Sesame Street Episode 847 with Margaret Hamilton

[Cookie3001]

The nudity in Don't Eat the Pictures were just statues though. A lot of ancient art features nudity in tasteful ways.

I know, I'm just surprised nobody was bothered or offended by that

 

[Flaky Pudding]

The funniest complaint that CTW received was the one where the lady who was a real witch herself complained about the show perpetuating stereotypes about witches and was really offended by it because the concept of witches being grumpy old hags with green skin who fly around on broomsticks and have huge pointy hats is nothing more than an offensive stereotypical portrayal.

That one really made me laugh. I can understand people writing in because their kids were scared of the episode. But come on, claiming that the show was targeting real life wiccans with the portrayal of the character. That felt SOOO random and out of the blue compared to the other complaints centering around concerned parents complaining about the witch giving their children nightmares. I almost thought it was satire at first but then realized that nobody would prank the FCC like that unless they have a ridiculous amount of free time on their hands lol.

 

[Cookie3001]

The funniest complaint that CTW received was the one where the lady who was a real witch herself complained about the show perpetuating stereotypes about witches and was really offended by it because the concept of witches being grumpy old hags with green skin who fly around on broomsticks and have huge pointy hats is nothing more than an offensive stereotypical portrayal.

That one really made me laugh. I can understand people writing in because their kids were scared of the episode. But come on, claiming that the show was targeting real life wiccans with the portrayal of the character. That felt SOOO random and out of the blue compared to the other complaints centering around concerned parents complaining about the witch giving their children nightmares. I almost thought it was satire at first but then realized that nobody would prank the FCC like that unless they have a ridiculous amount of free time on their hands lol.

OMG that's hilarious

 

[Blue Frackle]

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that a Sesame Street disco special went unproduced... while not bad, those albums are one of the few things the show's produced that feels dated.

ANOTHER STEP AHEAD!

Yesterday I went back to the CTW archives. It all went well. I took pictures.
2019 TRIP FOLDER:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18_wdFUCSrw5Nb0xeq8MpwEZSumtRgt8a?usp=sharing

Funny story: Right as I was being told I had 10 minutes left before I had to leave, I hit the jackpot and found an entire folder containing the the memorandum and letters pertaining only to the episode. So, naturally, I took pictures of as many as I could, skipped a few, and took some more, barely skimming through them.

I included the memorandum as a PDF and letters as jpegs in this here folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LPx2plrHZm81TKKHrAv1aspS-8GVfMeF?usp=sharing

Just remember:
You got it here first!

Wow, that memorandum was such a revelation that it doesn't surprise me they just banned the episode outright.

 

[gravy]

One thing I've noticed when looking over the memorandum which is something about electrical sparks.

I've heard accounts of the witch threatening to electrocute Maria. Could it be that a spell could've backfired at the witch?

Also, at the end when David sees the broom fall again, the kids say he starts to cry. This makes the ending a little more easier to imagine.

Another thing I'd like to note here is this letter.

This letter suggests the episode aired more than once! Now, considering how in most places, Sesame Street aired twice a day, this letter almost confirms the episode aired FOUR TIMES!

 

[Blue Frackle]

These letters are so hard to read.

 

[wiley207]

These letters are so hard to read.

Yeah, even with my eyeglasses some of the handwritten ones still looked like scribbles to me. Good thing the letter from the Wiccan mother was typed!

 

[minor muppetz]

Don't really want to make this thread all about unrelated discoveries from the archives (do we need a thread for such a thing?), but that Sesame Street Fever movie sounds intriguing. The plot sounds odd - in this universe the Muppets are just television characters and a kid imagines them as real? The eventual Sesame Street movies feel more than just "Sesame Street: The Move" (after all, they don't cut the plot for random unrelated sketches), this feels like it would have been that but with a different main setting. Of course those memos came before The Muppet Movie was completed so maybe they weren't caring so much.

And it's interesting that the memo says that they had considered movie possibilities before, only for studios and producers to tell them to go nowhere near that medium. It is good that they never gave up on doing a movie, and I guess the success of the first three Muppet movies proved that Sesame Street could sustain a marketable movie (well, the success of the first two, Follow That Bird was likely in development/filming as MTM was being released). I'd like to see more memos on Sesame Street movie concepts (as well as memos about FTB and EIG).

 

[Gordon Matt]

Yeah, I heard it was played twice on its debut day and then never again.

Hi there -- I have read through this thread and found it interesting, even though this was probably past my time watching the show (I'm 51). I have no new into info to add regarding the episode in question, but just a comment regarding the references to episodes only being aired twice and then never again...my memory had has always been that SS aired multiple times a day (I was watching WTTW-Channel 11 In Chicago). I looked up some listings at fuzzymemories.tv and found that from the beginning, it aired twice a day, usually at 9 am and 3 or 3:30 pm, then on Saturday morning they would repeat all five of that week's shows again. By 1972 it was on three times a day. I can't say for sure, but I seem to remember that when I watched it more than once a day, at least past the first season, I don't think it was the same episode repeated that many times (maybe twice).

So these shows could have aired more than two times. But once the season was over, then they were indeed out of rotation (all.of them, not just this one).

 

[dvakman]

Yes, I used to watch the same episode twice a day on my local PBS station in the late 70s / early 80s.