American Archive of Public Broadcasting to preserve nearly 4,500 Sesame Street episodes

[ssetta]

You guys won’t believe this!! It turns out they’ve decided to release all the episodes online after all! And they will all be up by the end of April (Fools)!!!!!!!

 

[MuppetSpot]

This is more of an informative thread, so the joke died

 

[minor muppetz]

You guys won’t believe this!! It turns out they’ve decided to release all the episodes online after all! And they will all be up by the end of April (Fools)!!!!!!!

I was going to play along and "mistakenly" think you meant they'd all be online by the end of today.

 

[PumpkinJ]

I was going to play along and "mistakenly" think you meant they'd all be online by the end of today.

Well, having to get all the 4,000 classic episodes digitized and donated to AAOPB is a LONG-TERM project for Sesame Workshop to complete, ya know.

 

[minor muppetz]

They said that they would be donating episodes, but wouldn't it also be great if they donated digital compilations of all their segments, both broadcast and unbroadcast?

I think I've read that they have digitized tape compilations of multiple inserts outside of the episode master tapes/digital files. Not sure if that's true or if I misunderstood something, of course we know copies of segments with images/footage of the clapboard (plus we know they still have copies of segments with pre-roll/post-roll scenes that usually get cut from broadcasts).

Or if Sesame Workshop had master tapes of every single insert, on one master tape each, that'd be awesome (and perhaps easier to seek out if people just want to see certain rare segments without caring about any episodes they appear in). If they did have multiple internal sketch compilations, I wonder how they're compiled (by season? character? educational subject? multiple things?).

 

[minor muppetz]

I think I've wondered outloud previously about episodes where reruns were edited differently, if they'd include both the original broadcast edits and rerun edits (if they could only do one then I'd prefer the original broadcast version), but now I'm thinking it would be great if they could donate earlier edits of episodes before the final (original) broadcast versions. I wonder what the chances are that they kept earlier edits of episodes.

Of course I'm sure most early edits aren't that remarkably different from the final aired versions. They'd probably mostly just have different inserts, though some of those different inserts would probably be ones that never aired at all.

 

[minor muppetz]

I also posted this in the top ten anything thread, but I've compiled a list of top ten episodes I'd recommend checking out if the main purpose to watch is for wiki research. There's things from the guides I wonder and there's things I've seen people mention that happen in certain scripts.

10. Early episodes with Irvine – some scripts call her Irving, was that name used in the actual episodes?

9. Season nine episodes (including episode 1184) with an unnamed dog who may or may not be Barkley

8. Suzanne Farrell – Scarecoe’s to do list on his user page mentions “At the Barre” naming Herry and Telly in one script, another naming Grover and Herry, and episode 1334 has a sketch that could be this (maybe both were the same but listed a little differently), with Suzanne Farrell getting Grover, Herry, and another monster to stretch on a barre – could that monster be Telly during his transitional period between his original television-obsessed personality and when Brian Meehl gave him the personality he’s known for (Telly likely wouldn’t have been identified by name in any scripts from that period)?

7. Can You Guess? – is Big Bob the puppet that would become Guy Smiley? What puppet was used for the contestant, Billy Monster (I doubt it’s the same Billy Monster from the later Here and There sketch with Grover and Herry) This segment first aired in episode 26, but also appears in episodes 57, 74, and 119.

6. Episode 21 (Balloons segment – which monster is used?)

5. Episode 372 (It includes “Before and After”, are the parts with Buddy replaced with a different character? )

4. Episode 441 (I’ve been told that the script notes that the first season sketch “everybody scratch” ends with Bernice on Bert’s back, when the segment is known to end with Beautiful Day Monster scratching Bert’s back; was the whole segment remade by then and the script doesn’t make it clear? Did the script make a mistake? Was there actually an alternate ending filmed?)

3. Episode 1259 – I’ve been told that Bruno has a lot of dialogue in the script but it’s pointed out that a lot of that could have changed by the time it aired, would be great to know if his first appearance was dialogue-heavy

2. early Elmo episodes – to determine Kevin Clash’s first performance as Elmo (and maybe to determine Richard Hunt’s, though I have a feeling that’s the first after Brian Meehl left)

1. Episodes where the trusted sources were unable to provide the wiki with a full rundown (including episode 2806, 2823, and 2974; the script sourced for episode 1389 is missing a page; The script sourced for 2600 was an edit for a pledge airing; I've heard that one season 11 script isn't the final aired version but can't remember which one)

 

[Jake the Dog]

So, has anyone actually contacted the AAPB regarding the arrival of the episodes? I assume they aren't yet available, or else it would say so on the website, but seeing as how they were slated to be available months ago, I feel it wouldn't hurt to verify with them about it (without spamming them, of course).

 

[minor muppetz]

I wondered the same thing. I recently searched the site to see if any episodes are available (either just for viewing there or online) and it doesn't seem like any have (and didn't they say the first batch of episodes would be available in six weeks a few months ago?). I hope the plans haven't fallen through (maybe it's taking longer than we thought, or maybe they weren't actually making the episodes available as soon as they arrived).

 

[Oscarfan]

The AAPB site lists a number of entries for Sesame episodes (modern, so don't get excited); they are simply not availible to watch online.