Rumor: New Sesame Street Movie in the Works

[Oscarfan]

They need to squeeze Johnson somewhere in this movie.

 

[Drtooth]

They need to squeeze Johnson somewhere in this movie.

Something about that sentence doesn't sound right.

If there's one thing they need to consider about this movie, it's going back, watching EIG, and pointing out what went wrong with the writing and direction the film took. Just to see where the characters could have fit in, and how things could have worked differently. We want the film to find a happy medium between the over-crowdedness of The Muppets and the complete desertion of EIG.

For the most part, the villain shouldn't have more Muppets as his henchmen than the number of Muppet characters in an important scene. Even if Elmo's the star of the film, take Grover, Telly, and Cookie along. And don't have them rot in jail like Big Bird, Oscar, and Telly this time.

 

[minor muppetz]

Before this film was announced I kept thinking of ideas for a theoretical Sesame Street film in the style of the new Muppets movie, though in reality they shouldn't copy The Muppets with their own characters (though interestingly I've always noticed a number of similarities between Muppets from Space and Elmo in Grouchland, both of which came out the same year).

My theoretical idea: A family decides to take their kid, who likes Sesame Street, on vacation to Sesame Street, only to learn that the whole street has turned into a dump and Oscar is the only resident still living there. He explains that years everybody else moved away and Oscar was free to have trash all over the street, enjoying it at first but then found himself missing the others, but hadn't done anything about it. He goes into his can and sings a song like "Pictures in my Head", maybe with some grouchier lyrics. The decides that they should go find the others and bring them back to Sesame Street, noting that he has all of their addresses.

They find Big Bird living in a nest on a tree in Ocean View Illonois, Ernie and Bert now run a Rubber Duckie Oatmeal factory, Grover is a waiter at a restaurant, and Cookie Monster has given up cookies. The Count, Herry Monster, Two-Headed Monster, Telly, Mumford, Prairie Dawn, and Snuffy are all located in a time-saving montage, and then they (and many others not in the montage) arrive on Sesame Street and start to clean up, while playing an '80s pop tune. Oscar is unhappy because everybody is back and the street is cleaner, yet is also happy at the same time because he's unhappy, and has just what he wanted again. Elmo makes a one-scene cameo, while Zoe, Rosita, Baby Bear, and Murray all only appear in a crowd scene at the end, Cookie Monster somehow goes back to eating cookies, maybe the gang has a telethon, and then they all sing a happy song, with cameos by Biff and Sully, Guy Smiley, Barkley, Don Music, Forgetful Jones, Aristotle, Chrissy and the Alphabeats, Bruno (being this film's Thog), Roosevelt Franklin & friends, and all sorts of classic characters.

The film probably won't be like that. I'll be happy if some old school characters make cameos or background appearances (Elmo in Grouchland didn't have that). I don't expect a Kermit cameo.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm also kind of curious as to who exactly will be directing the movie? Seems like whenever SST's done a movie, they bring in someone, as opposed to using one of their own directors... I know if they end up getting someone like Tim Hill, Drtooth will blow his brains out... and I doubt they would even think to ask Frank, though he has been wanting to direct the next theatrical Muppet movie, this really isn't quite the case.

 

[Drtooth]

Before this film was announced I kept thinking of ideas for a theoretical Sesame Street film in the style of the new Muppets movie, though in reality they shouldn't copy The Muppets with their own characters (though interestingly I've always noticed a number of similarities between Muppets from Space and Elmo in Grouchland, both of which came out the same year).

The Muppets is a movie that needed the "bring the band together after a disastrous break up" angle to relaunch the franchise, even though there were still other projects. I'd liken that to the "everything was a dream" moment in Dallas that wiped out an entire season of bad decisions.

But Sesame Street wouldn't need any of that. Show's been on over 40 years, that would be strange to say that 10-20 of those years has been a lie.

I'm also kind of curious as to who exactly will be directing the movie? Seems like whenever SST's done a movie, they bring in someone, as opposed to using one of their own directors... I know if they end up getting someone like Tim Hill, Drtooth will blow his brains out... and I doubt they would even think to ask Frank, though he has been wanting to direct the next theatrical Muppet movie, this really isn't quite the case.

Joey would pull a Kinniku-Buster on Tim Hill after what he did to his draft of the MFS script. I don't think anyone would want 90% of the movie to be checking mail and house painting.

But from the barest part of the press release, I'd wager they're going to get whoever directed the Night at the Museum movies.

 

[minor muppetz]

I sort of hope that this and the new Muppet movie (and maybe also the Fraggle Rock movie) don't get filmed at the same time. I'd hate for there to be scheduling conflicts for Steve, Eric, Matt, and David. Of course in the past six years it seems Steve Whitmire has performed Ernie (not counting Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures) as often as Frank Oz has performed. Of course I don't know how likely it'll be that Steve performs Wembley (or Dave Goelz will perform Boober and Matt) in the Fraggle Rock movie (I would hope that he will).

Muppets from Space and Elmo in Grouchland both came out the same year, not sure whether filming overlapped. Steve Whitmire had big roles in both films, Jerry seems to have performed a bit more in Elmo in Grouchland, Frank likely had the same scheduling limitations (the Bert and Ernie scenes could have been filmed in under an hour, Grover only had one scene, and Cookie Monster didn't get many lines), and Kevin was more involved with Elmo in Grouchland than Muppets from Space. And EIG even had a few performers who seldom perform on Sesame Street (Dave Goelz, Bill Baretta), though with small roles. Then again those were made when Henson owned the Muppets, so it might have been easier to schedule the performers.

 

[cahuenga]

Which characters were performed by Bill Barretta in EIG? and Frank performed his characters alive or were just looping voices? I hope they will be performing in the new movie!!!

 

[minor muppetz]

Which characters were performed by Bill Barretta in EIG?

When Elmo starts asking for help in finding his blanket, Baretta performed the grouch who replied, "I'd love to, but I don't speak english." I'm not sure if he had any other roles or how much time he spent on the production, but he's listed in the credits under "additional muppet performers".

and Frank performed his characters alive or were just looping voices?

I have no idea if Frank was actually on the set for EIG. As I said previously, all the scenes with Bert could have easily been shot in less than 10 minutes. I would like to think that he at least physically performed Bert there. And Grover was only in one scene as well, and considering it was the street set they could have filmed Cookie Monster's short scenes on the street the same day. Though it seems Cookie didn't get much dialogue despite joining the team (I'd say CM is to Elmo in Grouchland what Animal is to Muppets from Space, part of the gang but hardly contributable). We know Frank mainly just had his voice dubbed for MFS, but I'm sure he did perform on-set for at least one day (the behind-the-scenes book for that movie has a photo of Frank on the UFO Mania set).

 

[catherine]

wow, when will it be out? I'll definately go and see it.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, looks like until we get the new theatrical movie, SW is coming out with another new direct-to-DVD movie focusing on, oh shocker, Elmo...

So now, the way I see it, since Elmo has had a theatrical movie, a TV movie, and now a DVD movie, then SW owes us TWO new Big Bird movies, even if they're TV or DVD movies.