[QUOTE=jayjay]
Here’s one.
[/QUOTE]
OK, thanks! (In the meantime I had taken the sledgehammer approach and just went scrolling through the “sesame street vintage” hits till I saw one.)
OK, it’s more comical than I remembered. (And the desserts don’t look as fancy as I remembered. Maybe because I’ve been spending time looking at lavishly illustrated cookbooks lately . . . ) Funny how that stuff hits you as a kid . . .
[QUOTE=Zoggie]
I don’t remember those but I have seen parts of a very bizarre one–“Follow that Bird.” A social worker comes and thinks that Big Bird needs to be among his own kind–other muppet birds, I guess, so she sends him off to live with a, uh, challenging…no, wait, challenged, family. The dodo family.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I remember that one! It was great. I liked the part when Big Bird and Snuffy are both singing the same song, about missing each other.
And what about Grover? Anyone remember The Monster at the End of this Book?
Oh geeze. Next thing you know they’ll put that warning on Mister Rogers DVDs. If any children’s program needs to have its negatives destroyed it’s Barney. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!
[QUOTE=Scarlett67]
OK, it’s more comical than I remembered. (And the desserts don’t look as fancy as I remembered. Maybe because I’ve been spending time looking at lavishly illustrated cookbooks lately . . . ) Funny how that stuff hits you as a kid . . .
[/QUOTE]
Well, the humor isn’t exactly subtle, but there are comic cues in those segments that adults pick up on more than kids do. I remember seeing them as a child and feeling anxious and upset because the guy was going to fall and ruin his desserts again. The comedy was lost on me.
Hard for me to forget, considering that the younger Whatsits have me read it to them once a week, minimum. Some things just never go out of style.
I remember seeing the first broadcast of “Sesame Street” in 1969.
It’s official: I’m old and decrepit.
In any case, I’m guessing this cartoon short about the number “8” (with vocals by Grace Slick no less) with its trippy visuals and “frightening” scenes of cartoon bugs being eaten also wouldn’t be considered appropriate for today’s kids. (Parents would probably frown on the bonus Bert & Ernie bit at the end since it might encourage kids to trick each other into saying stupid things.)
Joining this thread a little late I’m very glad to see everyone thinks the warning is ridiculous. Having been born in '65 and quite literally grown up with SS I took it personally that they were implying that I shouldn’t have been allowed to watch it! I’m no parent but I can’t see anything wrong with plopping your kid down in front of the TV with these discs playing.
Ahem, there’s nothing more I’d like to see than that annoying retard Elmo go back in time and stumble upon season one’s Beautiful Day Monster and get his head bitten off! Now that might be inappropriate…
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
And what about Grover? Anyone remember The Monster at the End of this Book?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I loved that book! But my favorite was actually The Sesame Street Dictionary, which probably marked me out as a weird kid pretty early on. It was a dictionary, but with Muppet-y definitions. My parents would let me pick a letter and we’d read all the words for that letter (there weren’t quite as many as a regular dictionary!) as my bedtime story. I read it until it completely fell apart.
[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
Joining this thread a little late I’m very glad to see everyone thinks the warning is ridiculous. Having been born in '65 and quite literally grown up with SS I took it personally that they were implying that I shouldn’t have been allowed to watch it! I’m no parent but I can’t see anything wrong with plopping your kid down in front of the TV with these discs playing.
[/QUOTE]
Tom Brokaw on NPR the other day pointed out that the very same parents who are now buying organic foods, and scanning the list of ingredients on things in the grocery store to make sure they’re not giving their kid anything which might be harmful, are the very same people who’d smoke or swallow anything handed to them at a concert back in the Sixties. (Tom didn’t come right out and say it, but you definately got the feeling that he’d done his fair share of “recreational pharmacuticals” back then as well. 
)
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Tom Brokaw on NPR the other day pointed out that the very same parents who are now buying organic foods, and scanning the list of ingredients on things in the grocery store to make sure they’re not giving their kid anything which might be harmful, are the very same people who’d smoke or swallow anything handed to them at a concert back in the Sixties.
[/QUOTE]
You think so? The ages don’t sound right to me. My parents did a lot of crazy shit back in the 60s (my dad graduated from Berkeley in 1969, so you can imagine) and now they’re 60 and 61. I don’t think people who were old enough to smoke or swallow anything handed to them in the Sixties are raising young children anymore.
[QUOTE=Kyla]
You think so? The ages don’t sound right to me. My parents did a lot of crazy shit back in the 60s (my dad graduated from Berkeley in 1969, so you can imagine) and now they’re 60 and 61. I don’t think people who were old enough to smoke or swallow anything handed to them in the Sixties are raising young children anymore.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, baby boomers are still having kids (or adopting them), and certainly my generation (I was born in '68) is no stranger to drugs.
Inspired by seeing my funny chef fall the stairs again with 4 root beer floats, I looked up this on youtube.
I remember seeing it once in the morning while drinking my before-work-coffee and the tune stuck in my mind all of these years…**the Adventure Song. **
Now if I can only find a clip of a time when Elmo and some famous female opera singer were singing a song from Carmen…I shit you not.
Not quite from the same era, but as an adult I found this clip with Susan Sarandon & the Count hysterically funny. I couldn’t believe she did it. 
And yes, Guinastasia, The Monster at the End of this Book was so much one of my favorites that when I found a copy, I bought it for my daughter.
Maybe parents have a hard tiome with Sesame Street nowadays because Bert is Evil?
It’s hard to take a website seriously when they can’t spell Barbie.
[QUOTE=Indyellen]
Not quite from the same era, but as an adult I found this clip with Susan Sarandon & the Count hysterically funny. I couldn’t believe she did it. 
[/QUOTE]
Holy crap, it’s an RHPS parody! It’ll be hours until the thing finishes loading, but that’s really cool.
[QUOTE=Jolly Roger]
Nah, for some reason kids today are subjected to the blandest crap. I can’t beileve anyone would think Cookie Monster with a pipe is a no no. What they should be against is Barney the dinosaur. It was years ago, but I sat and watched that with my friend’s kid once…listen, kids may like it because they don’t have the life experience to realize its crap, but as an adult Barney almost sent me into a homicidal rage demanding the heads of my enemies on poles while i chainsawed my way through the local mall. AAARGHH!!!
[/QUOTE]
This thread makes me sad. I watched Sesame Street in the 70s, and kept watching into the 80s, even in high school, because it was so creative and funny. I remember tuning in once in the 90s and being horrified that they’d changed the theme song and watching only part of the show before I had to turn it off in total despondent sadness because it wasn’t what it used to be. sniffle
“Somebody come and play” still makes me cry, by the way, as does “It’s not easy being green”.
But I have to agree with you here about Barney. Oh my GOD that show was infuriating. Taught kids to be retarded, if you ask me. My son wasn’t allowed to watch it, and my first forays into the internet were posts to the Usenet group “alt.tv.dinosaur.barney.die.die.die” in the early 90s.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Oh, man, I had no idea! I’m just annoyed with Elmo, Baby Bear and Telly for being morons.
[/QUOTE]
The very first Sesame Street I remember seeing featured Oscar verbally bitchslapping Telly. I hated that maroon piece of carpet even as a three-year-old and I loved Oscar for telling him off.
I can’t take a side in the Imaginary Snuffy fight, though. I came along after he was real.
[QUOTE=Elret]
I can remember an episode that showed a woman breastfeeding a baby, with Big Bird asking thoughtful questions about the process. I had been formula fed, as had all the babies I had ever seen being fed, and I thought it was so nice. I thought of it regularly over the years, and when it came time to feed my own baby, I believe it probably played some small part in my decision to breastfeed.
[/QUOTE]
That was what made Sesame Street such a great show: they’d take ordinary things that not everyone was aware of and teach kids how to understand them. Anyone else remember the time Luis broke his arm? They filmed the entire process of putting it in a cast so kids wouldn’t be afraid of it if they ever broke their arms. (I don’t think they showed the part where they set the bone, though.) And the segment where they showed how crayons were made. That was the coolest thing ever when I was five.
[QUOTE=Jolly Roger]
I can’t remember where i heard it, but I once heard the character of Roosevelt Franklin was dropped because he was I guess an insult to minorities…and that they don’t do the 'People in your neighborhood" song anymore because of pedophiles.
[/QUOTE]
My church’s nursery had a Fisher-Price Sesame Street playset when I was a kid. I used to gnaw on Roosevelt’s head because his hair looked like a raisin. Somehow I managed to survive to be a contributing member of society.
When Ben Stiller was on SS a few years ago, he sang the “People in Your Neighborhood” song dressed as a cheese. For, you see, a cheese is a person in your neighborhood. 
Awesome stuff from Sesame Street:
The Pointer Sisters and psychedelic pinball.
Milk, MILK! (You didn’t forget this. You merely repressed it.)
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou]
Milk, MILK! (You didn’t forget this. You merely repressed it.)
[/QUOTE]
Holy crap! I’ve been singing the milk song for 25+ years because of this! I knew I didn’t dream that!