favorite Sesame Street bit

In My Humble Opinion
41

In a strange and far off place,
there was a lowercase n.
Lonely and cold, it would stare off into space,
and it was known that it would cry now and then.

Lowercase n
Standing on a hill
The wind is very still
for the lowercase n…

Then one day a rocketship
came shooting from the sky.
It landed on the hill and it opened up a door,
and something started coming outside.

Lowercase n (he’s not lonely anymore)
Standing on a hill (there are two that stand for sure)
The wind is very still,
for the lowercase n’s…

:slight_smile:

That’s sung in the same style as the Capital I, and it is the most hauntingly beautiful piece of music I have ever known.

42

Kermit once did a song that was about jumping in some way - I forget exactly. It seems like it was a take off on some popular song. Anyway, in the background were other animal muppets flying through the air, “jumping”. As the song went on, there were more and more of them, getting bigger and bigger air time. I can only imagine how much fun the guys in the back were having, wildly flinging around their entire muppet collection. I seriously think that was the main motivation for the sketch.

43

I love where Big Bird sang the alphabet as one word because he saw it on a big banner and he didn’t know what it meant: Ab-Kah-Def-Ghi-Jikkle-Minop-Quertz-oo-rixez

I also liked the parody of Madonna’s “Material Girl” called “Cereal Girl”.

I don’t think I especially liked this part but I remember most vivedly Carol Channing singing some song to Sssssammy the Ssssssnake.

The episode where Grover (I think?) is trying to put on a production of “Oklahoma” but something in the song always goes wrong so they have to keep starting over

My dad used to watch it with me when we were little and he loved Guy Smiley. My favorite is Ernie though.

44

D’oh! how could I forget that!?!?!?
It’s one of my alltime fave moments!
“I remembered! I remembered!”
<sigh>
I do that to the kids in the store and they look at me funny but the adults laugh!

No day is complete without a Sesame Street and/or a Princess Bride reference.

45

One of my favorites is The Alligator King:

But one of my favorite sketches was on some SS special not too long after the Iran-Contra stuff in the 80’s. They had McNeil(?) from the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour interviewing Cookie Monster as if he were Ollie North, with Ernie as his counsel.

McNeil: Did you, Cookie Monster, take the cookies?
Ernie: (whispers in Cookie’s ear)
Cookie Monster: No. Me no take cookies.

There was a lot more to it, wish I could remember it.

46

Oh God… lowercase n…I haven’t thought of that in ages! I remember sometimes crying because I felt so sorry for that lonely little n, and then being scared of the spaceship.
Anyone else remember some kid going to the dentist with their llama? Or am I insane?

Rose

Oh yeah, my favorite was “one two three four five, six seven eight nine ten, eleven tweeee-ee-ee-ee-ee-eeLVE” :slight_smile:
To this day, whenever I count in my head, it’s to that song.

47

The animated red typewriter on wheels who sang:

NOO-NEE-NOO-NEE-NOO

One thing freaked me out though. One episode Gordon had hair, the next episode he was a bald guy.
I discovered this phenomenon happened with James Bond, Doctor Who, Bewitched’s Darrin, and the little drummer punk in the Partridge Family.

48

A loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter.
I remembered! I remembered!
That’s gotta be one of my all time favorites. Along with. . .

You gotta put down the duckie
If you wanna play the saxaphooooone.

Does any one remember Bruce Stringbean?
*Kids like us, baby we were born to add.

49

No, I remember that too.

This was my dad’s all-time favorite skit. The third pig with the brick house said things like “Don’t fall in the conversation pit” and “We’ll have a couple drinky-poos by the pool,” the kind of comments that skate right by the kids but that the parents can laugh at.

50

**
Tada!

I loved that one! I liked a lot of the “LSD influenced” SS bits. The one that goes, “Thats about the size…where ya put your eyes…thats about the size of it”. It was an animation teaching kids about perspective. IIRC, it began with an ant and kept getting bigger until it showed the whole world (universe?) and then finally ended up in the ants eye. Trippy…for a 5 year old. :slight_smile:

51

Another quick flash:

“You bring potato salad!” “Good plan, king!”

52

Oh yeah, it was CONTAINER of milk, not carton. Thanks Scarlet.

Another one I love is the Guy Smiley character and Rapunzel:

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”
“My WHAAAAAT???”
“Your hair!”
(this goes on for a bit coz she can’t hear him. Finally she throws down her hair…turns out it’s a wig and she’s completely bald.)
Rapunzel: “Okaay, now what?”

Another vote here for the ‘Capital I’ song and the boy who gets really lost…really trippy, I agree. That’s what made it so memorable for me I guess.

Anybody knows the song with the animated guy in his car who drives around with the letter ‘i’? I can only remember it going ‘beep beep, beep beep’…

53

Smeghead, the jumping muppets reminded me-- there was one skit where somebody was counting sheep (not sure which character, maybe Ernie). I think maybe one or two sheep in the thought bubble made it over the fence they were jumping in a realistic enough fashion, but what made it hysterical was that the more sheep went over, the more askew they got. You could tell the puppeteers were just hurling them-- I remember one going over sideways.

I also love the Bat batty-batty Bat polka… it was just so damn silly :slight_smile:

Does anybody remember a special they did a while back, showing how some of the kids in the skits had grown up? There was one that sticks with me, a little boy in a counting scene with Harry the Monster had grown up to join the military (forget which branch) and in the “Where are they now?” part of the show, they had this guy in his uniform chatting with Harry. Very sweet.

54

Back to the Martians for a second, does any one remember how they would examine the phone (“PHONEphonephonephonephone”) and when it rang they would repeat the rings as if trying to communicate with it? (“Brring! Brring!”)

True story:

I was working at a car rental counter and I was standing at the counter with the manager doing paperwork. Another employee was in back answering the phone, which was ringing off the hook. It rang so often that I finally looked at the manager and said in my best Sesame Street Martian voice “Brring! Brring!” She said “What?” I tried again. “Phone? Phone? PHONEphonephonephonephone!” Blank stare. So I explained, teasingly, that it was a Sesame Street bit and that EVERYONE knew it and that she was a total moron for not knowing it (she was about the right age). She said that it wasn’t something everyone would know. So I leaned over the counter to the girl in the next kiosk and yelled: “Karen! Phone? Phone? PHONEphonephonephonephone.” She instantly replied “Brring! Brring!” Then I yelled at the security guard: “Dave! YEPyepyepyepyepyepyep.” He immediately yelled back “NOPEnopenopenopenope.”

It was really funny. I almost had the manager convinced she needed to watch remedial Sesame Street. :slight_smile:

55

Oooh… the llama! Something like “Me and my llama, got out of our pajamas, We’re going to the dentist today…” My friend and I used to sing that and make up our own words.

While my husband and I were in Newfoundland we met a lady from Tasmania, and the two of us got into this big Sesame Street conversation one time… I’m not sure how it happened but someone said something about the letter W and we both said “I am a weasel!” (Ah, Sesame Street, the great equalizer.)

Then of course there’s:

“I’m a dog, I’m a workin’ dog, I’m a hard workin’ dog”

“What’s that? Soft pitter-pat, one two, two kitty-cats”

“Beet beet, sugar beet beet, sugar beet sugar beet beet”

All those Joe Raposo songs where he’d use that nasal voice, like “What do you do with a fruit? They’re juicy and healthy and cute!”

Just the other day I remembered one that I haven’t seen in a LONG time–where Cookie Monster was being a train engineer named Casey, on a train loaded with milk and cookies, and got stranded in a mountain pass filled with snow. Instead of yielding to tempatation and eating the cookies, he ate the snow and got the train through. Something like, “Casey was undaunted, his duty he could see, without the cookies and the milk, no parties would there be… (and the chorus) through, through, through, he’ll get that train through, through, through, through, It’s mighty tasty too!”

I was always quite fond of some of the counting songs… the ladybug’s picnic and the aligator king, and the one that goes “It’s a lovely eleven morning, I heard eleven worms yawning (?) I saw eleven cows sleeping mid the butter cups, I said ‘How’s the cottage cheese?’ and they said ‘Ah, dry up!’”

Remember the factory films? One where they made orange crayons and one where they made saxophones (there were others too). I was quite fascinated by those.

I haven’t seen anyone mention Don Music! “Oh, I’ll never get it right! Never! Never!” :slight_smile:

56

Jodi: I remember the “Phoooone” skit! That was the best one!

Also, PLEASE, SOMEBODY, tell me what the “loaf of bread, container of milk” refers to! I’m about to implode - I recognize this, but I just can’t place it! Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!

57

This thread has me thinking of all random things I say all the time that can be attributed directly to Sesame Street.

“And when I’m itchy. . . I scratch!”
“It ain’t easy being [insert whatever it’s hard being here]”
In exasperation to my children when they are being particularly dense: “Five! Five Five! Five! How many things are Five!”

I’m sure there are more.

58

(for dodge_this)
(Car horn) Beep beep! Beep beep!

Some of the words that begin with I they get to be quite tricky
There’s intersection and illegal, irritate and icky

Beep-beep! Beep-beep!
Many words that begin with I are longer than itchy and into
There’s impossible and incredible and important too.

The letter I is quite a pip,
I think I’ll take him on my trip
We’ll have some fun, and do a flip,
Into my car, away we’ll zip
I’m glad to be with the letter I
Cause he’s so irresiiiiiiiiiis- tible!
Beep beep! Beep beep

59

“It’s the plumber. I’ve come to fix the sink.”

60

I didn’t “grow up” with Sesame Street. I was a senior in college in 1972-1973 and watched it faithfully nearly every day it was on. It was just so damn well-done. I even remember writing a paper on it for a class.

It’s been too long for me to remember any specific bits, but I know beyond a doubt that there were many that absolutely made me laugh out loud.

At the same time, I remember some of the gentler moments as well. The one I can still recall was Grover and another character (I’ve forgotten his name, but it apparently started with a “soft” G – Gerald perhaps?) sitting on a hillside looking up at the clouds and singing “Gee, Grover…Gee, [Gerald]” to highlight the two possible G sounds. It was so peaceful and unhurried…how often do kids get something like this today (without it descending to the level of sappiness like Barney)?

The Kermit the Frog reporter bits and Bert and Ernie were definitely my favorites. This brings up a related story that won’t translate well into the written word, but try to imagine it in your mind’s ear, complete with the voices and the inflections.

In 1972 a comic by the name of Ray D’Ariano put out an album called “Are You On Something?” (complete with a cover that was a devastating take-off on Bob Dylan’s “Bringing It All Back Home”).

On it was a cut called “Cheech and Ernie,” which was basically Cheech and Chong’s “Dave’s Not Here” routine transplanted to Sesame Street:
Bert: “Pssst! Hey, Ernie, it’s me, Bert. Open up, I…I got the stuff!”

(long pause)

Ernie: “Uh, Bert’s not here right now.”

Bert: “Ernie! This IS Bert! Open up, I got the stuff!”

(long pause)

Ernie: “Uh, Bert’s not here right now.”

Bert: “Ernie! Goddammit, THIS IS BERT! Open the door! Hurry up…I think that big bird saw me!”

Ernie: “Uh, Bert’s not here right now.”

etc. etc…