Sesame Street Classic Episodes Vol. 2 now available for download on iTunes

[liss1979]

Hi there. I'm new to MuppetCentral, but I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks. I am also very stoked to see new Sesame Street episodes added to Itunes, and I am downloading all 12 of them as we speak

 

[Phillip]

Welcome to all the new members!

For everyone who has downloaded these episodes, please post your thoughts on each show. Fans would also be interested in hearing what Muppet sketches are included in each episode.

 

[Oscarfan]

Episode 1854 features a Grover song I've never heard of before, which is good.

 

[minor muppetz]

Episode 1854 features a Grover song I've never heard of before, which is good.

I was looking at the guide at Muppet Wiki, and saw it listed as "I Am Proud of Me", and wondered if it was a different performance of the song or a completely different song. Seems weird that they'd have Grover sing two songs with similar titles.

And looking at the guide for that episode, it's interesting how it seems Maria and Linda had already decided to believe in Snuffy by then, season 15, two years before everyone saw him. I would have thought they'd start believing in Snuffy closer to season 17.

 

[liss1979]

I'm planning to watch the first 2 or 3 at work tonight, and I will let you guys know what's on there. The cool thing about these episodes is most of them are not listed on the Muppet Wiki sesame street episode guide, so it's all a surprise

 

[liss1979]

Okay, I have watched the first 2 episodes (596 and 597) As far as I can see, there are mainly repeats of past sketches like Casey McPhee, and The People In Your Neighborhood. There is a lot of Harvey Kneeslapper in these two episodes. And there is a sketch I've never seen, or even heard of before in episode 597 called The King's Nose. A ton of the main characters are in it, including Kermit and Bert/Ernie...really cute. No Grover sketches at all in 597, but there is one in 596, where he's an elevator operator (another repeat sketch) That's about it for those two episodes

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, I've finally been able to download some episodes. I've downloaded episodes 597 and 1957 (as well as a few from volume 1), in part because Muppet Wiki doesn't have full guides for those episodes yet. These episodes are enjoyable. I'm epsecially enjoying many of the animation and live-action films I didn't know about (and hadn't seen pictured on the wiki). Episode 1957 has an interesting cartoon/film with a talking letter N. At the end of that segment there are kids going to bet and they are shown with two books from "The Sesame Street Learning Kit" (The Sesame Street Book of People and Things and The Sesame Street Book of Puzzlers).

Episode 597 sure does have a lot of segments on wet and dry, particularly animated segments. And it includes a series of blackout segments I don't recall knowing about, with an announcer saying "Presenting the (insert item here)", with whatever item (plunger, pencil, saw) blacking out the screen. There's a segment with Kermit and Trey talking about the letter Q, with Trey drawing a Q with his finger (this segment was not listed in the Muppet Wiki page on "Muppet & Kid Moments: Kermit" so I added it). And there's a Roosevelt Franklin sketch I knew about for years, teaching traffic, but what I didn't know was that Roosevelt Franklin was hardly in it. Instead, he let Baby Breese teach traffic, and there's a bit of focus on his classmates.

Episode 1957 has some great stuff. The street scenes all involve voting. Snuffy's mommy makes an appearance, and there's a scene with several of Oscar's elephants sticking their trunks out of his trashcan (an image that I had previously seen in Sesame Street Unpaved).

After finally downloading some of these episodes, I was surprised to see that there were no added copyright credits regarding Kermit the Frog, or that the ending PBS logo was absent (not as surprised about that, though, but considering it was on the Old School releases it is surprising).

In the past, on Sesame Workshop's facebook page the company had allowed fans to nominate clips for the 40th anniversary DVD (and on Amazon allowed fans to vote for a clip to include), vote on material to include in the 40th annversary book, and allowed fans to vote on clips to include in the upcoming Best of Sesame Friends release. It would be great if they allowed fans to vote on what to include in the next "Sesame Street Classics" volume. Actually it'd be great if they would allow fans to nominate what to include, whether it be speciffic episodes or just seasons.

 

[minor muppetz]

I just watched episode 1899, and it's fantastic. Muppet Wiki had an incomplete guide to this episode but did list all the segments on that episodes talk page. It has a lot of great '80s characters, including Bruno, Ferlinghetti Donnizetti (performed by Richard Hunt), Forgetful Jones, and Simon Soundman, all on the street.

When Oscar and Bruno appear, you can actually see whatever it is that holds the lid of the trash can hanging from the side (is that a handle?). I feel Ferlinghetti's scene was a bit short (most of it is a story with him in voice-over; I expected to at least see him after the story ended). That was a nice song between Bob and Simon... Interestingly, though they are seen sitting on the stairway in the arbor it seems they wanted to avoid giving Simon a lower half, as there's something (a book? a lunchbox?) covering Simon's legs.

The scenes with the phone are also funny. Very odd plot. It's interesting how they suspect Oscar pulling a prank on Bob, due to the fact that (at first) the phone was not ringing when Bob saw Oscar. The phone had just started ringing a minute ago, and it didn't ring when Bob saw David. If it was a practical joke there's many others it could have been. And I wonder how many other times that phonebooth has been there (the only other time I know of is in Sesame Street All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever).

I had seen that sketch with Cookie Monster and Maria on YouTube years ago, but it's interesting that Cookie Monster asks where the cookies and cupcakes are (as opposed to just asking for cookies). And even more interesting how Maria says that cookies and cupcakes are good for eating "sometimes". So even in... Uh, whatever year that sketch is from (I'm guessing either 9, 10, or 11) they were basically calling cookies a "sometimes food".

In episode 1957 there's a sketch with a flute/clarinet player and an anything Muppet boy named Malcom. Anybody know who the musician was? Malcom referred to him as what sounded like Mr. Gowain or whatever (actually can't remember what the last name sounded like for sure, but I knew I wouldn't know how to spell it). And anybody have any idea who performed Malcom? I'm guessing either Michael Earl or Brian Meehl, but I could always be wrong.

 

[Oscarfan]

The flautist is James Gallway. And the boy (Malcom) was performed by Brian.

 

[minor muppetz]

I wasn't sure if I would download anything from season 25, but I downloaded episode 3137, and it is great. It's the only episode on Sesame Street Classics Volume 2 to have aired on Noggin, and improved the Muppet Wiki page to list all edited segments (though I didn't include images and ekas). Interestingly, after finding so much info on what was known to have been cut on Noggin and thinking by now that Noggin didn't cut any Muppet inserts, I found that this episode DOES have a Muppet insert that was cut (actually a three-parter). It's the "Shake Your Body" song with Baby Tooth and the Funky Funk. Some other segments that were cut on Noggin include the "Indians don't talk like that" cartoon, a girl showing forwards and backwards on a computer, a Fay Ray segment that I didn't see listed on the wiki (and I only checked the wiki's Fay Ray page), and one of the Pixar lamp segments (showing "surprise").

I was surprised to see so many transitions in this episode. Most of them are fades between sketches (and a flip-screen before I Don't Want to Live on the Moon). I didn't think the show was transition-heavy at the time (though I do recall times that season when segments faded to black at the end). There's probably as much fades here as there are transitions in current episodes, maybe even more fades than in early episodes where it seemed more common.