On the cable channel “Noggin” they show old episodes of Seseame Street from the very early 70’s. They’re hilarious! Really funny, nothing like the tripe they’re feeding kids now days. I just saw an episode copy dated 1971. I watched the entire hour and laughed out loud for 59 minutes of it. (the begining and ending credits weren’t that funny).
I remember when this show first came on. I was about 8 or 9, a bit older than it’s target audience, but I have younger siblings so it was always on at our house. I thought it was funny then, and now as an adult I realize I was right. The early episodes were outragous! Ernie & Bert were an absolute riot back then! And Big Bird! What was he on? Acid tainted bird seed? C’mon, i’m all growed up, you can tell me now!
I’m dying laughing here! Are any of you watching these old episodes too? Hilarious!
I’ve seen this a couple of times and it really waas weird. It’s like being in a time warp. The amazing thing was how vividly I remembered everything. It seems I have every Ernie and Bert sketch from the early 70’s memorized!
Mr. Rilch and I watch it every time we can. We love Ernie and Bert the most. I love seeing Ernie so innocent and screwing up all the time, and Bert so grumpily patient and often whiny. Oz and Henson are the unsung comedy team.
A couple nights ago, Kermit was interviewing a little girl, and she kept looking down. Mr. Rilch is going, “Don’t look at Jim Henson down there; look at Kermit!”
Some of it is just trippy, like sequences that are just animated numbers with psychedelic backgrounds. The Muppet sketches get pretty far out, too. Anyone remember “Manah-manah”? I thought it originated on the Muppet Show, with Animal and two alien-looking Muppets. But we saw it last week on SSU. Two female Muppets with blonde braids and Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses ask a male Muppet if he wants to sing with them. I would swear this character was patterned after Ted Kaszyniski, if he hadn’t only been a gleam in his own eye at the time: bushy eyebrows and hair, expression both glaring and vacant, and shoulders up to the ears with arms hanging.
So he thinks a moment and then says, “Manah-manah”.
“Do dee do dee dee”
“Manah-manah”
“Dee dee dee dee”
“Manah-manah”
“De dee do dee dee, dee dee dee, dee dee dee deet-deet-dee”
“Manah-manah”
What acid trip did that derive from? That has to come from Oz and Henson at least toking up together. “Whad’ you say, man? It sounded like ‘manah-manah’. Heh…‘manah-manah’…Hey!”
We don’t have Noggin around here, but I do have the book Sesame Street Unpaved. It’s awesome! You do learn a lot of the “secrets” of the show (No mention of acid-tainted birdseed, though.) I would love to have a chance to see those old shows again. I know that they rerun some of the old bits in the new shows, but they have retired many of them by now.
Radio Disney plays the “Manah-manah” song occasionally. My husband and I also sometimes sing it when playing Magic: the Gathering (“Spells” in that game are cast using something called “mana”.)
Professor Herbert Birdsfoot
Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School.
Oh, yeah. I can go all paleolithic Street on your ass.
“Roosevelt Franklin?”
“Did I hear somebody call me by my first name, and my second name?”
Sheeit, I want Noggin. I love the old Sesame Street, before they took the piss out of it. What’s the deal with everybody being able to see Snuffleupagus now, anyway? “Oooh, we don’t want to imply that it’s okay to have an imaginary friend. Could breed nonconformity.”
When I was a kid, I always wanted to scream when people missed seeing Snuffalupagus! He wasn’t imaginary, you know. He just had this unfortunate habit of lumbering off just before anyone other than Big Bird looked his way.
He sure has a creepy voice, though!
It’s all Elmo’s fault. If they must devote half the show to somebody, at least make it someone gutsy like Oscar.
Mr Hooper would be turning in his grave.
[sub]I can’t hear you Bert, I’ve got a banana in my ear.[/sub]
Of course, you all know Bert is evil:
That was one of the funniest sites I’ve seen in a long time.
SSU is way cool - but they also run the classic Electric Company as well!!
I was just a roly-poly two year old when EC started, but oh! the memories…
Morgan Freeman as “Easy Reader” - Outtasite!!
Fargo North, Decoder
Arthur J. Crank
Joan Rivers narrating “The Adventures of Letterman!”
“And now, it’s time for A VERY SHORT BOOK”
http://members.home.net/davechad/ec.html
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
I watched the first episode of Sesame Street in our new school auditeria/cafetorium (remember those - combination cafeteria and auditorium?). Noggin brings back the great memories.
I have to credit SS with my interest in music. The lovely interludes between skits. 3 minutes of Vivaldi’s “Lute Concerto in D” accompanying peaceful scenes of rain dripping off leaves into puddles. Can’t do that now with the average 5-second attention span.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
OhmyGod, screech-owl I love you! I remember that clip! I never knew it was Vivaldi until I ran across it on a record one day and it immediately brought back those memories. I would have sworn I saw it on Captain Kangaroo, however, but who’s gonna quibble? Thanks for digging up a pleasant childhood memory… you know I’m gonna have to ask you to marry me now.
ahem Anyway. I kinda didn’t respect Noggin for being part of the Nickelodeon conglomerate (SpongeBob notwithstanding) but if they’re running the early episodes of Sesame Street, I gotta give 'em props. I literally grew up with that stuff - it premiered exactly a week after I was born - so now I’m gonna have to get Noggin and start reliving those years.
Gawd, I love Sesame Street. So much so that I tend to frighten my eleven-year-old by bursting into song at times (“ladybugs twelve, at the ladybug picnic…”) Watching SS with me is sort of like watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a devotee.
As for the Electric Company, to this day I cannot see Rita Moreno without yelling “HEY YOU GUUUUUYYS!”
FYI: Noggin also shows ZOOM (box three five oh, Boston Mass, oh, two one three four!)but it’s not the old ZOOM from when we were kids. Not that you could tell the difference, really.
I just had this Sesame Street memory…
I seem to recall a piece with a large tanker truck with a big sign “MILK” on the side. I remember scenes of it driving along the country roads in Vermont or Wisconsin or something similar with some really funky jazz piano/flute and a woman singing “Milk! MI-iilk!”
Does anybody else remember this little film!
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
::hangs on to perch for dear life::
Nice to see someone else had an attention span for the classics.
Now if I tell you I’m pretty darned sure it’s the Largo section of the “Chamber Concerto for Lute, 2 Violins & Continuo in D major, RV 93”, does that mean we’re going to elope tonight?
[I have no sound card on this computer and my music reference books are home. Double check [sample #14](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000040WX/qid=1000144167/sr=1-5/ref=sc_m_5/002-7452467-8196002) on this page and let me know. If it is, I’ll pick up a nice bouquet on my way home.]
They don’t play that anymore? I think that they still do, but, I have to admit that I don’t watch SS that much these days–I think Elmo’s World has turned me off, but my daughter likes it.
I must admit that as a child I always considered that sketch to be a “potty break”. Maybe it was the rain–who knows?
Phouchg, I remember the “Milk” sketch. Do you remember the “Beet, beet, beet, sugar beet, sugar beet, sugar beet beet” song?
Nothing of the sort. Snuffy was real, and they decided it was a bad idea to send kids the message that if they had something important to say, adults wouldn’t believe them. I believe this is discussed in Sesame Street Unpaved, although I don’t have the book handy.
I am, however, greatly saddened by the coming of “Elmo’s World” and the weird hip-hop version of the theme song.
Mommy, I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD this book!!!
Wow. Start talking about Sesame Street and I become four years old again! Cool! Off to Amazon I go.
Is it my imagination, or was Ernie’s hair more unkempt in the first few years?