Rare "Cracks" animation from 1970's Sesame Street

[minor muppetz]

I think the confusion over Seven Monsters not airing was due to a Muppet Wiki post from a long time ago, after somebody had contacted Karen Falk about Jim Henson's involvement in the Frank Oz-directed Number Three Ball Film (see muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:_Number_Three_Ball_Film ), where she explained that Henson was free to collaborate with anybody on his season two films. It was mentioned there that Henson's collaborations with Maurice Sendak, "Bumble Ardy" and "Seven Monsters", didn't air on the show, but there are fans who know that "Bumble Ardy" did air on the show, I guess an EKA is listed for that segment or something. After that, I believe that Red Book posts and the 40th anniversary books confirmed that the segments did air, but they freaked kids out (and had some things that were a little inappropriate for the show, like drinking wine and cannonballs) and therefore were dropped from the show.

 

[Drtooth]

Bumble Ardy did air for a while on the show, and I totally remember seeing it several times. I've never seen Seven Monsters on the show personally, even in the mid-80's where a lot of earlier bits still were on the series. I mean, I'd totally remember that freaky house running into the screen at the end. That's totally something that would scare kids in a "not even the fourth wall can save you" sort of way. I can totally believe it was on the series if that's the case. It just probably stopped airing before VCR's were common. So the animator himself uploaded it. Looked like it came directly from film and not tape. Much, much too clean to be from a tape.

It just all comes down to why did dycaite's clip come with a title card? That shows they're even more organized than we think.

Someone clearly had a work print while the private tape trade came from someone who somehow had footage of an episode. We've been getting a lot of master tapes from time to time with either vague comments about non-disclosures or just somehow falling into the laps of some of the members here. I guess we may never know how he got the tape from the master copy, I'll just guess it's from some employee of SW's that had to sort through old footage for some reason.

Seriously. SW needs to get some volunteers to work at their archives. Or more of them if they don't already. I can also see things not getting official releases for rights issues, now that I think about it. I'm sure they must have to pay some royalties on some of their clips. That's why all the Swedish Number Series clips are from uploaded viewer tapes, and why they were pulled from the official DVD releases.

 

[minor muppetz]

Seriously. SW needs to get some volunteers to work at their archives. Or more of them if they don't already. I can also see things not getting official releases for rights issues, now that I think about it. I'm sure they must have to pay some royalties on some of their clips. That's why all the Swedish Number Series clips are from uploaded viewer tapes, and why they were pulled from the official DVD releases.

I have read that one of the Swedish number cartoons did appear on the DVD Elmo Says Boo! Not really sure if it's any that was cut from Old School Volume 3.

 

[Drtooth]

The page for Old School 3 mentions these cuts

 

[Blue Frackle]

Someone clearly had a work print while the private tape trade came from someone who somehow had footage of an episode. We've been getting a lot of master tapes from time to time with either vague comments about non-disclosures or just somehow falling into the laps of some of the members here. I guess we may never know how he got the tape from the master copy, I'll just guess it's from some employee of SW's that had to sort through old footage for some reason.

Yup; I think Jon Armond's clip was from someone who originally worked on the short, recorded it when it aired on an episode and then passed it down to an heir, and then the whole "you can't upload it to YouTube for ___ reason" thing happened.

Seriously. SW needs to get some volunteers to work at their archives. Or more of them if they don't already. I can also see things not getting official releases for rights issues, now that I think about it. I'm sure they must have to pay some royalties on some of their clips. That's why all the Swedish Number Series clips are from uploaded viewer tapes, and why they were pulled from the official DVD releases.

I will volunteer, and I will sneak out with a copy of Margaret Hamilton, only to duplicate and return of course.

 

[minor muppetz]

The page for Old School 3 mentions these cuts

I know, I just didn't feel like checking at the time.

But the clip that appears in Elmo Says Boo is one about eight ghosts, which doesn't appear to be among the ones cut. After hearing about these cuts, I was surprised when I saw that one of them was on an earlier compilation (I know, like I always say, the Muppet Weird Stuff compilation has clips that were cut from TMS season one), thinking that if one animation from an artist/studio was cleared that others would be. Maybe things changed, or maybe that's not how it works at all.

 

[Censored]

The Margaret Hamilton episode may have been shunned for its content, but it is hardly the only street scene that is unavailable. Even though we can see much more classic street scenes online than I ever dreamed we would, it should be noted that there are still MANY more that need to be found.

 

[Luke kun]

That said, that's a very interesting story behind how Cracks was found, some of us actually remember it going down right down to the note from the animator mis-attributed to it.

I remember it too.

But the clip that appears in Elmo Says Boo is one about eight ghosts, which doesn't appear to be among the ones cut.

It was 8 bats, if I recall.

 

[Blue Frackle]

Perhaps there is an avenue of solving this mystery...

Does anyone own any Plaza Sésamo VHS tapes? Someone in the comments of the Cracks video said they own an official VHS tape with this on there... any chance the animator could be credited in the credits? I have seen VHS tapes before where the animators are credited.

 

[Flaky Pudding]

I would like to see parody where Quagmire's head is on the Crack Master and instead of "I AM CRACK MASTER!" he says "Giggitty, giggitty, goo!".