eventful segments

[minor muppetz]

Are there any skits that, as a kid, you really liked, but didn't see very often? Segments that seemed like an event whenever it was shown? Or if it was so rarely shown that if you ended up tapping an episode with that sketch or finding a video with it, you considered it a victory?

Here are some segments that I felt were like an event to see, not counting their presence on videos or in anniversary specials/ documentaries:

Rubber Duckie
Do De Rubber Duck
C is for Cookie
Monsterpiece Theater: Chariots of Fur
Cookie Monster eating letters that spelled FOOD
Sesame Street News: Alice in Wonderland
Monster in the Mirror
all of the Miami Mice skits

I guess now that seeing most skits form the show in new episodes (or on video) would be like an event, though ironically, Do De Ruber Duck is shown at least once a season.

 

[ISNorden]

If I had to judge the rarest segments from my memories of watching as a child, I'd list the following segment types as my personal "Top 10 Favorites I Almost Never Saw". Picking one clip in each category, unfortunately, was too hard for me...*shrug*

10. Prairie Dawn's pageants, especially the "emotions" pageant with Bert in a Cupid costume, substituting his own song about love for the lines Prairie had scripted for him. (It's a shame that Prairie has almost been reduced to a victim of Cookie Monster's letter-eating nowadays...)

9. The original "Twiddlebug" segments which showed their milk-carton house from inside; the fine detail in there (like a postage-stamp picture on the wall) impressed me.

8. Any "Lefty the Salesman" segment without Ernie in it. Not that I have any hard feelings towards Ernie, of course; it's just that the other Lefty sketches didn't appear so often. (Remember Lefty's henchman getting "some", "more", and "the most" carrots for his boss's pet rabbit? That sketch even used real carrots and a real rabbit; most Muppet segments wouldn't go to those lengths today.

7. Any "show-within-a-show" segments with Telly and Oscar cooperating, even if Oscar's grouchiness won out in the end. ("Sneak Peek Previews" was especially funny, with the "wow/phooey" ratings and the defective-seat gag.)

6. Any Spanish cartoon that didn't have an English equivalent; most of them were letter cartoons, so I enjoyed guessing the meanings of the words displayed onscreen.

5. Any of the "Jazzy Spies" cartoons (especially the highest numbers--those hardly ever showed).

4. Any of the "stream of consciousness" letter cartoons from the earliest seasons ("E Imagination", "The Ape and A", "The O Song").

3. Any of the following whole-alphabet clips: "Madrigal Alphabet", "Rube Goldberg Alphabet", "NYC Signs Alphabet (the older version, with a jazzy background and no CGI effects).

2. Any of the following "high counting" clips (i.e., counting above a potential number of the day): "Hindu-style 20" (sitar music and the four-armed man), "Destroyed Numbers 20" (Cookie Monster's "SEVENTEEN!" was priceless), "40 Blocks to School" (one of the best 1980s clips in my opinion).

And my absolute favorite category of Sesame Street clips...*drumroll*

1. Any segment teaching about love, hugs, and cuddly things. (Two specific examples: the "LOVE" cartoon which showed arms hugging the word, and the Muppet song-sketch "I Think That It Is Wonderful". I still think hugging my teddy bears is wonderful... )

 

[ILuVERNIE]

i have 1000000000000000000000000 stuffed animals! i give each of them a proper h-u-g.

 

[minor muppetz]

This doesn't really concern me much, but I have read somewhere that whenever the Baker films for the numbers one and ten were shown it was like an event. Of course, the Ten skit isn't really that rare anymore: it was included in some Noggin episodes (and therefore available to tape traders), it was in The Street We Live On (now available on video and DVD), and the book Sesame Street Unpaved.

I would say that seeing the Baker films were like an event for me, but this is for segments that seeing on the show were like an event when we saw them as children, not as teenagers or adults. I didn't know about these films untill 1998.

Another sketch I forgot to mention, which I don't ever remember seeing on the show (only in Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting, the A&E biography, and The World of Jim Henson, and I'm not sure if any of those specials showed the full skit) was the sketch where Kermit demonstrated Next To with Shala and Fanny.

One skit that I forgot to mention that I feel is eventful when I see it is the Grover the waiter sketch where Grover serves a hamburger.

 

[minor muppetz]

Another thing I'd like to say. I remember back in 1994, I had gotten quite a few Sesame Street albums (The Best of Ernie, Jim Henson: A Sesame Street Celebration, and Born to Add) and I remember these albums having a lot of songs that I had no memory of seeing, and felt like it was an event whenever I saw a song from those albums that I hadn't remembered seeing. Songs like Air, Dee Dee Dee, African Alphabet, Carribean Amphibean, Count it Higher, (I Can't Get No) Co-Operation, Mahna Mahna, and many others. There are still some songs from these albums that I still haven't seen (Big Round Nose, Share, The Opposite Song, Breakfast Time, With Every Beat of My Heart), but I have seen a lot of them.

Also, there were a lot of songs that I remembered seeing but hadn't seen in a long time (like Captain Vegetable), and thought of them as an event when I finally did see them again. There are still some that I hadn't seen since before I got these albums (like I Wonder About the World Above Up There and I Wish I Had a Friend to Play with Me).

Also, there is one Sesame Street song that I haven't seen in a long time, long before I got these albums, and there are two songs, Tadpole and This Frog, that I thought might have been one of these. Of course, when I got The best of Kermit on Sesame Street I saw these segments and learned that neither of these were it. I think the song might be My Pollywog Ways, but I am not sure. Anyway, this song took place inside Kermit's home, with Kermit wearing a robe. It begins with him talking about his childhood, I think, and we see some pictures on te wall, with Kermit at various ages (all drawn) untill it gets to an adult Kermit (this picture has often been seen inside Miss Piggy's dressing room), and then the ligths get darkend and Kermit starts singing, and I think there is suddenly a band playing. Can anybody tell me what this song is?