Guide for new SST writers online

[minor muppetz]

I found this on the Toughpigs forum: http://www.toughpigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Sesame-Street-New-Writer-Memo.pdf

Norman Stiles had sent it to tough pigs. It's a guide for new Sesame Street writers (well, obviously it's from the early 1970s), instructing them on how to write for the show.

It is an interesting read, though there's a few things I was expecting it to be at first. I thought it was going to be a list of who wrote what sketch. Then I remembered reading that in the early days (and probably now) the writers would be given big guides listing all of the educational lessons required for the show, and thought it'd be that.

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

Wow, that's really cool! Thanks for sharing!

 

[minor muppetz]

After reading this, there's something I've been wondering. It may be slightly off-topic, but does involve the scripts, and I'm not sure if there's a better thread to ask, but here goes.

I've seen a few examples of Sesame Street scripts, online and in the 40th anniversary book. And I've seen that when listing what inserts appear, they list titles and length (I think some of the scripts I've seen also list the original seasons). With so many inserts, I wonder if there's a guide for the writers on every insert title and length. Though maybe they don't have to get the exact "title" right. Titles have been known to be listed differently from source-to-source, from what titles are in the scripts and certain CTW Archives material that has shown up online, to what titles Sesame Workshop gives them on sesamestreet.org, Hulu, and YouTube (sometimes giving skits slightly different titles among multiple video websites... and in the past year it seems some titles at sesamestreet.org have changed a little from how they were previously listed), to how they're listed in DVD chapter stops (sometimes listing different titles from multiple releases).

The guide mentions that no connecting street stories should last more than three scenes. I think the first episode had more than three scenes relevent to Sally learning about Sesame Street. There's no date in this note, but it's clearly from one of the first six years (since it mentions that scripts should begin with the episode number identification). While Telly's debut from the tenth season was represented with three scenes, the original script had five scenes on Telly's introduction.