All-Star Alphabet is availible now!

[minor muppetz]

If The Count is reading this, you might be interested in one of the features on this DVD. I am not sure if other recent Sesame Street DVDs have this feature, but there is an audio options feature. I haven't used this feature, but i checked out the menu for it, and it says that it gives audio descriptions for visually impaired people.

 

[jeffkjoe]

I just bought this DVD for my daughter.

I give it a C+.

The pros: It has bonus classic clips like: "Daddy Dear (D)" , "Capital I", "ZZZ-Zoomers!"

The cons: all of the bumper segments with Nicole Sullivan and Stephen Colbert are REALLY lame.

Not enough Muppets, as was said before. And not enough classic clips. Stick with LEARNING ABOUT LETTERS.

 

[minor muppetz]

Not enough Muppets, as was said before. And not enough classic clips. Stick with LEARNING ABOUT LETTERS.

yeah, that and The Alphabet Game are both better. Heck, even Do The Alphabet is better than this. I haven't seen Alphabet Jungle Game, so I don't know how good or bad that is.

If an All-Star Numbers video gets made, then it better be better and have some Muppets (as opposed to actors in number costumes) in the linking footage, and it had better have five classic counting clips as bonus features (even if the majority of the video includes classic skis).

One thing I noticed was that most of the muppet segments in this video feature monsters.

 

[minor muppetz]

some segments

I was just rewatching some of this video, not all of it, skipping past some, and I can tell you some more of the skits on there. I still am not sure how to describe the E, G or V skits, and there are some that I skipped past (the chapters for segments only go for all the letters during a seqeunce of inserts at once, so you can't just go directly to a certain skit unless the one you want to wacth right away is the first one of that chapter).

The B song is called Theres No Letter Better Than B.
The H song is called Soul H.

I'll try to watch soem more later, but I don't know when that later is yet.

I don't think this is the worst Sesame Street video in the world. It is certainly better than Learn To Share, Elmocize, and The Great Numbers Game. I was looking at the credits on the box (for writers, directors, and producers) and I do not recognize any of those names. I don't know whether they work for Sesame Street or not, but I have a feeling that somebody at either Sony Wonder or Sesame Workshop wanted to produce a video that taught the alphabet and at the last minute decided that it wasn't very good and decided to use the Sesame Street name as the selling point, include some Sesame Street segments, and have the hosts refer to it as Sesame Streets All-Star Alphabet. Not much rewriting needed there. Or maybe they didn't plan on it being a Sesame Street video but it tested poorly so only a few scenes were reshot (the parts that refer to it as Sesame Streets All-Star Alphabet) and maybe the opening music could have been changed (the sesame street theme played at the beginning).

I think that the letters should have interviewed some regular characters. Big Bird could have been there (if there just wasn't any way for a performer to hide while performing, but not having much room to hide a performer never prevented Henson or Sesame Workshop from having the Muppets appear on location). Elmo could have also been there, as could Cookie Monster and Prarie Dawn. Zoe could have helped cheer up the letter Z (since her name begins with Z).

 

[minor muppetz]

Here are some other segments that were included:

Jumpin' J
a group of black girls clap and say K words
a cartoon with a guy talking about the letter L (yeah, I know, not a very good description)
kids posing to form the letter N
an O skit I can't describe well (it looks like a guy is standing on his hands spinning inside an O)
a P skit that I still can't figure out how to describe (it has P listed for words like paper, point, and peel)

 

[minor muppetz]

Thinking about this video kind of reminds me of two Sesame Street albums that I read about that hardly qualify as Sesame Street albums.

One of these was In harmony, which I read a review of at either www.epinions.com or www.amazon.com. From what I read, this song mainly has songs sung by celebrities, and only one or two of the songs have any muppets from Sesame Street.

The other album, which is an even poorer excuse for a Sesame Street album, is Anne Murray Sings For The Sesame Street Generation. As far as I know, this is nothing but an Anne Murray album using the Sesame Street name as a selling point, either to sell an Anne Murray album to kids or to sell a Sesame Street album to adults. From the track listing, and I forget what songs are listed, there are no songs from Sesame Street (that I know of) included, and none of the Sesame Street characters sing on these albums. If the Sesame Street name is going to be used, then they should at least have Anne Murray sing with Ernie, Bert, Grover, Big Bird, Prarie Dawn, or any other recognizable character.

 

[minor muppetz]

a pro

One good thing about this DVD is that, as far as I know, none of the segments incldued were ever included on any other Sesame Street video or DVD release. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

Let's hope that future Sesame Street DVDs include bonus sketches. What's The name Of That Song? and Happy healthy Monsters did. Oddly enough, the amount of segments are different on each DVD. If an All-Star Numbers gets made, then it better have five classic counting sketches (and one of those classics better be a baker film, and another better be a jazzy spies film).