International Sesame Street Question

[MikaelaMuppet]

What international versions of Sesame Street appear in Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting and The Sesame Street Experiment?

 

[Bliffenstimmers]

There is a montage of clips in 20 Years that represents the international co-productions. First there's parts of the theme songs to...

1. Plaza Sesamo, Mexio
2. Iftah Ya Simsim, Kuwait
3. Barrio Sesamo, Spain
4. Sesamstrasse, Germany
5. Sesame, Philippines
6. Rechov Sumsum, Israel
7. Sesamstraat, Holland

Then comes another montage of clips from the international shows' street scenes, with Bill Cosby narrating over each clip...

1. "Some countries have their own version in their own language with their own characters. Plaza Sesamo, produced in Mexico, (is) seen all over Latin America. Instead of an 8 foot canary, it has a 7 foot parrot named Montoya, and Bodoque the Grouch."
2. "Seen throughout the Arab world and done in Kuwait is Iftah Ya Simsim, a little backstreet place where you find Malsun the parrot and a big furry guy named Nu'man."
3. "Samson the Bear and Tiffy live in Germany, on Sesamstrasse, with George and Bettina."
4. "In Holland, a mouse, a dog and a bird, named Pino, live on Sesamstraat."
5. "In Spain, stars of Barrio Sesamo, are Don Pimpon and a pink porcupine named Espinete."
6. "In Israel, on Rechov Sumsum, lives another star porcupine named Kippi. He lives outside the bakery with Oofnik the Grouch."

On The Sesame Street Experiment, well what is only available on YouTube, part 1 has a segment on worldwide shows.

• It begins with the hostess walking out of Big Bird's nest room to the Sesame Street sign/lamp post, which now has various multicolored street signs below Sesame's representing the many international co-productions: Plaza Sesamo in red, Iftah Ya Simsim in orange, Rechov Sumsum in blue, Sesamstraat in purple, Barrio Sesamo in pink and Sesamstrasse in lime green. The hostess narrates: "... and Sesame Street reaches out even farther, in fact, to 84 countries. Most use the English version, but several produce original shows based on Sesame Street which incorporate their own culture and values."

• Lu Horne, vice president of international production at CTW says in an interview clip that follows: "CTW provides certain broadcast elements, animation, Muppet segments, live action films. We do not provide studio segments because that would be culturally inappropriate."

• The hostess continues, speaking over some clips from international shows: "Some countries have their own versions of Big Bird." She mentions some of them, with brief clips to represent each one. Most of them are in fact the same clips from 20 Years. "There's a green bird, a blue bird, a camel, a porcupine and a bear."

• As the Plaza Sesamo intro plays as well as a street scene from the show following that, the hostess comments: "This is Plaza Sesamo. It's one of the many international co-productions currently on the air. They're modeled after Sesame Street, but with a curriculum to fit each country's needs."

• Adrianne Benton, vice president of international marketing for CTW then says in another interview clip, "Some of them are based very much on our curriculum. Some of the research is, I think, helpful, but I think each situation is very different, and that's the point about the model. The model is extremely adaptable and that's why we've had such success transferring our program around the world."

• Now there's another montage, showcasing various scenes from other co-productions: a counting animation which I believe is from Iftah Ya Simsim, a dubbed Ernie and Bert clip from Rechov Sumsum, with Ernie noticing Bert asleep in their armchair, the Philippines Sesame intro, and the German dub of Grover's song "Over, Under, Around and Through" from Sesamstrasse. This is preceded with a segue intro a segment on the Sesame Street TV special "Big Bird in Japan."

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

@JazzyAlphabet both of those specials have been on YouTube for quite sometime. Why couldn't you go look them up and see for yourself instead of asking about it here?

 

[Drtooth]

Man. Remember when TV special retrospectives had those clips of international dubs to show how relevant they are in other countries? And remember how they were always dark, grainy, and low quality? No wonder why international dubbing bugged me at a certain age. I certainly remember the fuzzy, terrible quality of the dub clips provided for the Garfield 10th anniversary special back in the 80's. Germany's dub of Garfield goes Hollywood especially looked like it was kept in a damp basement for 20 years. And it was only a year older than the retrospective! EEK!

It's funny though. Those sort of international clips had a certain mystique about them. Like we were never meant to see any of it (minus the fact Shalom Sesame was being aired around that time), and they were exotic back then. Now it's like, quick Youtube search and they're easily accessible. Sometimes the only way to find old Sesame Street bits is through those foreign clips.

My question is, I remember back on the first episode of Shalom, Ihtzak Pearlman (or someone) showed a similar montage of clips. Now, it seems that it's the same montage, but I swear there were other clips or other international shows in that one. Somehow I remember a Panda, but I know that couldn't be right.