Warner Home Video now distributing Sesame Workshop DVDs

[Drtooth]

The one thing I'd disagree with is that if Julie on Sesame Street gets released on DVD, who's gonna bet it's the company that did that stupid Christmas special?

Anyway, yeah. I really want Old School 3, I'm glad they released it, but the fact that they couldn't secure the rights to their own theme song is disturbing. Sure, Fox didn't want to spend the same money a completely respectful Anti-Diarrhea commercial has to negotiate with Frank Sinatra's estate to keep Love and Marriage in the DVD version of Married with Children. But the Sesame Street theme song was written FOR the show and they SHOULD own it. It must be WB's crappy connections that kept it off the set.

I've never been happy with how WB released these things. They've gotten tolerable with DVD bonus features that are actually more than one lousy skit you can find on Youtube, but if we can't even have the show's theme song, it's time to break the partnership and go for someone competent.

 

[Oscarfan]

I've been thinking...as much as I want to see more classic episodes on DVD - complete seasons, random scenes here and there, anything - just like everyone else here, part of me insists that it's best they don't.

Why? Because they'll make tons of unnecessary edits like replacing the original title cards of certain segments with the updated versions, and cutting out scenes and sketches due to "rights issues" (or some other stupid excuse), even when said scenes are important to the episode.

To me, the only thing worse than old episodes not being released on DVD is old episodes heavily altered on DVD.

I'm willing to bet that if Julie on Sesame Street gets a DVD release, the first thing they're gonna axe is this number:

With all that said, I'd rather have crap quality yet complete episodes and specials than to have fully restored, heavily edited versions.

This is what someoone on the TP forum has to argue that:

I would be "don't bother with it" if it were, say, The Complete Season Four of TMS, Except for the Anne Murray and Star Wars Episodes, and All Scooter's Scenes are Cut, and Each Episode has One Scene Missing that you Have To Unlock in Some Kind Of Brainless Interactive DVD Game. Then it's not complete and in my sense, a lousy product.
This, however, is just a "random" batch of episodes and sketches slapped together to form a timeframe. I don't necessarily need the complete episodes as-they-aired-in-1981, I just like to watch my batch of Sesame.

The DVDs never promised uncut episodes, so I don't know why there's complaining. You all just assumed.

 

[minor muppetz]

The one thing I'd disagree with is that if Julie on Sesame Street gets released on DVD, who's gonna bet it's the company that did that stupid Christmas special?

I've wondered whether that special is owned by Sesame Workshop or an outside company (it was recorded at Lord Grade's ATV Studio). But just because another company owns it (and again, I don't know if that's the case) doesn't mean the company that released A Special Sesame Street Christmas will/can release it.

 

[Drtooth]

The DVDs never promised uncut episodes, so I don't know why there's complaining. You all just assumed.

I'll split the difference. On the one hand, it's perfectly understandable that there are things they can't have on the DVD's due to rights stupidity and values dissonance and whatever. On the other hand, while they didn't promise these would be uncut, they never said they were either. We got a simulation of the episodes, in some cases, with contradictory segments. One episode featured a completely different end that advertised letters and numbers because they couldn't clear the rights to a song Stevie Wonder wrote specifically for Sesame Street making matters worse that they were able to secure the rights to have the song on CD . Though, they randomly cut out another segment to make alterations for that alternate ending. And it still doesn't do anything about the wrong number/letter sponsors. I still don't know what the deal with cutting Dialing for Prizes. Some grumpy old estate jerk not allow background photos SW was too lazy to blur out or something?

But that's understandable, and the sketches are somewhere on Youtube or something.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, though... the fact they couldn't get their own theme song written specifically for the show that they should own the copyright to, and the fact that we have absolutely no reason why that was a problem is a bit jarring. Celebrity rights/character rights/outside music rights... that stuff makes sense. Not securing your own music? That's bull. It does not affect my desire to own Old School 3, but for the love of Pete, the theme song better the shell be on the disk for Old School 4.

 

[Bliffenstimmers]

Technically the theme song IS there, in the form of the instrumental credits version. Though it still makes me wonder why they didn't include the original intros. :/

 

[Drtooth]

It wouldn't be a huge conspiracy if they didn't replace the theme song in some skit with generic music. Or if, as I'm to understand, some other SS videos released by WHV didn't suspiciously skip the theme song either...

I do have a crappy AOSTH DVD I got free from a coupon that always skips the opening and closing of every episode for Marathon play convenience, but it had the theme song in all the menus.

 

[minor muppetz]

Why? Because they'll make tons of unnecessary edits like replacing the original title cards of certain segments with the updated versions, and cutting out scenes and sketches due to "rights issues" (or some other stupid excuse), even when said scenes are important to the episode.

Actually, it seems like very few title cards were replaced with later ones on DVD. The main exception seems to be most of the Sesame Street News segments on DVD having the late-1980s card (and none of the ones that originally had that card have been released on video yet), and most of the recurring segments included as bonus skits on Old School Volume 2 (Here is Your Life, Super-Grover, and, again, Sesame Street News), but otherwise most of them have been released with whatever original title card was used. "Put Down the Duckie" is the only video release that replaced the original Monsterpiece Theater title card with an updated opening (as well as the only one to have the redone Alistair Cookie scenes). As far as I know* all other Monsterpiece Theater segments on video have whatever opening was original to the segment.

*=I don't know whether the late-1990s green curtain intro was originally used for the Little Red Riding Cookie segment, which is how it's presented in the "C is For Cookie Monster" DVD, but I assume that's how it was originally presented.

 

[Drtooth]

The title card differences seem to only affect outside, single clips. I bet that's just because it's easier to archive something that was used more recently than to paw through older episodes. I mean, they do have around 4000 hours of footage to paw through (someone HAS to have calculated the exact number), and if those segments are seen on a more recent episode, it's far easier.

Unless of course my other theory is correct and they just update certain masters of these skits every so often. That does kind of suck, and it is revisionist. As long as those are in the bonus features pile, I don't mind. If they pulled that crap with actual episodes, that's another thing.

It's like when ending logos at the end of a cartoon released ob DVD goes with the newest logo. I HATE that Inspector Gadget DVD's don't have the classic "Gadget clumsily flails by on skates and dots the "i" with a mallet" DIC logo... but I REALLY hate it that they have the ugly eyesore with terrible music "Wonderful World of DIC" thing.

 

[minor muppetz]

The title card differences seem to only affect outside, single clips. I bet that's just because it's easier to archive something that was used more recently than to paw through older episodes. I mean, they do have around 4000 hours of footage to paw through (someone HAS to have calculated the exact number), and if those segments are seen on a more recent episode, it's far easier.

I was going to point out that sesamestreet.org is a little inconsistent (if that's the word I'm looking for) when it comes to including the original title cards or later ones. Many of the earliest Sesame Street News segments are shown with the original pink logo (Rupunzel is one of the few exceptions, but that makes sense since it's the version with the ending edited), while it can be unpredictable regarding which logos are shown (well, if it originally had the last logo then that one's more predictable). In the past the website had the sketch with The Count, Three Little Pigs, and Seven Dwarfs with the late-1980s logo, but after the site replaced many of the clips with better-quality versions, it is now shown with the black and white logo (which is also superimposed over the action). Though when it comes to releases of full episodes, one of the season five episodes on iTunes is presented with the late-1980s title card (something tells me the segment replaced something that got cut, but I don't know for sure).

As I previously said, most DVD releases of Monsterpiece Theater segments are shown with whatever title sequences the segments originally had, and with the original intros/outtros. But on sesamestreet.org, most of the segments are shown with either the early-90s sequence or the late-90s opening sequence (most of the 80s ones are presented with the late-90s sequence). "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Chariots of Fur" are the only ones on the site shown with the original opening sequence.

I've read that they didn't start replacing title cards from older segments until the early 1990s, so if we get Old School volumes that go past 1990, we'll most likely get "full" episodes with replacement title cards on segments, but that's acceptable if they were originally shown that way in the episodes.

I was thinking about the lack of the theme song on Old School Volume 3, and the fact that the theme music still played at the end of the episodes (and the very beginning of some) yet was replaced in other sequences. There was one contributor to The Muppet Mindset who did a series of articles called "?", where all of his questions ended up getting official answers (and he wasn't expecting to get an official answer on the first one, at least). He discontinued that series, but I'd like him to maybe revive it and ask why the opening was cut from most of Old School Volume 3. That might be a way for us to know. The song was written by three people, and I wonder if there were money issues with Bruce Hart (since I know other Joe Raposo songs were included, and much of Jon Stone's work was included). But then if they could include music but not lyrics, why not include the closing themes, since the closing theme is instrumental?

One more thing I've been thinking about... We don't know whether Sesame Workshop will celebrate the 45th anniversary (I'll be surprised if they don't, but we technically don't know for sure if they will yet) or if there'll be a 45th anniversary DVD like 40 Years of Sunny Days, but I thought of something that would be cool. Back in 2008 Sesame Workshop's facebook page let the fans nominate clips for the DVD (that's the whole reason I joined facebook), and in 2012 they let fans vote on clips (chosen by Sesame Workshop) for the Best of Friends DVD. It would be great if they could plan a similar 45th anniversary collection, allow fans to nominate clips for a certain amount of time, and then on a weekly basis allow fans to vote for certain clips. Like one week have the fans vote for clips with certain characters, the next have fans vote for certain Monsterpiece Theater/Sesame Street News/Waiter Grover/Super Grover segments, the next week vote for certain songs or animated segments.... That'd be cool.

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

Looks like we're getting a couple of Target Exclusives pretty soon. It makes me wonder if this will be an ongoing series:

http://www.target.com/p/sesame-stre...591923#prodSlot=medium_3_1&term=sesame+street

http://www.target.com/p/sesame-stre...591924#prodSlot=medium_3_2&term=sesame+street