When did this happen? What year was Mr. Snuffalupagus first seen by adults?
It’s been a long time since the kids were interested in Sesame street, so I can’t tell you the exact year, but I do remember the producers saying that keeping Snuffie as an imaginery friend meant that the adults in the show wouldn’t take the little ones seriously, and that wasn’t the message they wanted to send.
I’m not going on anything here but my memory, so TTFWIW.
I’d say between 1980-1982.
i second mouthbreather. can’t have been earlier than then because i remember snuffy as an imaginary friend, and remember when everybody realized he was real.
1983 at the latest.
I need to pin this down. My cow orker asserts it was definitly in the 70’s and he thinks it was in the 3rd season. He told me flatly that I was wrong when I said I thought it was in the 80’s and certainly not in the first 4 seasons.
Yes, I think mouthbreather’s guess is close, but it may have been earlier. I seem to remember shows where the Snuffleupagus was visible. My youngest sibling was 6 in 1979. Although I could be remembering episodes I saw later, while babysitting.
In any case, I always hated that game, where Snuffy would wander away just as one of the adults came up. I was older (we didn’t have a TV until I was 5), but it irritated the crap out of me. Do other children enjoy that sort of frustration?
It always meant to me that sometimes ppl won’t believe you, but it doesn’t mean you should lie to make them happy. Stick with the truth, but it is not always rewarding.
I watched the show between 1971 and 1974, and I’m fairly certain that when I saw Mr. Snuffalupagus he was still imaginary… of course, my memory from those days IS a little hazy.
I am soooooo not sure of this because this information came from my mother who is friends with an elementary school teacher:
The producers of Sesame Street decided to reveal Mr. Snuffalupagus to because there had been cases where pedophiles were abusing children and telling them to think of the perpetrator as “Mr. Snuffalupagus” - a “secret friend”. Naturally this was really bad for the Sesame Street people (not to mention the kids) - so CTW decided to make Snuffy someone everyone could see…he was no longer a “secret friend”.
When I watched Sesame Street as a child in the 70’s he was a secret. When I reached college I realized Sesame Street was great to watch when stoned - that was some time in the early 90’s, Snuffy was real. Guess it happened somewhere between then (sorry to be so vague).
Some info from Sesame Street Unpaved: Scripts, Stories, Secrets, and Songs, by David Borgenicht:
Yes, I own this book. Shut up. 
Thank you so much!!
With the help of your clues I found a profile of profile of him that gives the exact date.
Hey D Marie, no need to feel ashamed. I got that book as a gift for my brother last year and read most of it myself. It’s cool.
Also, from the Children’s Television Workshop site
http://www.ctw.org/sesame/beat/article/0,2044,19600,00.html
These same pedophiles drive around at night flashing their headlights, hand out LSD tattoos, make snuff films, and turn pop-tabs into wheelchairs, right?
This has urban legend written all over it.
While we’re at it…
Anyone remember the episode where the adults had to explain to Big Bird what happened to Mr. Hooper? That has to be one of TV’s greatest moments.
And for Canadian dopers, when did Elephant (of Sharon, Lois and Bram fame) get a sex change, and become, erm, “ribbed”? I mean Kroist, she looks like a dildo.
My boyfriend’s cable package includes a network called “Noggin” which shows old episodes of The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact and Sesame Street on Friday and Saturday nights beginning at 11 pm. Our drinking game involves a drink everytime something would look cooler if you were tripping/stoned, a drink for every time you learn something (which is surprisingly frequent) and a drink every time the word “Noggin” is used. (The network doesn’t show commercials, they replace them with animated shorts and kids film projects and station promotions so they use words like nogginy, nogolution, etc a lot). Anwyay–given the timing this is sbviously aimed at college students. And you can vote for your noggin dejja vu clip of the week at http://www.noggin.com
My SS question–is it true that they killed off the big orange and white sheepdog? He was my favorite. Especially the part in the opening credits where the kids hide behind the tree and he can’t find them.
And did you know that cookie monster actually ate rice cakes painted like cookies because they crumbled better and cookies were too greasy and damaged his fur?
Wait a minute . . . George Snuffalupagus . . . Didn’t he work for the Clinton administration?
My co-worker still insists that it could not have been 1985.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Darn, y’all beat me to it. I also knew it had to be in the mid 80’s or so. I watched until the early 80’s (ok, in the early 80’s I wasn’t “into” it anymore, but we only had two channels), and then by the time I became a mommy in 1990, Snuffy was “out”.
lee - sometimes fighting ignorance is a losing battle.
Yeah, the George Clinton administration. Groovy!
Anyone remember that Oscar was orange the first season!? He was also a much smaller puppet and didn’t have articulated eyebrows.