Mr. Rogers/Sesame Street crossovers

Splurge

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Re: Reply

Originally posted by Daffyfan2003
Yeah, I can imagine Carroll would be devastated by this loss.

A little side note in response to what you said. I never realized Carroll performed anybody besides Big Bird and Oscar. (Well, there was Bruno, Oscar's "garbage man." That sort of got me confused since it was Carroll playing both of them.)
I'll try not to get too much off topic, but episodes in the first season, Caroll would often play background Anything Muppets along with Jim and Frank. In the first episode he played a purple AM which became the "mother" of a family being constructed by Gordon. This was a time I was speaking of when Caroll's voice sounded like Lady Elaine Fairchild.
 

SillyRed

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Him and his voice were also included in another PBS kids show, Arthur. Binky made fun of his "Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood" song. Arthur thought he was going to be laughed at by his students since Mr. Rogers came to visit the Read house.
 

mikebennidict

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TravellingMatt said:
Here's the synopsis of the Mr. Rogers appearance on Sesame Street:

Big Bird and Snuffy are going to run a footrace, and Big Bird wants one of the adults to judge it. However, this was when everyone thought Snuffy wasn't real and it's a hot day outside, so the Bird is given the brush-off. Later, Mr. Rogers shows up waiting for a bus, and he believes Big Bird and agrees to judge the footrace. However, he has to go before he sees Snuffy run (of course, he's infinitely slower than the Bird in terms of speed) and when Snuffy finally catches up to Big Bird, the Bird tells him he saw Mr. Rogers. Snuffy (in an ironic twist of fate) doesn't believe him. Later, Mr. Rogers comes to Big Bird's nest and they chit-chat, and Big Bird lets Mr. Rogers play with Radar, the teddy bear.

There were other Mr. Rogers references on Sesame Street. During one of Ernie's guessing games, Bert suggests that he's hiding a picture of Mr. Rogers. Another time the Muppet Show jugband (in an appearance during a pledge drive) made a reference to him.
speaking of Mr. Rogers, maybe this isn't the best spot to post this, but Carol Spinny was on a local show here in chicago talking about his career and he mentioned that Mr. Rogers wanted to show the kids that Mr. Spinny was making him work as anyone who's watched his show over the years Rogers always felt it was important for kids to understand what is real and what isn't. he's emphisized this many times on his long time peogram. however Mr. Spinny did not wish to do this. i don't recall if this was his personal choice or Mr. Henson did not wish to let kids know that BB wasn't real. i don't know how to exactly feel about this. i think that maybe either Henson or spinny didn't have to be candid about the fact people made BB and the other muppets work. it was even mentioned Mr. Rogers decided not to have spinny either appear in his TV home or Spinny chosen not to appear if he had to reveal what Rogers wanted him to do. while i don't comdem Mr. Rogers for wanting kids to know the truth though i think he might of gone to far in what he did. i don't have any disrespect to the man i certainly thought he was an honorable man and got a hot of heat over the years for his show and probably was never was as popular as SS. but maybe he over did this particular case.
 

jrod

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The episode with Big Bird going to the neighborhood of make believe was shown about 5 months ago. I taped that whole week and didnt get a chance to tape that episode with big bird on it :sympathy:
 

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mikebennidict said:
speaking of Mr. Rogers, maybe this isn't the best spot to post this, but Carol Spinny was on a local show here in chicago talking about his career and he mentioned that Mr. Rogers wanted to show the kids that Mr. Spinny was making him work as anyone who's watched his show over the years Rogers always felt it was important for kids to understand what is real and what isn't. he's emphisized this many times on his long time peogram. however Mr. Spinny did not wish to do this. i don't recall if this was his personal choice or Mr. Henson did not wish to let kids know that BB wasn't real. i don't know how to exactly feel about this. i think that maybe either Henson or spinny didn't have to be candid about the fact people made BB and the other muppets work. it was even mentioned Mr. Rogers decided not to have spinny either appear in his TV home or Spinny chosen not to appear if he had to reveal what Rogers wanted him to do. while i don't comdem Mr. Rogers for wanting kids to know the truth though i think he might of gone to far in what he did. i don't have any disrespect to the man i certainly thought he was an honorable man and got a hot of heat over the years for his show and probably was never was as popular as SS. but maybe he over did this particular case.
I think Mr. Rogers and Carol Spinny (and/or Jim Henson) just had different styles that they had to discuss before getting together. I think it would have been a big mistake for Carol Spinny to take off his Big Bird costume on television, at the same time, I'm not sure it would have really worked to have the "real" Big Bird visit Mr. Rogers, since all of his other guests were always human. Big Bird in the Neighborhood Of Make-Believe was probably the perfect compromise. Mr. Rogers obviously had no problem appearing on Sesame Street and interacting with Big Bird in character. Mr. Rogers just had a certain format for his show that he wanted to be consistent with.
 

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There's also an old street skit where Big Bird wants to watch Mr. Rogers, but his television set is broken. Cookie Monster comes along and tries to fix it, but all he does is make a big cookie appear on every channel.
 

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mikebennidict said:
when does that go back to?

It was some time in the mid seventies. Actually, prior to the 80's, there were several street skits that involved Cookie Monster.


Here are a couple of other mid 70 street skits with Cookie Monster:

Cookie falls down, hits his head, and gets amnesia. Everyone thinks that cookies will bring his memory back, but he just says that they taste like "rocks". He regains his memory with the old cliché of another hit on the head.

Another one involved Cookie Monster looking for a quiet place to eat a bunch of cookies, but everywhere he goes, he gets interrupted by someone in the street. At one point, he goes off to a small desert island to be alone, but sure enough, there is someone on the island who wants somebody to talk to. (The inhabitant is actually Northern Calloway in a dual role. The set up looked similar to his skit with Maria as a genie, except he had a long black beard this time).

I know there were several others too. It was not unusal, in the seventies, to have a whole show revolve around Cookie, Bert, Ernie, Grover, or some other "skit muppet" in the street scene. There was even a very early show that was about Kermit's being sick and Susan nursing him back to health. Those were the days.
 
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