Early Sesame Street was strange...

[ElmoPrincess]

Today, I have learned that early sesame street was weird.
They were good episodes, But most of the sketches were very adult...
Do you know anymore strange episodes

I learned this from blameitonjorge
Here is the video link

 

[Froggy Fool]

I wouldn't say that most of the sketches were adult, however, there were a few here and there that were a bit weird, scary, or not very educational for kids.

 

[Gordon Matt]

What was great about the early Sesame Street the years I watched it (roughly the first six years or so) is a parent could watch it with a kid and both could be entertained. There were jokes and references for the adults which kids wouldn't necessarily get.

When I got the Noggin channel and they were running a bunch of old Sesame Street and The Electric Company, the funny stuff was still funny.

 

[minor muppetz]

When you compare the Muppet sketches of Sesame Street with the Muppet sketches of The Muppet Show and various variety show appearances, I wouldn't say there's many that are really strange. But maybe we have different opinions on what's "strange". Muppetzine once had an article called "Weird Muppet Moments", most of the moments were talk show appearances (while a few were quotes from articles on Henson things and one was a Dinosaurs parody on The Simpsons), I didn't really think many of those moments were very weird. For a while I thought maybe it was trying to be funny by saying that these are the weird moments (acknowledging the usual eating characters, explosions, and other weird stuff beforehand). And as I reread the article when every Muppetzine page was scanned onto the Toughpigs website I wondered if maybe it was making some kind of point about unscripted reality being weirder than the weird stuff planned (I guess a lot of the usual weird things are regular for the Muppets), and Danny Horne then said that he just wanted an article on Muppet quotes and decided to call them weird as a way of connecting the quotes (but even then, a lot of that isn't really that weird...).

I'd say that the majority of the most bizarre Sesame Street moments are films and animation segments as opposed to Muppet segments. Stuff like Cracks, Filmfair A (aka "Arthur and Annie look for A"), that duck brushing his teeth, maybe King Minus, maybe that BIRD cartoon. Not many Muppet segments I would call strange, I'd say that the Surprise song with the cast is one of the most bizarre moments, for years I've been thinking that The Geefle and the Gonk is strange but now I'm wondering if it's really that strange.

Then again, a lot of Ernie and Bert segments from the first season, especially a lot of the really rare, long-unseen ones (that don't have pictures on the wiki), are strange. A lot of them have some kind of odd weirdness, and a lot seem to exist primarily for some weird pun (or maybe both). Stuff like Ernie pouring and drinking milk for a long time (despite how small the glass is), a B flying around and buzzing like a B, maybe the one where Ernie stops the TV from showing just the letter A (which would be remade later involving the letter I, and was a remake of a similar sketch involving the letter D in the test pilots), maybe the one where Ernie cleans the apartment in under fifteen seconds, and Ernie erasing Cookie Monster. And that's not counting segments so rare that Muppet Wiki does not yet have screenshots, like when Ernie finds a squiggly-looking letter Z.

 

[Blue Frackle]

Why was the Sesame Street Experiment even on the list? There's nothing strange or bizarre about it; it's just lost media. And somehow, the top comment is that it sounds like a bad creepypasta... what am I missing here?

 

[YellowYahooey]

I never knew the "Arthur and Annie look for A" was classified as a "Filmfair" segment. I know, according to Muppet Wiki, there was a Filmfair Q segment, and even a Filmfair G segment. Since there are no Filmfair segments for G and Q available on YouTube or anywhere, it has been hard to know what they are like, until I just found out now about the "Filmfair A" segment. I have to admit, the "Filmfair" segments were likely only shown on Sesame Street until around 1981, maybe even 1982, but I don't recall on Muppet wiki any occurrence of "Filmfair Q" on any episode guide for Season 13 (1981-82), but from what I remember, they likely didn't last long in the 1980s.

I do know there are some animated inserts that creeped me out, such as "Y for Yawn", "Goldilocks Takes a Bath", "The Bee Bee and Barker Family" and "Now Then... a Count of Ten" (listed on Muppet Wiki episode guides as "Scanimate Films #10"). I still do feel sensitive about the Y and 10 segments (possibly due to my autism), but the Goldilocks segment would turn me away because of her brief nudity, which would turn me away then, and I would still be turned away from the segment if I would have continued watching the show to this day (even if the segment would be on YouTube). And the Bee Bee and Barker family segment turns me away because of my then-hatred for bare feet (though I would have no issues with bare feet in modern media and modern celebrities these days, if wearing sandals).

Ironically, I seemed to have no problem with the letter B segment about a certain boy and Bosco taking a bath and producing bubbles, despite that the boy was briefly nude. This means I am turned away from nude females in any media, and consider me more of a TV-PG kind of person, at most. I can handle some TV-14 stuff, but not nudity. And after seeing said segment, I discovered that the way the letters were drawn, and the style of the African-American boy used in the segment, it makes me wonder if it was by the same artist involved in the number 6 segment, "I'm six years old today"?

 

[RubberChicArt]

My favorite was when someone tried to sell Ernie an 8 like a drug dealer

 

[Gordon Matt]

My favorite was when someone tried to sell Ernie an 8 like a drug dealer

 

[YellowYahooey]

That segment would be perceived the wrong way, leading parents to think Lefty (the Muppet in the trench coat) was promoting drug usage. I applaud Ernie for not buying it (even though he wanted to, but he had no money), but it could perceive to the children's parents that it could promote drug usage and illegal activity. I think Lefty was created because of the popularity of gangster movies at the time, such as "The Godfather", to name one. Just goes to show that Lefty was a real baddie and his segments were later dropped. I guess you could say Lefty got his ultimate punishment in the end.

Looking back at another segment from the 1970s, there was a segment referred to as "Scanimate H". I remember seeing it with the tagline "Psychedelic H" after doing a Google video search back in March 2006 (I didn't discover YouTube until a few months later), and looking back at my days of watching the show, I recall there being 1960s references, such as a hula hoop, and a horse - a white H walking like a horse, implying a certain drug innuendo, "white horse" (now I am reminded of a 1984 song by Laid Back). I wonder if there were other 1960s references, such as hippies and hallucinations, in the segment? I believe a still image on Muppet Wiki shows a close-up of high-heels (possibly the platform kind, which was so groovy then). Nevertheless, that's another segment that creeped me out - possibly due to a cameo by Maria in still image form with special effects surrounding it, though I had no issues with Maria in live-action segments otherwise. I might contribute this segment to an ongoing thread about scary segments.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Lefty was a shady guy. He was a con man, trying to chisel Ernie out of money, but only succeeded twice. Once selling Ernie air, another time a picture of four elephants.But each time he only made off with a nickel. Petty crime at best.
I wouldn't say he was a pusher. Hustler, yes. Pusher, no.
Last time he was seen, he stole a golden AN.But Stan the Man busted him. He was supposed to get ten days in the can,but what happened after that is anybody's guess.
But I doubt some wise guy from the mob put a hit on Lefty.Although with The Godfather movies of the time, it would have been timely.