The way I remember it is with the little girl skipping to the store, repeating to herself all the way (all together now), “A loaf of bread, a container of milk, a stick of butter . . . a loaf of bread, a container of milk, [etc.].” I don’t recall her not being able to remember the list once she got to the store, but I could be wrong.
The A&E special was great! I taped the whole thing while I watched it. Mr Scarlett watched only because he’s a Henson/Muppets fan. (He knows who Ernie and Bert are, but he doesn’t know which is which.) It was great to see Carroll Spinney in rehearsal, and to learn that Elmo is a large black man.
I have sheet music for “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon.” The arrangement is simple but lovely.
And in other memories –
“La, la, la, linoleum . . .
La la la la lumps in my oatmeal!”
I wish I could remember the rest of that song. I’ll have to track down the songbook one of these days.
Oo, oo, I just remembered another incredibly fun “Sesame Street” thing. This was merchandise, though, not the actual show, but I still think it qualifies.
I had this 45-rpm record that was “Ernie’s Jungle Adventure” or something. It was basically a radio play of Ernie on some kind of expedition. There was a long buildup where he crossed a bridge, swam a river, used his “trusty rusty telescope,” and a bunch of other stuff. Then, at the supposed end of the journey, he meets a tiger (IIRC) and retreats really fast, reversing quickly through all the settings and obstacles that we saw on the way in, the tiger chasing him the whole time.
It was really, really fun. My brother and I would go upstairs in our grandparents’ house and set up the whole sequence in the big playroom, using blankets, tinkertoys, and whatnot to make the bridge, river, and all the other landmarks. Then we’d put on the record and act it out as it played, following Ernie on his adventure.
My God, I haven’t thought about that in twenty years.
Oh, my god. I remember this! Did you have the whole box of records or just that one? I know I had the whole box because I can still remember the last record, where they try to get you to clean up the mess you made playing to the songs…
Pick up your toys and put 'em away,
put 'em away,
put 'em away!
Pick up your toys and put 'em away…
Speaking of records, does anyone else remember listening to Bert and Ernie’s Sing-Along? The basic premise was that Bert was taking a shower and somehow everyone ended up in the bathroom with him and Ernie, singing songs. Bert just wanted a towel, but no one would give him one.
Watching that A&E special was great, it brought back so many memories. And even at 34, I was bawling when they showed the scene where they tell Big Bird, Mr Hooper isn’t coming back
Also, this might have been the Electric Company, but help me out
Dose anyone remeber a short film where a rubber band and other items descend upon a cantalope and sing an aria from Carmen? I swear I saw this
Yeah, she was an orange I think. She had a rubber band mouth, bottlecap earrings, flower petal eyelashes, and mop hair. And when she sung, each of the items would fly off into the air at every high pitched scream.
How ‘bout, "one two three four five, six seven eight nine ten. Ten tiny turtles on the telephone, talkin’ to the grocery men."
Also, does any one remember an animated bit with books singing, “every story has, a beginning middle and an end.” and telling a story in the song? I have vague recollections of it and every sesame street discussion I get into reminds me of it, but no one else can remember it. I think it might have been the Kinks doing the music. Anyone remember this?
That definitely sounds more like TEC’s content than SS’s. TEC did more of the word family type skits (remember Bill Cosby at the chalkboard, writing stuff like “skip chip trip clip flip”? Or “b-” “ear” “bear”, “c-” “are” “care”?)
I heartily suggest that anyone feeling nostalgic for the children’s shows of their youth take a little trip to Yesterdayland. It’s well worth the time.
I remember this. It’s definitely SS, not EC. It’s actually fairly recent, relatively speaking. The main character in the story was a poorly-animated almost wolf-looking type character.
I caught SS while channel surfing a while ago and Cookie Monster was preparing to eat a picture of a cookie with his customary enthusiasm. A second Muppet patiently tried to explain to him the difference between real things and pictures of things, to which CM replied in the manner of a a long-suffering spouse “You’re always denying me.”
A big alien on a planet full of asteroid holes, and a little alien popping up all around it meeping the tune of “you are my sunshine” and annoying the big alien.
12345…
678910…
Ten tiny turtles on the telephone…
Talkin’ with the grocery men (la la LA la)
We would like some lettuce
Would you give us 10 heads please,
And 10 sweet potatoes
And 10 rutabagas
With the dimples on their knees!
We need
12345678910 artichokes,
10 eggplants! OVER EASY!
That’s one of our little jokes! (ha ha)
10 eefy leafy (?) collard greens and please make sure they’re washed, (la la)
Light up our eyes and brighten our lives with
10 banana squash!
We need
10 cans of black-eyed peas, they give you good strong muscles (la laaaa),
10 of those tasty sprouts, the ones that they call Brussels;
We’d also like 10 mangoes, they’re the favorite of our sister Gert,
And one last thing, please do include 10 apples for dessert!
Da da DA da DA da, da DA DA DA! TEN!
You know, I could be using all that brain space for something USEFUL, but noooooo…
BTW, I have a humor book (somewhere) by the “American Sequel Society,” forget what it’s called, but it’s a parody of a whole bunch of books and book genres. (Example: “The Man Who Mistook His Ass for a Hole in the Ground”) The authors listed their CV’s, and I was surprised (or not) to see how many of them were writers for National Lampoon (or Harvard Lampoon) before becoming writers for Sesame Street.
I can’t argue with any of the scenes mentioned above; they are all classics in their own right. But the bit that earned Jim Henson immediate entry into heaven was Kermit and Ray Charles singing “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
At once, it was as touching and all-encompassing a statement about self-acceptance, race and harmony as was ever uttered. That alone can give me hope for the human race.
That one was great, but it wasn’t the best sheep counting skit.
The best one featured the Count, who was trying to get to sleep. So, of course he was trying to count sheep, as a Count is apt to do.
Well, due to budget cutbacks, or something, they only had another muppet (one of the generic bald purple guys) dressed up in a sheep costume. The guy ran from the left side of the Count’s bed, and then throws himself over the bed. You then see him proceed to run in front of the camera, but not over the bed, back to his starting point.
Well, this goes on until the Count is up to 8 or so, but the guy is very obviously getting quite tired. At one point he pauses on the run back to the left side of the bed to put his hands on his knees and wheeze a little. He starts just climbing over the bed rather than jumping over it, and other such things. By the time the Count gets up to 15, the guy has basically passed out on the bed.
I cannot believe that this has gone on for two pages and no one has even mentioned Prairie Dawn and her plays!
There is also a Polly Darton muppet with big breasts.
How about Grover’s Wubba song? Wubba wubba wubba wubba woo woo woo. Wubba wubba wubba and a doodley doo. It’s really cool how many celebrities appear during that song!
And remember Bert doing the pigeon dance? Doing, Wah Wah, the pigeon!
[ul]
[li]The ball knocking over flags on the roller coaster (my very fave as a kid for some reason)[/li][li] The Count! (hasn’t been mentioned much )[/li][li] Phone Phooooone ring ringring phooonne[/li][li] Capital I[/li][li] Film of guy making pizza dough[/li][li] Alligator King[/li][li] The Queen of Six[/li][li] Guy Smiley[/li][li] Eight spi-ders![/li][li] EIGHT CREAM PIES! AAAUUURRRGGHH!!![/li][li] Take a bweath[/li][li] …and when I’m itchy, I scratch[/li][li] Typewriter guy[/li][li] I love love love being a pig[/li][li] Grover as a waiter[/li][li] Hi ho. Kermit the frrrrrrrrog here[/li] (after not realising he was on air.)
[li] Three of these kids are doing the same thing[/li][li] The Fonz reciting the alphabet[/li][li] The funky pinball numbers sequence[/li][li] Johnny Cash singing, “Don’t take your 1s to town, Bird”[/li][li] The signwriter guy painting numbers[/li][li] Hel-lo Birrrrrrrrrd[/li][li] I can’t hear you. I’ve got a banana in my ear.[/li][li] Manamana![/li][li] The W song.[/li][li] The original theme song[/li]
[/ul]
Curse this thread! I’m going to spend the next couple of days remembering other stuff I should have included!
)[/li][li] Phone Phooooone ring ringring phooonne[/li][li] Capital I[/li][li] Film of guy making pizza dough[/li][li] Alligator King[/li][li] The Queen of Six[/li][li] Guy Smiley[/li][li] Eight spi-ders![/li][li] EIGHT CREAM PIES! AAAUUURRRGGHH!!![/li][li] Take a bweath[/li][li] …and when I’m itchy, I scratch[/li][li] Typewriter guy[/li][li] I love love love being a pig[/li][li] Grover as a waiter[/li][li] Hi ho. Kermit the frrrrrrrrog here[/li] (after not realising he was on air.)