Classic Sesame Clips on YouTube

[PumpkinJ]

Absolute poop music courtesy of around the corner!

So now it's about time we see the version with music added.

 

[minor muppetz]

Just watched the episode with Elmo filling in for Little Jerry.

I had previously thought it was odd. Little Jerry wasn't really appearing often at the time, and the group was rarely referred to by name in their old inserts. With Little Chrissy (the one of Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats) appearing in place of Chrissy or Rockin' Richard, Big Jeffy was the only regular member of the group shown, but Little Chrissy was active as leader of his own group (which sometimes included Big Jeffy), so it might have been confusing (couldn't they have just said the green Alphabeat was sick and needed a replacement?).

Recently there's been some talk over whether the names used in the "Four" song would be considered canon just because it was for an album, and recently I started wondering if Christopher Cerf and Richard Hunt should have been considered the primary performers of them, as there don't seem to be many Little Jerry and the Monotones songs to feature Jerry Nelson, Jeff Moss, Cerf, and Hunt all together as the voices (though all four of them were frequently heard in the various songs, I think Four, Sad, and maybe Body Rhythms are the only ones to include all of those performers). It does make me wonder if they actually did plan to include Chrissy, the regular member of the Monotones, and somebody mistakenly had them use Little Chrissy instead (as his name was more commonly used).

Little Jerry was the one who was sick, and they needed somebody to fill in for him. Of course the people at the dance were expecting Little Jerry and the Monotones, would they be disappointed by Little Jerry being replaced with Elmo, or do they really just care more about having a musical performance at the dance? I feel like maybe it would have been better if it was one of the Monotones who was sick (maybe say that they needed three or four members), but perhaps it's better, drama-wise, for the lead singer to be sick. Still, Little Chrissy primarily led Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats, why not just get his group to replace Little Jerry and the Monotones? Especially with Big Jeffy sometimes being in the band. And would it have been so bad if it was just Little Chrissy and Big Jeffy doing a concert as a singing duo?

Anyway, back to what I started to say before getting sidetracked with all these other thoughts I had, I thought it was odd they'd have Little Jerry be sick when I'm sure many of the kids watching might not know who Little Jerry is off-hand (I do recall seeing Big Jeffy back then, mainly from being in the background in A Muppet Family Christmas, but don't remember Little Jerry until 1994, when I was about ten). But Elmo says he's the leader of the group, and they keep talking about Little Jerry being their leader. I guess it'd play out the same if this was a one-shot group and they came up with an unseen character as the leader (after all, we don't see them perform at the dance).

 

[LittleJerry92]

I honestly feel like Big Jeffy participating with Little Chrissy in his songs was probably an experiment continuing on from the Telly’s dream episode (which had the both of them together on-screen for the first time). Otherwise I could easily just see the lavender member with the band in “Startin’ Kindergarten,” “I Go to School” and “Gonna Rock You to Sleep in seasons 21/23.

I really think Chrissy and Richard of the Monotones were retired by the time Little Jerry first appeared in season 19 because they were replaced with another Fat Blue monotone named Richie (the name of which carried over to the lavender member redesigned with an Elvis-type pompadour in their final street appearance), and they were nothing more than generic back-up singers with no character to them anyway. While both AMs appeared in Mountain of Love, I really think the original idea was to have Big Jeffy and Little Chrissy of the Alphabeats singing back-up for Little Jerry in that song (since both names were rightfully mentioned), but ended up having the lavender and pumpkin AM band members lip-syncing to their vocals (based on the taping date for that song, maybe it could have been filmed on the same day of episode 2668 when the regular puppets were being used elsewhere? I don’t see a taping date for that episode yet so it’s just a guess).

The main songs that had all four performers were Four, Sad and I think Body Rythyms too (I question if that was Moss actually performing Jeffy since he wasn’t active in season 11). Proud could have had all four but Richard wasn’t really a full-on puppeteer yet during season 4, and the two season 6 songs clearly had Nelson, Cerf and Hunt but Moss had left the previous season, so Nelson took over with bass vocals for Big Jeffy. Then there’s With Every Beat of My Heart which had Thad Mumford (probably cause he was still new to the show by the time the song was written I would imagine and they wanted to give him a chance).

Using Little Chrissy of the Alphabeats was probably intentional in that episode; like I said, Chrissy and Richard were nothing more than just generic back-up singers and their characters were practically phased out anyway by the time Little Jerry made a comeback in season 19.

 

[Oscarfan]

I think the real reason is that there was no Muppet Wiki back then, so nobody was obsessing over minutia and minor characters. And also the bands appeared infrequently enough that nobody really cared.

 

[LittleJerry92]

In the end I’m personally fine with how the episode turned out. Though it would have been cool to have an episode where Jerry and Chrissy interact with each other, but eh

 

[D'Snowth]

Absolute poop music courtesy of around the corner!

What really seems to be the problem is that the clip itself is obviously in mono, while the music sounds like its in stereo, which is overpowering the audio from the clip (that, and Ernie and Lefty speaking lowly doesn't help either).

 

[LittleJerry92]

Yeah, I think that’s just the source of this video unfortunately

 

[minor muppetz]

I honestly feel like Big Jeffy participating with Little Chrissy in his songs was probably an experiment continuing on from the Telly’s dream episode (which had the both of them together on-screen for the first time). Otherwise I could easily just see the lavender member with the band in “Startin’ Kindergarten,” “I Go to School” and “Gonna Rock You to Sleep in seasons 21/23.

I really think Chrissy and Richard of the Monotones were retired by the time Little Jerry first appeared in season 19 because they were replaced with another Fat Blue monotone named Richie (the name of which carried over to the lavender member redesigned with an Elvis-type pompadour in their final street appearance), and they were nothing more than generic back-up singers with no character to them anyway. While both AMs appeared in Mountain of Love, I really think the original idea was to have Big Jeffy and Little Chrissy of the Alphabeats singing back-up for Little Jerry in that song (since both names were rightfully mentioned), but ended up having the lavender and pumpkin AM band members lip-syncing to their vocals (based on the taping date for that song, maybe it could have been filmed on the same day of episode 2668 when the regular puppets were being used elsewhere? I don’t see a taping date for that episode yet so it’s just a guess).

I thought it was odd, with Gina being the fan of Little Jerry, that they'd have Big Jeffy and Chrissy competing to be Gina's prom date, as she's such a fan of Little Jerry and would probably rather be his date. But I guess you could say that she's a big fan of the group but really had the crush on Big Jeffy (he's just not the frontman). And it seems odd for two musicians who are clearly adults wanting to be Gina's dates when she's in high school (though when Little Jerry meets her and talks about his songs, he talks about them as if he still is a child as opposed to an adult which I would assume he is). But then again, the whole thing was just Telly's dream, so nothing that does not make sense should really matter there.

I was also thinking it was odd that with Little Jerry sick they'd just replace their leader with a child like Elmo. But as I said, I always felt like Little Jerry was an adult (or maybe close to the end of his teenage years), but in the episode where he meets Gina, he talks about his brothers as if he is still a child. It could be possible he's a child (maybe a pre-teen) leading an adult singing group.

With that theory that this Little Chrissy was intended to be in Mountain of Love instead of the lavender member, now I sort of wish he was included instead. It would have made him a member in one of Little Jerry and the Monotones inserts, and would have put Little Jerry and Little Chrissy together in a scene.

On the subject of them likely not really caring about consistency with the back-up members names (and I agree with Oscarfan that they likely didn't care that much about consistency with such minor characters and didn't think the fans would care), recently I saw pages from a style guide which included both Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats and Little Jerry and the Monotones, with the guides labeling the AM patterns but only listing the leaders by names. I'm guessing the usual Alphabeats weren't named in the scripts (otherwise the wiki would probably mention it by now).

Back when Toughpigs did a YouTube live interview with Christopher Cerf, on Facebook they asked to send questions. I sent a question about the two Chrissy's, if there was concern of confusion over the two (even though they weren't referred to by name often). While I don't think he answered in the video, he did give a reply in the comments, saying that whenever Cerf and Moss sang together, they were always Little Chrissy and Big Jeffy, no matter what puppet was used. I wonder if this would make the Lavender Alphabeat known as Big Jeffy. Well, it is a good thing the two didn't have too many characters then.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Some of the things Little Jerry mentioned in that episode kind of threw me off myself (though I did lose it completely when he brought up Mr. Rogers ) but I mean, adults can still be living with their parents. I didn’t move out until last year when I was 27. My personal guess is he could be in his early 20s (but really if I’m being honest, I think a lot of those comments he made were just put in for tongue-in-cheek humor).

I also agree the workshop probably didn’t care who would appear in the episodes (I mean besides Big Jeffy the other back-ups weren’t really all that important anyway), but I would also say given everyone was referred to by name, I do feel like they probably purposely avoided having the lavender and pumpkin members appearing since neither were referred to by name on-screen and both instances everyone was referred to by name (Richie the fat blue monotone). Just a guess.

Interestingly enough the official upload of “Proud” actually has the lavender and pumpkin members labeled as who fans commonly associate them by name (Chrissy as lavender and pumpkin as Rockin’ Richard) in the closed captions, though my guess is someone probably just looked at the muppet wiki band page where it says “along with lavender and pumpkin Anything Muppets, usually known as Chrissy and Rockin’ Richard” and got their answer. I mean personally for me, going by the pulling a name out of a hat logic, the fact that the lavender member was referred to as Chrissy in Mountain of Love is fine for me (no different than how a green furry monster was randomly referred to as “Clancy” in a season 21 skit, or how another green monster was randomly called “Harry” in the first and last Grover skit remake...... and then there’s also Bip Bippadotta).

I also saw that page myself; great page I must say. I love that nice capture of “Proud” with the monochrome look it has! I don’t think Chris was being literal to their characters when he said that; to me, it just sounds more like nicknames the both of them had that just carried over to their respected characters.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Anyway this is one cartoon I wanted to upload years ago from one of my tapes with late 2000s episodes, but I kept putting it off for years and years.

I always loved the music and animation (not so much the voice over though).