limits on outdated content

[minor muppetz]

Over the years, there has been limits on what could be shown in new epsidoes and what couldn't, usually due to certain sketches being outdated (if not due to censorship). Let's see if we can figure out when the variosu limitations started.

First of all, I have a feeling that first season sketches with Oscar weren't shown after the first season, since his color changed. Of course, I don't know if he even appeared in any sketches that were repeated during the first season (with the main exception of being in the background of a sketch that I've only seen a still from, where he's with Bert and several monsters and anything Muppets.

I am not sure about Big Bird. I don't know how many of his first season sketches were repeated (besides the sketch where he met Little Bird, the song Chickedy Chick, and probably ABC-DEF-GHI). Sure, Big Bird did look and sound different in the first season, and his personality was a bit different, but I don't think the differences between seasons 1 and 2 Big Bird are really very different if you compare the first and second season versions for Bert and Ernie, and their first season sketches continued to be shown for years.

I would have thought that sketches with the first season Grover wouldn't have been shown after the first season, but I've seen some pages at Muppet Wiki for post-season one episodes that had first season sketches with Grover, some of which some people here have video copies of. The sketch where Grover and other monsters whisper C was shown in an epsiode from either season 4 or 5, and I've heard that Five Song (Song of Five) continued to be shown regularly until the baker films stopped being shown altogether.

I would have thoughtt he same thing about first season sketches where Guy Smiley was named Sonny Friendly, but I've seen a Muppet Wiki page for a mid-1970s episode featuring Pick Your Pet, where he was called Sonny Friendly.

Segments with former human cast members usually aren't shown after they leave the show. Sketches with certain Muppet characters have been shown for years after the characters stopped appearing in new segments. Examples of such characters include Herbert Birdsfoot, Don Music, Guy Smiley, Gladys the Cow, Forgetful Jones, Lefty, and I think Professor Hastings. Of course, some of those characters did make occassional background appearances, and Gladys and Guy Smiley were recently recast with new performers. I guess you could say the same thing about Ernie after Jim Henson's death, when there were nearly three years of no new Ernie skits.

But the human cast is different. I am not sure how strict Sesame Workshop would have been regarding sketches where the humans were mentioned but not seen, especially with segments that referenced Mr. Hooper being alive. But I know that there are exceptions. For example, Savion appeared in the 1993 remake of A New Way to Walk, which I saw in a season 30 episode, five years after he left the cast (though he was pretty much a background character there, and since Savion Glover was a bit of a celebrity outside of his role, and that sketch featured many celebrity guests, he could have just been seen as another celebrity). There have also been at least two episodes where the characters talked about Mr. Hooper, with clips beign showna s flashbacks.

Since the late 1990s, I started to think that sketches with the human cast were dropped after a few years of their debuts, due to aging. I don't know if this was always the case (I don't ever remember seeing any early sketches with the humans outside of video releases). Then again, at that time, sketches with older versions of the Muppet puppets were regularly shown despite how different the characters looked at the time. But there was one epsidoe from season 30 that featured a 1980s sketch with Gina and Maria. This was The Word is No, where Gina definately looked different then she did in 1998 (Maria doesn't really look that much different). But in that episode, the clip was presented as a flashback. Oscar had a trash sale, and Gina wanted to buy his "No" sign, since it reminded her of the song she sang with Maria, and the sketch was shown.

I am not sure about sketches with Herry Monster when he had a furry blue nose. I don't ever recall reading about any furry-nosed Herry sketches being shown after the second season. But I do know that skits where Herry had a smooth blue nose were shown in later epsidoes. I remember seeing an epsidoe in either the late 1980s or early 1990s that featured the sketch where Ernie, Bert, and Herry fought for the TV chair, and Herry had a smooth blue nose in that sketch.

After Snuffy was revealed to the adults to be real, I wouldn't be surprised if skits that directly referenced Snuffy being "imaginary" were no longer being shown. I am not sure about sketches with Jerry Nelson or Michael Earl Davis as Snuffy. I've read that there was a 1987 epsiode featuring a sketch where Nelson performed Snuffy.

And this brings me to sketches with characters performed by their original performers after getting new performers. I've read that sketches with Brian Meehl performing Telly were shown until at least 1987, three years after Martin Robinson took over the role (of course, I think it was around this time that the voice Martin used started to change). I've also read that there was a 1987 episode featuring Me, Claudius, where Elmo wasn't performed by Kevin Clash. I don't know how often sketches with Michael Earl Davis as Forgetful Jones were shown after Richard Hunt took over the role, but I know that at least one skit was remade with Richard Hunt as Forgetful Jones. And Kevin Clash eventually redubbed Elmo's lines in We're All Monsters.

Now, there are a lot more limitatiosn in what "outdated" material can be shown. Hardly any pre-1980 stuff is shown, and when it is, it's normally animations like King of 8. Whenever Muppet skits from the 1980s are shown, it's usually just ones with Ernie. It would seem a bit rude to avoid sketches where Ernie was performed by Jim Henson, and sketches with Frank Oz as Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover are still shown semi-regularly (and he does still perform them occasionally in new material).

Are there any limitaitons that I forgot (or didn't know) to mention?

 

[JLG]

You're right that they are definitely stricter than they used to be about that. Of course, they also show a lot less individual scenes within one hour nowadays, so there's less room all around.

Well into the 90s, they were still showing ancient stuff that was very obviously dated. Some of it had been retired earlier, and I'm not sure what made the difference in what had been dropped and what was still there.
In the case of the adult cast, it's pretty clear that aging would be the main reason older stuff with them would get the boot, but the live-action films showing how things work or kids' lives are less clear. Sometimes clothes, cars, or cultural references seemed to matter, and other times they didn't.

Muppet-wise, I remember as late as 1997 seeing one Ernie/Bert and one Kermit segment that were from 1969. I had never knowingly seen anything from year one back then, but I recognized them as being very old just from how the characters looked.

 

[jeffkjoe]

It's interesting how they kept 1969 Ernie and Bert sketches in the rotation until the late 1990's.

I remember seeing 1973 shaggy-looking Big Bird counting Grover's pull-ups as late as 1981 (you can see Drew Barrymore watching this skit during E.T. The Extra Terrestrial).

I remember seeing long-sideburned Bob from early 1970's in skits as late as the 1980's.

 

[JLG]

Long-sideburned Bob outlived the decade, ey?

I have a new slogan: "Sesame Street---the only place where the 70s lasted thirty years!"

I'm going to have to watch E.T. again. Incidently--I don't remember if it was in this forum, but someone was once speculating on that E.T. scene, when in the background you can clearly hear Grover and Big Bird puzzling over some strange object and Big Bird says "I think it came from...outer space.."

The person was trying to figure out if that was an actual episode or if it was taped specifically for E.T. He said that he had contacted Sesame Workshop, and surprisingly, they didn't know. I'm forgetting a lot of other details, but the short of it is that it ended up being an unanswered question, and it just seems odd that no one seems to know.

(It would be awesome if it HAD been shot just for E.T., but I guess that's not very likely.)

 

[superboober]

How about limitations for the live action intershow films? How far back must it go now to qualify for the current show, and did there seem to be other such crossover lines in prior years? If it's any help, as late as 1995 I saw the "city" version of the "Sounds" sketch with the elderly (Jewish?) guy playing the violin, the maid vacuuming the apartment, the very pretty girl happily listening to the record player, and the train rumbling by outside the window, sort of hinting that only the most outdated material was under the limitation umbrella at that time. Can anyone help me shed more light onto this admittedly vaguer topic?

 

[jeffkjoe]

Talking about 1969 live action clips that got shown way through the show's run:

I saw 1969's sketch about Mrs. Wilson's vegetable garden WAAAAY into the late 1970's (when the girl who did the narration was probably either in high school or in college at that point)

and

the sad flower sketch with the guitar music was played right after they talked about Mr. Hooper's death in 1983.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Yeah, the mojority of clipe in the 90's were from the eighties. But there wereplenty from the 70's during that time. But mostly seemed like very selected one's for the most part, though. But there were a few suprises ever now and then, too.

 

[JLG]

Yeah, the film above is an example of what I meant by the 90s still having obviously dated material. (My name for it is "Sounds Around the House #2") By the 90s, what teenager was listening to records? Plus her hair and clothes were very of the time, and the NYC subway cars by the 90s were no longer covered with graffiti like that train that roars by was.

And on the Muppet side of things, I remember seeing "Me Lost Me Cookie At The Disco" in 1996.

Of course, the only reason, this stuff was kept for so long is that they know kids don't pick up on things like clothes, hair, and cars being different, but that begs the question of what finally did made them drop it all eventually....

 

[wiley207]

I know something that might be outdated now...

There are several Sesame Street crosswalk-safety skits featuring the older crosswalk signals with the words "WALK" and "DON'T WALK." Not a lot of those signals exist around America anymore (ESPECIALLY in New York City). So maybe they should make new skits or songs that explain about the "wordless" crosswalk signals (maybe a song called "The Man and the Hand" by Christopher Cerf?)

 

[minor muppetz]

I don't ever remember seeing any disco skits on the show. I always assumed that all disco skits were retired after disco died (even though the 1990 video Dance-Along featured ABC Disco).

Now that I think of it, it seems to me like the majority of first season sketches that continued to be shown up to the late 1990s (and possibly beyond) were animated skits. It is a bit hard to tell whether an animated or filmed segment is from the first season or the early 1970s (though the circles film that appeared in the pitch reel, A Little Bit at the Beginning, and the borign cow film from the first episode all had something different about the film quality that I didn't notice in later films.. I can't really pinpoint what this "difference" is). Most animated skits from the first season have a similar style, being that the background is plain white (sometimes another color, like black in the baker films and dot cartoons) and the only objects drawn and colored are the characters, clothing, and neccessary props and set pieces. Of course, it's possible that this style was used for post-season one animated skits, too.

And there were animated skits from the first season to have different styles in animation. Batman Crosses the Street (and I guess all of the animated Batman's other appearances) featured the most detaield, elaborate animation I've seen in any first season animated cartoon (that I know was from the first season). Some portions of the Jazz cartoons had more elaborate animations. Wanta the Witch had a lot of objects drawn, but not much colored (some props and set pieces could be seen through Wanda the Witch). The more elaborate styles in the first season seemed to occur in animations that featured more cuts in the cartoons (most of the ones I've seen are just one take long... okay, I don't know if cartoons can have "takes", but if they were live action they'd be one take).

But the first season Muppet skits seemed to appear sporatice, at least to me. I remember seeing quite a few Ernie and Bert sketches from the first season when I was a kid, but the only ones that I remember seeing frequently were the one where Ernie and Bert shared jellybeans and the one where Ernie demonstrates before and after. Most of the other ones that I saw I only remember seeing once. I don't recall seeing any first season skits with just anything muppets, and I don't remember seeing any Kermit skits from the first season (though I've read that Bein' Green was shown in an episode from after 1990, and I've read that there is a 1991 episode featuring the first season skit where Kermit watched bears excersizing).