying to have a conversation with a fire hydrant.

I remember Mr. Hooper dying, but it didn’t make that big an impact on me. I’d been to at least one funeral before.

Ernie making the clay bust of Bert, and then stealing his nose is a flat-out classic.

I saw a sketch once that took place at a restaurant called Chez I Know You – the restaurant of the semi-stars. Guy Smiley was a regular.

I’m still amazed at just how big Oscar’s trash can is. It has a swimming pool AND his pet elephant.

AFAIK, Mr. Snuffleupagus is a Snuffleupagus. He has a sister named Alice.

I saw a sketch years ago, long after I was a tyke, that had one of Prairie Dawn’s plays. It was based on the four seasons. Everyone who was cast had to leave for various reasons, except for Tim Robbins, who wound up playing all the seasons. Made me laugh.

“Oh, welcome, oh, welcome
to our lit-tle play.
We’re ever so glad
you could join us to-day…”

I miss the Twiddlebugs. And, I remember when they all had to lick the postage stamp to hang it on the wall.

Sesame Street always had great song spoofs – “Rebel L” and “Born to Add” are two of my favorites.

103

I think you’re mixing up two very similar songs.

Mr. Rogers sang “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood” :
It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood
A beautiful day in the neighbourhood
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Blah, blah, blah… won’t you be my neighbour?

Sesame Street had “Who Are the People in Your Neighbourhood?”
SwimmingRiddles is a person in my neighbourhood
In my neighbourhood, in my neihgbourhooooood
Who are the people in neighbourhood?
They’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street
They’re the people that you meet eeeeaach daaaaaay!

104

I tuned in when I was about 22 and found the show hysterically funny (when they had the old sketches). Then they had a spoof of The Fine Young Cannibals:
A camel was singing “C Drives Me Crazy (C! C!) Like nothing else (C! C!) C drives me crazy and I can’t help myself…”

Then they had an updated version of the rubber duck song. It was sort of a calypso tune and the chorus went:
“Do the duck! Duck! Do the rubber duck!
You do the duck, duck, rubber duck. Do the rubber duck!”

About fifty muppets ended up piled in the tub, singing with Ernie, until Bert walked past the bathroom window carrying groceries and totally freaked.

I had that song stuck in my head for days!

105

I have a group of friends that are my age (30-34) that crack up when I do my Kermit impression - I raise my arms, wiggle my hands and yell “aaahhhggggggg”

Remember how he would run and do that from his reporting segments?
sigh love those muppets…

106
  • It’s a lovely eleven morning!
    I heard eleven worms yawning!
    I saw eleven cows sleeping
    Midst the buttercups,
    I said “How’s the cottage cheese?”
    They said “Oh dry up!”*

www.sesameseventies.com

107

guess I could have finished my post above…

the site above relates to the 1979 album “Sesame Street Fever” with a few links to music, lyrics and stories.

108

Anyone have the entire lyrics to the Alligator King song?

There’s a Ricky Nelson song that always puts the end of that song in my head. Don’t recall the name of the Ricky song (Teenage Idol, perhaps?), but I do know the end of the Alligator King song.

"Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,
'My son, you win the crown.
You didn’t give me diamonds or rubies, but,
you helped me up when I was down.

Take the crown, it’s yours, my son.
I hope you don’t mind the dents.
I bought it on sale at a discount store,
and it only cost me seven cents!’"

109

Memories permanently etched in my mind:

-The skit where Kermit is showing how to count to four by making Grover walk all the way to the back of the room, take a block and place it on the table in front of the room, repeating this exhausting exercise four times. Upon completion Kermit says “OK, now we will learn how to count to a hundred”. Grover faints.

-I also have a vague memory of muppets teaching about shapes by drawing them graphically on the screen. When they get to the triangle, a cool hippie muppet converts the triangle into an electric guitar.

-One particular episode that freaked me out was seeing Bert asleep in his chair. That was the only time I ever saw a muppet with his eyes closed (all you saw were his eyebrows). That gave me the creeps.

-There was another Bert and Ernie episode where they were cleaning the house. Ernie threw clothes up in the air. I have no idea why that was so funny, but I just went into hysterics everytime I saw the clothes fly and heard that whistle sound effect.

-Oscar once let Maria and Louise into his trashcan as guests in his home.

-And of course, there was the time where Big Bird wanted to leave Sesame Street, but not get lost on the way back, so he decided to tie a piece of string to a fixture on the set so that he could retrace his steps. The end result was that he got the entire street tangled in string.

110

I was a child of the 60s, but when Sesame Street debuted in 1970, I had younger sisters and it was on, so I watched it. Didn’t care that I was too old for it.

Right at the beginning, during the first season, was the most memorable piece ever, which made a powerful impression on me. Because it always made me trance out.

It was the “E Song.” Surely the mellowest thing ever televised. It was so tranqilizing I felt it was a little spooky, but I loved it just the same.
E
E
See
Me
Eating a peach
Sitting on my eagle
Chasing a beagle
To the queen on her knees
Under a tree
By the sea
She was looking for her Easter egg
Having a dream about eating ice cream
In the Land of Steam
When a baby seal
Tickled her heel
She let out a squeal
And woke from her dream in time to see
The eagle and me
Flying away with the Easter egg
Over the evening sea
Hee hee hee
E
E

The vibratory sound of the repeated e sounds got into my pineal gland and reverberated there, I think. The background music was trance-inducing too. And when the eagle flew away over the evening sea, my brain was deep into the theta waves. :slight_smile:

111

Well, after remembering that the nectarine-picking aliens were Koozbanians named Geefle and Gonk, I took a quick hit at Google and came up with this. Relevant quotes from the list:

112

How about the one where the kid gets lost and goes through this completely psychedelic neighborhood, then meets up with this jive-talking guy with a yo-yo who tells him to remember everything in reverse so he can get back home?

Ha-HAAAAAAAAA! Yeah!

The lyrics to the song that played as he rode back were pretty trippy too:

Behind your face
There is a place
That’s called your brains or your mind.
If you could sneak a peek inside
Oh, what wonderful things you’d find!

113

RawkStah: The Alligator King. [sub]Google is thy friend.[/sub]

We’ve just recently opened the 25th Anniversary Sesame Street DVD, and this song is on there. Now it’s taken up permanent residence in my frontal lobe — I can’t stop singing it!!

That psychedelic-neighborhood cartoon was cool, with it’s sketch-book graphics, but it was also kinda scary. At least, it freaked ME out.

Lord, this thread is making me seven years old again. :slight_smile:

114

Ahh, a link that supports the “Shirley” camp.

Too bad it isn’t a reliable source. I mean, there is that mistake where they say Gonk was on the Muppet Show (which Olentzero "sic"ed, to his credit), they call Herry the Monster “Harry”, and they get Oscar’s species wrong. He’s a Grouch, not a Monster.

I came across this site while searching, but didn’t think it was worth bringing into the debate. Obviously not carefully researched.

115

Ms. Robyn could you please share the pinball wav. with me? I loved that.

You can still watch the original shows on Nogin but it is on at like 3am. That and the Electric Co. and 3-2-1 Contact.

And what about the little type writter guy? He was Sesame Street right?

Most of the stuff I remember has already been mentioned.

116

Remember the skywriter? Recall his name was Alphabet Base or similar.

An animated guy walks up to the letters OPEN. “Oh Pee Ee En. That spells open!” he then pulls it open, revealing another man in a bathtub, who says “Would you mind closing my open?” <closes> “Thanks…”

The periodically-changing Gordon.

117

“Pssst… Hey… You wanna buy an eight?”

118

I almost forgot…

The monsters that said, “Yiiiiiip yip yip yip yip”, “Noooooooooo no no no no”, and “Boooooooooooooooorrriinnnnnnnnnngggggggg”

119

make that “Nooooooooooooooope nope nope nope”

120

I remember grover as a waiter w/the blue guy, large round head. Grover never got that he needed a spoon to eat his soup. Wasn’t there a fly in the soup one time too?