Little things we've noticed

[minor muppetz]

After watching Spaceship Surprise: The Next Generation: Planet H, I noticed a line at the end, saying "See you some year for Spaceship Surprise..." I don't know if that's the only "Next Generation" segment (it's the only one mentioned on the wiki), but it seems they might have been planning on making the segments few and far between.

And it got me thinking, it seems like a lot of recurring segments that don't have many installments had each installment made several years apart. Seems that way for segments like Alphabet Chat, Here is Your Life, Beat the Time... I feel there's something I'm forgetting. It also seems like, after season 6, Super Grover segments had season-long gaps (I know of one segment from season 5, and three from season 6, I think the barber shop segment is from either season 5 or 6), and I think Monsterpiece Theater started out that way.

 

[minor muppetz]

I've recently found a clip from episode 3083: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqITOAuW7Q8

One thing that I noticed: When Bruno whispers to Oscar, it looks more like he's trying to kiss Oscar. Yeah, it's hard for Caroll Spinney to move Bruno's mouth when he's got his hands full with Oscar, but it's a shame he didn't just try to move a mouth wire to stimulate small mouth movements (since there wouldn't have to be an accurate lip sync).

 

[minor muppetz]

I was watching some of Richard Hunt's performances as Captain Vegetable last night, and noticed that Richard's version has both regular Muppet ears AND bunny ears. Two sets of ears??? I thought those kinds of ears on Anything Muppets were removable (the season two sketch "I Wanna Hold Your Ear" shows the female characters ears taken off.... Though these are different time periods AND different Anything Muppets).

 

[minor muppetz]

I hadn't noticed this before, but after watching the Big Bird and Snuffy "Ice Follies" skit, I can kind of see (I assume) where the performers were able to see out of. I see a spot on Big Bird's neck where feathers don't cover much, and I've noticed Snuffy having big black spots under his eyes, presumably so the suit performer could look out.

And after that when watching segments with the regular Snuffy puppet/costume I've noticed a little bit of darker dark fur under his eyes. Don't know if that's a way for the regular performer to see (I always assumed the front performer wears a monitor like Caroll Spinney does).

 

[minor muppetz]

I'd like to note some little things I've noticed after watching Old School Volume 3:

• In the Bert and Ernie: Pyramid segment, it seems the Ernie statue moves slightly when he's not supposed to. When they first encounter the statues the Ernie statue seems to slightly move back and fourth. I guess the performer probably had trouble standing fully still with a puppet on his arm above his head. I have trouble holding still as well (I've made quite a few YouTube videos where I'm supposed to be standing but unintentionally ended up moving my body as if I was drowsy or drunk).
• In Big Hello 1-20, near the end Big Bird seems to count people who aren't on screen. When Mr. Macintosh and two kids show up Big Bird counts four numbers, and when he counts the rest it soon cuts to a close-up of Big Bird but even then we see less than 20 until after he counts to 20, but in the last shot we do see 20 characters altogether (Deena is one character who wasn't shown until the group shot).
• In the Sesame Street News "The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe" segment, I thought I heard one of the kids refer to another as Frank, but when the old lady lists the names of her kids, she never refers to any of them as Frank. Unless the old lady is actually named Frank (or maybe she had so many kids she didn't know what to do about that she couldn't remember all of them).
• This doesn't appear on the set, but after seeing it on the recent Best of Friends DVD, I've noticed that in That Grouchy Face, at the beginning when James Taylor first sings to Oscar and Oscar goes down into his can, you can see a little of Oscar's fur from out the backside of the trashcan (since that's where the hole for Caroll to perform Oscar through is).

 

[minor muppetz]

In "The King's Nose", it seems like only Jim and Frank were allowed to operate their characters, while anybody (probably Richard) could handle Jerry's. In early scenes, when various characters are surrounding Mumford, we see Bert, Grover, Kermit, Guy Smiley, Herry, and Sherlock Hemlock. It's obvious that Frank's performing Bert and Grover at once, and obvious that Jim's performing Kermit and Guy. But at the end of the story, when Ernie comes in, Kermit and Guy are no longer there. I think Bert and Grover weren't present in the scene either (I haven't watched the skit in awhile), but if they weren't then they were gone by the time Cookie Monster showed up.

 

[minor muppetz]

After watching the "Talky Stick" several times, I've noticed something weird about Warren Wolf's teeth. It looks like he could be wearing a retainer over his few fangs.

I wondered if maybe this was a reference to Warner Wolf, whom Warren is based on, but then I looked at the wikipedia page for Warner Wolf and didn't see anything about him having braces, a retainer, or anything about his teeth, nor did I notice anything odd about his teeth when looking at pictures online.

In that same sketch I noticed that Warren Wolf seems to have a thing for lollypops. I wonder if that was also a known trait of Warner Wolf. I know it's a character trait for Kojak.

 

[minor muppetz]

Not exactly a "little thing", but something obvious that I can't believe I hadn't noticed until tonight (should I start a seperate thread for obvious things we were slow to notice? ). But tonight for the first time I actually noticed that each Jazz Numbers segment actually begins with a different bit of animation including the featured number before the counting opening begins. For some reason I thought they all began exactly the same way, but now I can see that they all began with some item with the featured number before the counting began. For example, Jazz #2 begins with a man riding his bike towards the camera, with a 2 on his shirt, Jazz #7 begins with a track runner with a 7 on his shirt, Jazz #8 begins with a magic 8 ball rolling on the screen, and so on.

The ones I've watched the most are the few that are on DVD (Jazz #2) and sesamestreet.org (Jazz #4 and #7), but that's still no excuse for me not to have noticed this until now.

 

[cjd874]

On Old School Volume 2, there is something interesting about "What's the Name of That Song?" After the Count's verse, the camera cuts to the human cast singing the remaining verses. Mr. MacIntosh enters with his fruit cart, and right next to Mr. MacIntosh (on the left of the screen) you can see Jerry Nelson's feet moving away as he tries to get out of the camera shot. I think he's still holding up the Count, too. Start @2:46.

 

[cjd874]

And I also just realized that Luis is absent from both specials Christmas Eve on SS and Don't Eat the Pictures, while the rest of the cast was there (except for Mr. Hooper in DETP). I wonder why Luis wasn't in either one?