American Archive of Public Broadcasting to preserve nearly 4,500 Sesame Street episodes

[ssetta]

Well, I guess maybe I'm luckier than most people. Because the only places they'll be available for viewing are the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and WGBH in Boston, and I live in the Boston area so it's like I got lucky. It's so amazing they chose Boston out of all places in the country.

 

[Oscarfan]

Not sure if this was in the original article, but another article about this says that some 381 episodes will be viewable in about six weeks from now.

 

[LanaThurlow]

Big news for all Sesame Street fans. The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) and The Library of Congress will be taking over 4,500 episodes of the show and preserving them digitally into their archives. Here is the full story:

ttps://www.loc.gov/item/prn-19-019/?loclr=fbloc&fbclid=IwAR1TqToTmgur_-nAAyoAhpA9MY88GuAf9QzBI4gGmQeQofoIWpzxUb4EKMU

I'm absolutely thrilled that they are going to remaster some of the episodes of Sesame Street. I had wondered if they will ever going to remaster the series. Due to the age of the video tapes I was surprised that they lasted that long. They may not be able to remaster all of them but its good to know that they can restore some of them.

 

[Oscarfan]

I'm absolutely thrilled that they are going to remaster some of the episodes of Sesame Street. I had wondered if they will ever going to remaster the series. Due to the age of the video tapes I was surprised that they lasted that long. They may not be able to remaster all of them but its good to know that they can restore some of them.

They're not remastering them, I don't think. Just digitally converting them straight from whatever video source they had.

 

[minor muppetz]

I thought Sesame Workshop already digitally converted every episode in the past and would really only need to make new digital copies or whatever to send to the museums.

I thought it was odd that the article mentioned that the old tape and audio is wearing out and needs to be restored/preserved, when it's said they were getting digital copies, but then I realized that it could just be talking about their mission in general. Seems the article confusingly goes from talking about obtaining Sesame Street episodes to talking about what the archive is and has done in general to talking about Sesame Street again.

That second article says that the place will eventually get every episode.

I find it interesting how it mentions a few specific episodes, but the second article at least provides links to YouTube uploads of the clips listed. Maybe it'd be better to mention things not on YouTube (which could be a bit of work for them to determine, and very little of what's not on YouTube would have the same appeal to casual fans).

 

[BertFan]

Not sure if this was in the original article, but another article about this says that some 381 episodes will be viewable in about six weeks from now.

They might be the first 381 episodes or they might just be 381 Random episodes who knows 0_o

 

[Oscarfan]

I'd assume it's the latter; the last decade or so is already digital and easy to transfer somewhere.

 

[Any Del]

I'd say they might do 7 episodes per season.

 

[Cookie3001]

This is amazing news, even though I probably won't be able to go there for years (if ever).

I wonder if there's many Muppet Wiki contributors who live a close enough distance to make regular trips. I almost feel like maybe Muppet Wiki should have a list of "suggested episodes" for people who plan to go there (it'd probably be redundant to put a note on every episode page that can be viewed there - I feel we'd be better off noting what episodes won't be available for viewing, if any).

The article says "nearly 4500 episodes" will be included, I have a feeling they were rounding the number to the nearest hundred. I checked Muppet Wiki and saw that there are 4526 episodes (does that include season 49 episodes that haven't aired yet?), so if it's exactly that number, they'll only be missing 26 episodes, but with the "nearly" wording, it could actually be less (though I don't expect more less).

Before I read here that both locations require appointments/advance notice, I wondered if there'd be computers with search engines at the location (or even online when not there, which is the case with Paley Center for Media content). I wonder how they'd list everything. Would they list episodes simply by number, or would they also make up some kind of title (like Sesame Workshop has done for digital releases, and I think the Paley Center also has "titles" for Sesame episodes in its search engine)? I also wonder how episode descriptions would be written - a basic description of the plot (if any?) and maybe a few sketch highlights? A full rundown of every segment (maybe not as detailed as Muppet Wiki/s guides, mainly just a list of how each segment is titled in scripts)? I kinda feel it might be cool to just list a basic plot/notable street scenes and all segments that debut in the episodes (though that's a lot for the first episode)? Or maybe a quick description, a few memorable inserts/notable guest appearances, and maybe a link to the wiki page (I have been wondering if episodes will be available there before every guide that can be sourced from the scripts will be made)?

I've actually been thinking that it'd be great if we could see records of what episodes most people request to see (not sure if they would make that kind of info public). I can think of episodes we all would most want to check out if given the opportunity, but I wonder what casual fans will most want to see (probably the first episode, the Hawaii episodes, episode 1839, Maria and Luis' wedding, and maybe segments they remember seeing as kids that they haven't seen in years, and maybe they'll request episodes based on what segments appear or ones with certain guest stars - though I wonder if casual fans would think to search for the clips online first, especially everything I specifically speculated).

IF episode 847 is indeed among the episodes available for viewing, I wonder if Lost Media Wiki will no longer consider it "lost" or if it's lost status will remain since, either way, it still won't be available for viewing online/on home video. And if there are episodes that won't be included, I wonder if Lost Media Wiki will add pages for those (assuming any episode not donated will be ones unavailable on video/streaming/online/in tape trading circles).

Considering there have been multiple edits of many episodes, I wonder if they'll all be the original broadcast versions or if they'll donate any re-edited versions for later broadcasts/releases (or if they'll include multiple versions of the same episode... would that count towards the number of episodes donated?).

The Tough Pigs article about this announcement points out that the official announcement does not say whether it'll include episode 847 or "Snuffy's Parents Get a Divorce".... but that really makes me wonder if they'll include the test pilots.

Lately I have given up on Episode 847, I thought it would be an eternity before we would get to see the episode but we just might get to see it now.

 

[Cookie3001]

We all hoped that more vintage episodes would be available for Sesame Street's 50th anniversary, I personally thought that there is no way we will get to see more of those but we do.