Are there Season 1 shows floating around?

[hooperfan]

I noticed on Muppet Wiki that there are screengrabs of all the segments to these shows:
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_0002
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_0003
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_0011

This has really got me curious...I'd love to see these shows!

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

hooperfan,

 

[minor muppetz]

Somebody in the thread about classic clips on YouTube mentioned that he obtained copies of episodes 2-14 from a secret source (and Muppet Wiki now has a guide for episode 4 as well). Hopefully the rest of those episodes will have guides on the wiki soon.

In the past year, we've gotten the rare "Cracks" (sent to the uploader by an anonymous source) and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (albeit an "unlisted" link) and now somebody has all these early episodes (but isn't allowed to say who sent them, either that or refuses to), and today I learned on Facebook that Tiny Dancer (of The Sesame Street Lyrics Archive) obtained rare copies of various segments with pre-rolls included from somebody who worked/interned at Sesame Workshop and put some on YouTube (most of them are segments that aren't exactly rare). I wonder if Sesame Workshop (or whoever) is secretly trying to help fans get closer to seeing every episode, or every classic episode, or to get Muppet Wiki closer to being complete when it comes to episode pages.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, for years somebody (was it more than just one fan?) had speculated that the season one credits crawl included in Old School Volume 1 was taken from the fifth episode. Turns out whoever thought that was correct.

And so now it makes sense why Old School Volume 1 doesn't show the sponsors with the credits crawl: Turns out that they did something different with the pre-credits sponsors the first time: Each letter was announced one at a time, and each letter announced was followed by a letter insert. For some reason, the number sponsors were not mentioned. With that in mind, it makes sense that we didn't see the sponsors included on the DVD... But after the credits is something that was cut from the DVD credit crawl: mention of the book read in that episode (which makes sense, probably rights issues).

By episode 115, the letter and number sponsors are announced the usual way before the end credits, without each sponsor being followed by a segment. Hopefully the guide for episode 10 will be presented soon and we'll know if they continued that the next time they had end credits.

I was looking at the CTW Archives "first season show content" on Muppet Wiki and saw that episode 15 has a few rare segments I have been really interested in seeing/knowing about. But the person who obtained these rare episodes only got episodes up to episode 14. So close and yet so far....

It is interesting to finally see what "Brotherhood of Man" is like. The first season show content document listed it and also mentioned "block party", which got me interested in knowing the context, and now I know that it was originally part of a street story involving a block party. It looks like that is the first time we see Muppets behind the fench between 123 Sesame Street and Hooper's Store, and the first episode to include nighttime on the street. I wonder if that's the first to use the nighttime version of the closing theme. And yet with the episode involving a block party, it's a shame they didn't include Ernie, Bert, Kermit, and the monsters (just Anything Muppets) in the street scenes (unless the guide is just leaving out any mention and photos of such). In fact it would have been a great opportunity to include Buddy and Jim on the street.

It's also interesting to know that the first season had two covers of Up, Up, and Away. There's one time when it seemed to be a film of sort, and the CTW Archives material lists the song as a Muppet segment as well.

 

[fuzzygobo]

I was around when the Muppet version of "Up Up and Away" was shown. Some years back I posted a synopsis of the skit (it might take some digging, but my post should still be here some pages back).
With the good fortune we had of seeing other Season One songs posted recently, this gem will hopefully reappear too.
For me, after 40+ years, it will be worth the wait.

 

[minor muppetz]

It's as if learning more about these early episodes is a 45th anniversary gift for the show and fans. I don't know when that fan obtained these episodes, but I didn't hear about it until after the anniversary week. Wouldn't it be great if these episodes had become available a little sooner so there could be an article on the first week of shows among the many online articles about the anniversary?

 

[minor muppetz]

Previously "A Little Bit at the Beginning" was listed as first appearing in the third episode, but on that page it mentions a film segment with portions that were later edited into the song, and no mention of the song there. I guess a change is in order... "A Little Bit at the Beginning" is sometimes listed as "Beginnings", and that title is listed in the CTW Archives first season show content, with no obvious mention of the song. I guess that means that the segment didn't appear in the first season (don't know how I feel about the DVD release of the first episode having a song from a later season, though it is quite appropriate for the first episode).

Looking at the documents, it seems that one of these recently-acquired episodes features "Everybody Wash" without the part with Ernie drying off. It'll be interesting to know how that looks that way.

 

[hooperfan]

It's definitely exciting to see these "out there"... I've always had hope that *something* would come out, since the CTW/SW archives are still intact...unlike many shows from the 50s and 60s, the tapes were not destroyed or erased, so that gave me hope...

At the time that I started my Hooperfan Page back in the late 90s, we didn't even have Noggin (or YouTube). All I had of the early years was the first episode that I acquired from CTW and the "Christmas Eve" show, not counting the record albums...since then, we've had Noggin, the "Old School" sets, the iTunes releases, and fans sharing their goodies on YouTube...but being a die-hard fan, it's still not nearly enough

 

[minor muppetz]

Some rare clips from these episodes have surfaced on YouTube.

Here's Brotherhood of Man:

And one I've been wanting to see for years, a claymation short on the letter E, which I'm sure Jim Henson worked on though his voice isn't heard. And after watching this, no wonder the first season show content had "dump" by it, the explosion at the end must have disturbed some kids.

And here's Susan singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl".

 

[Bliffenstimmers]

a claymation short on the letter E, which I'm sure Jim Henson worked on though his voice isn't heard.

I'm certain he at least voices the eagle. If he did the Quincy cartoon and the first season episode number intro, chances are he did this too. The style's so distinct, there's no way it can't be Jim's. By far one of his weirder animations, not only for Sesame, but just in general.