The darker side:
70s Sesame Street shorts that freaked you out.
:eek:
OK - I started that thread when I was still drinking. My apologies. 
Well, the psychological breakdown happened almost ten years before he left the show. Here’s a different Google link that explains things a little bit better. Read the whole thread. The thread also includes the entire text of the newspaper articles that describe Calloway’s incident and that were alluded to in The Man Who’s link.
(Yes, the Tamex who posted in that link is yours truly. So, why did I perpetuate Sesame Street Unpaved’s mistake when I posted here? Who knows. I’m going to cross out 1989 and pencil in 1990 in the book–I know it’s probably going to come up again someday!)
A basic breakdown:
- Northern Calloway goes on “neighborhood rampage” in Nashville, Tennessee in September 1980.
- He continues to work on Sesame Street until the end of the 1988-89 season (the episode where Maria gives birth to Gabriela). Then, he leaves the show. His absence is explained at the beginning of the next season with a postcard that David sends to his friends on Sesame Street explaining that he had to leave Sesame Street to take care of a relative (or something like that.)
- He dies on January 9, 1990 (not in 1989 like I posted above) at the age of 41. His relatives never publicly announced the true cause of his death, but the IMDB lists it as stomach cancer.
OMG Captain Vegetable! He was the coolest. The way he used to sing the song came back to me as I read that post:
“It is IIIIIIII/Captain Vegetaaaabllllllllle… with my caaaaaROTS/And my CEL-er-yyyyyy…”
Hasn’t anyone else been singing as they read this thread? Why are you all looking at me that way? Why?
“OnetwothreeFOURfivesixseveneightNINEteneleventwe-eh-eh-ell-ell-elve!”
I always thought it was Jack Sheldon (of ‘Conjunction Junction’ and other Schoolhouse Rock fame).
Can’t find a Google cite or IMDB Sesame Street credit. But to my addled brain “hookin’ up phrases and clauses” seems to have the same easy jazzy lilt.
AmbushBug
My all-time favorite SESAME STREET sketch:
It’s Linda’s birthday. When she unwraps her present from Big Bird, Susan and Gordon are horrified. In his innocence, Big Bird gave Linda a record player! He had forgotten that Linda is deaf.
Susan and Gordon hustle Big Bird off into a corner to explain his mistake to him. Big Bird is ashamed, and prepares to apologize to Linda. Then they all hear music–
And they find Linda, looking absolutely radiant, with one hand on the record player’s speaker, dancing to the vibrations of the music that she feels.
What a great sketch.
Ambush, I think you are right, that IS the same voice!
I knew there was some reason I was starting to hum,
Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence
And what the predicate says, he does
It sure sounds like the same voice.
Wasn’t it “A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter”?
This always puzzled me. What size and type container? Did his mom want a gallon jug or a half-gallon carton? Did she want skim milk, whole milk, or 2%? And who sells just a stick of butter? (Maybe they did back in the old days. I still think the “container” objection is valid, though.)
Did she really say “quart” and I just heard wrong? I still hear “container” in my mind.
Yeah, you are probably right about it being “container”, but I know it was a stick of butter! hee hee!
I also remember thinking it was wierd, even as a little kid, that it was only a stick of butter. I thought he was going to have to go back real soon for more.
Like I’d really send my kids to the store these days, anyway! haha!
Thanks for the bonus info on Northern Calloway, Tamex. And “container” matches my memory too.
I’m gonna have to move “All About Sesame Street” (1971) farther up on my “to read” list. I picked it up at the used book place for a buck last week, and now I’m on a “wanna know” kick.
-Myron
Oh, and I had never heard that stuff about David! Too strange!
I thought he always had a thing for Maria.
This is bordering on obnoxious, but I am having major flashback episodes over all this!
Anybody remember Teeny Little Super Guy?
He was drawn onto a plastic cup and he lived in the corner cabinet lazy susan? He interacted with utensils and all kinds of kitchen stuff.
Somebody tell me I’m not having a false SS memory brought on by all this group collective recall!
I love the Teeny Little Superguy. Remember when he learned to ride an eggbeater?
I am pretty sure the singer is NOT the same guy who sang the Schoolhouse Rock songs. Can I prove it? No. But I’m still pretty certain. I’d really love to learn more about all the animated stuff on Sesame Street in general - there were some clever people doing that stuff!
My God! My mother has been lying to me all these years!
I mentioned this in scott evil’s thread but I’ll throw it out again.
I used to love the sketches with Maria (sometimes dressed as Chaplin’s Little Tramp) that included Spanish words. A-bier-to!/Cerrado!
But I was too young to understand that this was a different language, I thought they were teaching us a more advanced or formal form of English with words that only adults used. Like a code or dialect that kids couldn’t understand. It was how my little mind explained when adults said things I didn’t quite understand. But I wondered why I never saw signs with the words from the sketches on them out in public, no local Hispanic population obviously, but how was I to know.
I loved the “Manah Manah” song, but my favorite was the sketch with the song that started:
fat. Fat!
cat. Cat!
sat. Sat!
mat. Mat!
Then the monster ran up to the screen, overexcited, shouting a sentence using all the words until another monster walked up and shook his head at him until the first monster trailed off and walked away hanging his head, embarassed.
I thought that was so cool.
Zippy, zippy, zing, zing, zebra zoo… we had 45’s with songs for letters of the alphabet on each side. Too cool.
I also liked the guy that painted numbers on everything.
My sister still has the Count doll that we gave her… scared the living shit out of her. She would hide it when she went to bed. It has the string you pull and he does his evil laugh.
Good times…
Actually, this is briefly touched upon in the book. Look on page 119 (Luis’s page).
On page 121 (David’s page), the little bubble next to David says “BOYFRIEND OF: Maria (until Luis made his guacamole for her)”.
So, there you go.
On Maria’s page (page 118), it mentions that Sonia Manzano (Maria) and Northern Calloway (David) went to high school together–New York’s High School of the Performing Arts, where Fame took place, in fact.
My fave was “U really got a hold on me.” This foam “U” with eyes has some serious love for the singer and keeps gripping onto him. All I remember about the singer is that he was a middle-aged black man… I don’t know if he was famous because my pop culture knowledge was nonexistent at that time.
Although it’s my favorite sketch, I do remember that it sort of scared me, too. I think it’s because the entire exchange is taking place in an abyss, or fifth dimension, or something. There’s no floor or ceiling or any sort of reference point: just this (rather large) foam U and the object of its affection, which cannot escape.
Sorry for the double post: apparently the guy in question was Smokey Robinson.
A lot of this ground was covered in this thread.