I wonder if Sesame Workshop has an official cutoff date for the Old School sets. And if Sesame Workshop gets to that date, will the sets discontinue, or will Sesame Workshop go back to 1969, or will shows from earlier years be randomly chosen? I'd be surprised if current shows eventually become part of the Old School sets, but those will probably be considered "classics" some day.
I think that every season premiere should be released in the near future. If the next set is the 1979-1984 premieres, then hopefully volume 4 will be the 1984-1989 premieres, and then we'll finally know details of the 16th season premiere, and also have an episode that Noggin didn't air.
Then again, the fourteenth season premiere was the first in a five-part cliffhanger. It would be better to package those episodes together, and choose a different episode in it's place. I don't know if that epsiode would make sense to watch on it's own. Then again, I think that the eleventh season premier was also the first in a multi-part cliffhanger, and Noggin only showed part 1 of that. I don't know for sure whether it was a multi-part story, but those types of episodes (where characters travel out of town and the actual location is used instead of sets) are normally cliffhangers. If those epsiodes are not included, then which ones should be included (the correct answer, in my opinion anyway: any episodes that weren't shown on Noggin, preferrably ones that don't have descriptiosn on the wiki yet)?
Then again, a thread at Tough Pigs that reprints an article about the hawiai episodes includes quotes from Buffy St. Marie (and I think other people who appeared only in those epsiodes). The end of the article states that Buffy signed a release for her scenes (and I think it might also include the people she knew in hawiai) to be included on a DVD release of classic Sesame Street. She was quoted with saying that she hopes the set comes out in 2008, but that's just what she hopes. She's not in charge of the release, outside of signing releases. Maybe that will be Old School Volume 3 (or 4), or maybe it wil be a different box set, or maybe all of the street/ hawiai scenes wil be edited together into a single-disc set, like how the hurricane episodes were edited together in Friends to the Rescue.
The hurricane episode was a six-part storyline (though somebody at the Tough Pigs forum claims that there was actualy another episode revolving around this plot, in which Big Bird goes on one of Guy Smiley's game shows and wins the trip to hawiai). I'm sure thatall of those epsidoes can fit on a three-disc set, but I doubt that any additional test pilots will be included (I'd like toe ventually see them all), and I wonder if any bonus sketches will be included. While it was more appropriate to group bonus segments by seasons on the first two sets, I don't know if that will be as appropriate on a hawiaia epsidoes set.
If volume 3 is the next five premieres, then I know that it will have at least two Kermit sketches, both newsflash segments, and one or two Guy Smiley segments, and two Monsterpeice Theater segments (both segments that I am excited about having... And they are both on the non-cliffhanger episodes). The hawiai episodes do not have any known Guy Smiley segments, and no Monsterpeice Theater segments, and four Kermit segments (two news segments). It's possible that Noggin edited more segments with them in those epsidoes, but judging by all known Noggin edits, it seems like not very many Muppet inserts were cut from Noggin's broadcasts. Either way there would be a lot of repeats from the first two sets (and I suppose this wil be true if we are way off on what episodes wil be included).
The hawiaia episodes have appearances by Big Bird, Oscar, Snuffy, Ernie, Bert, Kermit, Cookie Monster, Grover, Herbert Birdsfoot (though it's the same Herbert Birdsfoot segment that was released in Old School Volume 1), and Harvey Kneeslapper. Th 11-15 season premieres have appearances by Big Bird, Oscar, Snuffy, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, Grover, Herry, Elmo, Telly, Forgetful Jones, Clementine, and Buster.
It would be great if Sesame Workshop would have an online feature where fans could vote for what theyw ant on the next volume (though I'm sure that planning, production, and residuals have already been thought up for the next release, assuming it comes out this year, so maybe it would be better to vote for what will appear on volume 4). I wonder if we should start a petition or something. Maybe we can all list segments form the first 15-20 years that we'd like to have on a commercial DVD release, and somebody could e-mail Sesame Workshop, listing the segments that were in the most wishlists and provide a link to any such post.