Oh Steve... This was quite possibly one of your best episodes yet. The interviews... The stories... The emotion... Top notch effort and high marks all around.
1 The first story Mr. Oz shared... That's a sentiment I can only sort of start to know as it's mirrored with what happened to my grand-uncle a few years ago, but I'll save that for whenever you and I can talk offline.
2 The Oklahoma bit with Forgetful is quite funny. See... The play is called "Oklahoma" right? But this was done on Sesame Street, right? Well, as you know, Sesame had this sister program called The Electric Company in the late 70's and early 80's. TEC taught phonetics for the older kids who had sort of graduated out of SST. Well, this sketch was a kind of return to that. Why do I say that? Because if you find the segment at the Sesame Video Website, you'll know that Forgetful comes out singing "A-klahoma" in his first take before Kermit yells "CUT!". Forgetful then does two more takes going through the vowels in order. Finally, when Forgetful comes out for the fourth time, he sings "O-klahoma", to which a female Anything Muppet yelles "CUT!" Bewildered, Kermit asks why she did that as Forgetful got the line correct. She then explains that it's time for lunch.
3 The song "Scratch My Back" included two Anything Monsters known as Jack and Jill. Perhaps it's one of those David Rudman puppeteered his first day. To that extent, it's sort of an homage to Richard that Baby Bear has the same speech problem of pronouncing his "r"'s as "w"'s instead much like Junior Gorg and that David is now one of the two new performers performing/voicing the Two-Headed Monster.
4 Jane was in one of Frank Oz's movies... She was in The Muppets Take Manhattan which was directed by Frank. Who did she play? Well, if you go to the scene where Kermit's dressed up like Barnabus Collins from the old supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows in fedora and overcoat with fake mustache at Sardi's restaurant where the rats kick off the whispering campaign... You'll have to look for one of the patron who resembles Richard's mother.
5 Is it possible Jane was thinking of Jon Stone, once director of Sesame Street?
6 Some of Richard's Sesame characters stick out in my mind and I would've liked to hear from at least one of these... There was a blue furry monster from around Season 14 named Aristotle who Richard performed in a quiet demeanor as this character was meant to be blind. Problem is, I don't really remember this monster and would like to hear him just once again. Richard's other memorable Sesame character is one we all know even though he never had a single spoken line. The character in question is that hard-working red-helmeted journeyman, Sully. No words needed, this guy partnered with Biff had a charm all of his own.
7 Richard is always said to upstage his fellow performers. And yet, you aired the song "Up and Down Opera" with Placido and Ernie. What I distinctly remember from when I had better sight is, at the end, Ernie sticks his head out from behind the curtain to take an extra head-bow. And then Placido comes out to drag Ernie back in admonishing him. Hee, guess that was one time Richard tried to save face and not be fully upstaged by his fellow performers.
Again, one of your greatest and I look forward to whatever's in store for us next week.
Thank you for this Steve.
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