Getting episodes directly from Sesame Workshop

Rugratskid

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Look at it this way; it could be worse! Sesame Workshop COULD release 0 classic Sesame, and ignore the fanbase, catering only to the show's demographic. Not trying to sound rude, but please try to be grateful for what we HAVE gotten.

However, one thing I'd die for would be a complete set of Ernie and Bert sketches (including any songs that were made into sketches), but that would be a huge amount of work, and it's not gonna happen. But at least a lot of Ernie and Bert is on YT. Hopefully in the future, we'll get some sort of "Best of Ernie and Bert" boxset.. that would be a dream for me.
 

minor muppetz

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Look at it this way; it could be worse! Sesame Workshop COULD release 0 classic Sesame, and ignore the fanbase, catering only to the show's demographic. Not trying to sound rude, but please try to be grateful for what we HAVE gotten.

However, one thing I'd die for would be a complete set of Ernie and Bert sketches (including any songs that were made into sketches), but that would be a huge amount of work, and it's not gonna happen. But at least a lot of Ernie and Bert is on YT. Hopefully in the future, we'll get some sort of "Best of Ernie and Bert" boxset.. that would be a dream for me.
I don't think that's something that needs the "spoiler" thingy.
 

Drtooth

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Look at it this way; it could be worse! Sesame Workshop COULD release 0 classic Sesame, and ignore the fanbase, catering only to the show's demographic. Not trying to sound rude, but please try to be grateful for what we HAVE gotten.
Already said that like a million times now.

But yeah. Any other preschool programming give that much care and effort for their older, nostalgic fans? I don't think so.
 

minor muppetz

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But yeah. Any other preschool programming give that much care and effort for their older, nostalgic fans? I don't think so.
Well, there are the factors that Sesame Street is most likely (but it can be debatable) the most iconic, longest-running, still-on-the-air "preschool program". So there's a lot of good reasons for Sesame Workshop to put out stuff for its older fans than others.

Sesame Workshop did put out a couple boxed sets of The Electric Company, which wasn't on the air anymore but was big with nostalgic fans. Other "old school" Sesame Workshop shows (321 Contact, Square One TV) still don't have DVD sets, maybe they're not as iconic, or maybe they aren't old enough (well, maybe not when The Electric Company came to DVD).

When it comes to other shows, at least 100 episodes of Mister Roger's Neighborhood are available on DVD, albeit as part of a burn-on-demand program and just one episode per disc.

When it comes to other long-running preschool shows, there is a boxed set of Howdy Doody episodes. That show was on the air back when very few companies saw value in saving their shows, and I knew that there aren't many saved episodes of The Howdy Doody Show, so I was surprised to see a multi-disc boxed set of the show in stores. I knew that the last season was pre-recorded, not sure if those are the only surviving ones or not (I sort of thought most of those were reused/destroyed). Captain Kangaroo lasted a long time, but I;d like to assume that every episode still exists. Not sure whether it started out live or not, but the show did last into the mid-1980s, long after it became common for shows to be pre-recorded and saved (and I believe long after companies stopped recording over master tapes for shows not likely to be rerun), and episodes were rerun on PBS in the late 1980s. I wonder if there are any big DVD sets of that show.

While not as long-running, it's a shame that there aren't DVD sets (that I know of) for Lamb Chomp's Play-Along. And I don't know if anybody who grew up with Barney would be interested in nostalgic Barney and Friends boxed sets, but I wouldn't be surprised.

And it seems like Nickelodeon and Disney aren't interested in getting out their old preschool programming on DVD. I wonder if Shout's license to the Nickelodeon library includes early Nick Jr. shows. I once asked on Facebook and was told that the rights to not include Nick shows from the early 1980s like Pinwheel (and I read on TV Tropes that Nick wants that show to remain "a distant memory"). I feel like Disney would have more incentive to release older Disney Channel preschool shows like Dumbo's Circus and Welcome to Pooh Corner, since Winnie the Pooh is (or was until 2011) one of the companies biggest franchises and Dumbo was released on blu-ray a few years ago.

But think of all this, yeah, Sesame Workshop has treated its fans the best.
 

Drtooth

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Don't need a list, but yeah. There's few of them. Barney did strangely have some adult retro clothing, but I'm guessing out of the ones who grew up with him, more of them were less than nostalgic about it. Great appreciation for Mr. Rogers' company/estate/whatever for burn on demand DVD's. But it really seems that few preschool shows really had that tenuous grip Sesame Street had.

I know there are DVD's (both out of print and forthcoming) of Reading Rainbow, but they're more contemporary with the episodes. Not that I'd expect some of the earlier ones mind you. Especially the Arthur's Eyes episode considering who read the book in that one. Disney releasing any old TV show in any capacity is a laugh. I give them credit for actually putting Star Wars Rebels into a season DVD set, but other than that... yeah...best of luck. They didn't even release The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh outside of a couple 3 episode kiddy DVD's. That should tell you something.
 

mariolover

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That is such a Comic Book Guy mentality. Why do you think they owe us anything to that degree? SW has been VERY generous with classic stuff and you're just being selfish. They're modern webstie has hundreds of classic material playing when they're pushing the new stuff. They put classic bits occasionally on new DVDs. There's digital downloads, YouTube, etc. Just because it's not coming in the capacity you would like doesn't mean we should throw a fit.

When I had lunch with a couple of folks from SW, this is exactly the kind of thing I said to them about certain types of fans. If something rare or neat is posted, they don't thank anyone, they just ask for more rare stuff. It's completely ungrateful.
Some people just have a really hard time being patient. A lot of these rare episodes are really worth watching and it's understandable why people keep wanting to see more and more. I sometimes have a hard time being patient for rare stuff myself. I agree with these people that it's kind of unfair that Sesame Workshop has almost every (if not every) Sesame Street episode and keeps us from seeing them. I myself wish I had a hold of the whole library as well. Oscarfan, I agree with you that we should all try and be grateful for what we have. I myself am trying to learn to be more grateful for what I have and being more patient for rare stuff that I want to see. But it can be very hard sometimes, I know because I've been there. I know how all of you guys are feeling as I have the same feelings myself sometimes. I don't think these fans are trying to be rude, but they are just having the same feelings that I described above. Not trying to sound like a hard ***, just trying to explain what we are feeling.
 
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Oscarfan

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Why resurrect a thread with no posts for almost two years?
 

mariolover

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Sorry about that. I just wanted to get my point across.
 
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mariolover

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Why criticize? This isn't the first time someone's bumped an old thread.

It's no big deal. As long as you've got something to add to the conversation, say what you will.
How come you haven't replied to my message about trading yet? Do you not want to trade with me anymore? You can be honest.
 
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