Little things we've noticed

[minor muppetz]

Here's something that just now occured to me about FTB:

- Big Bird runs away from the Dodos just as night is falling
- The breaking news bulletin about Big Bird running away from home happens after dark, as we can see, everybody who's watching the bulletin is doing so at night
- When we throw to Kermit for his live report from Ocean View, it's broad daylight

How is this even possible? I would think maybe, perhaps, Kermit's report was actually pre-recorded, but it's implied that he's there live on the scene.

I've pointed this out a number of times.

And during the broadcast, as Big Bird is watching on outdoor televisions, it is nighttime, including when he's just missed by Miss Finch, which seems like it must not have been too long past the news broadcast.

But it's not until the next day that Big Bird is shocked to learn that it'll take a lot more than just three hours. So if the report was actually pre-recorded* (which, as noted, is implied to be live), Big Bird would have spent an entire day and two nights on the road before learning it will take longer than three hours as thought. Maybe Big Bird couldn't keep track of time well, but he should have figured it out when it's been night two times. And seeing as it's nighttime when he leaves and finds out Miss Finch is looking for him, could he have just found somewhere to sleep, since it was night and possibly a more dangerous walk at the time, and then got up in the morning to really start his journey?

It could be a case of different time zones, except during broadcast time, it is dark in both Illinois (assuming he's not yet in Indiana) and New York.

*The newscaster also says the report was just in, so I doubt they had time to pre-record... But then would they have had time to send a reporter and crew from New York to Illinois in such a short span of time? Or is it common for news shows to have a crew in different parts of the world? In fact, if it was just in, then Miss Finch would have had to have been in the area. Suppose she came to check up on Big's living situation and found out then. With how the Dodo's react when interviewed, it'd make sense if Miss Finch was the one to call the press/authorities about it. Though the time spent waiting to be interviewed is time that could have been spent finding Big Bird. And I am at a loss on whether it makes sense for his Sesame Street friends to wait until the next morning to plan and search than to plan/search immediately at night. They really should have just found a way for Big Bird to sneak out in the afternoon - we wouldn't have this continuity issue, Big Bird could learn it'd likely take three weeks sooner, everyone could get together and leave in daylight with a big crowd to cheer them on, and so on.

 

[DatH]

Anyone else weirded out that Mrs. Finch didn't have actual feathers except for her hair and "fingers?"? Even the other bird characters had more in comparison

 

[D'Snowth]

Really, the only thing that bothered me about Miss Finch is how her dialogue and mouth movements never really synced well, but I suppose that's what happens when you have separate suit and vocal performers.

 

[minor muppetz]

Maybe I talked about it here, it has been on my mind a lot and I know I have posted about it on a Facebook page, but recently Muppet Wiki started a sandbox page on uncredited performers, and I was surprised to see that so many performers went uncredited for at least their first season. There are some who performed for many years who seem to always be uncredited, maybe they were never really major performers on the show, maybe they just spent a day or show a year. I was surprised to see Kathy Mullen was uncredited, I would have thought she'd be credited at some point, I was also surprised to see that she did perform on the show during the early 1990s, I figured she was somewhat regular despite not having her own characters. I figured Dave Goelz would have been credited during his one season, but he wasn't. I was also surprised to see that Steve Whitmire went five years before being credited on the show, though it seems he only did four or five Ernie sketches a year during those years (and in season 30, his first credited season, there was a lot of new Ernie content... including a lot that for years I incorrectly assumed premiered in either season 30 or later).

Of course, Jim, Frank, Jerry, and Richard would be credited for many years, even when they weren't on the show often (well, Jim kinda went uncredited, if you don't count the performers credit listing them as "Jim Henson's Muppets"), but I guess that's different, as they did do a lot of work despite being on set for a relatively short amount of time. And Frank Oz continued to be credited when he was only performing on the show one day a year (and Caroll Spinney has continued being credited despite rarely doing material for the last three seasons and didn't do any new recordings for season 48).

I like the uncredited performers sandbox page, but I wonder if Sesame Street's uncredited performers should be such a big deal. Considering the show used to only have end credits on the Friday shows and the credits are pretty much the same all year, never really crediting single-episode guest stars or anything. Given the shows format, I wonder if it would have been too complicated to list guest stars or to strictly credit those involved with the episodes (maybe a special credit for existing segment talents, like the video releases do).

 

[D'Snowth]

In Episode 1740, when Bob gives Big Bird a demonstration of how water works coming from a reservior to our pipes, he at one point demonstrates by saying, "Telly gets very thirsty and takes a bath." What, does Telly drink his own bath water? Eww!

 

[DatH]

I think he meant tap water in general can be used for both even though tap water is typically poor for drinking without filtration

 

[YellowYahooey]

Going through the many episode guides on Muppet Wiki, "Daddy Dear", an iconic animated song, was shown quite frequently during the 1970s and early 1980s. But based on what is posted for Season 15 thus far, "Daddy Dear" was never shown that season as far as we know.

We do know the song was aired in Season 16, at least on Episode 2040.

 

[minor muppetz]

I think a lot of the best-known classic segments were sometimes absent for an entire year. There is so much content that it was probably hard to air everything every season. Though I kind of feel like the letter and number segments would be most likely to be shown a lot, as those letters and numbers give more reason to show certain segment (and years ago I likely would have expected non-letter/number segments to have a better chance of airing the most, since they don't need a sponsor).

A year or so ago I was looking at the "what links here" for season 2 Rubber Duckie and I think there were a few seasons in the 1990s that did not air the song. And they didn't show Bein' Green much in the 1990s, with the season 7 version in a season 25 episode, the Lena Horne version airing the most that decade (but last seen in either season 23 or 24), and the original not airing at all (but at least it got a home video release).

But this brings to something I thought about just a few days ago, and did a little research just before making this post (though not real thorough research). Until the 1980s, it was frequent for the show to have new renditions of The People in Your Neighborhood, but then it seemed to stop. Looking at Muppet Wiki, there were no new People in Your Neighborhood inserts between seasons 18 and 30, though most renditions of the song to appear in street scenes came during this period. The first version of the song I remember was from Sesame Street Special, and in 1994, I looked at a song listing on an album and was surprised to see that the song was also done on the actual show (and it would be years before I would know that there were so many versions). I was watching Sesame Street regularly when Sesame Street Special aired and would watch somewhat regularly throughout the 1990s, and it's possible I missed a lot, but after Sesame Street Special, the first version I remember seeing was the season 30 version with Ben Stiller.

I clicked "what links here" to see what the last episode is that the wiki currently lists for some of them, though not all. But, as I was expecting, none of the first season performances aired in the 1990s, and all of the rare ones I clicked on did not air in the '90s (it's often cool when I learn that certain rare segments actually did air in the 1990s, an era when it was more common for people to record the show). I did see that the second-to-last insert with Bob last aired in season 25. I figure the majority of People in Your Neighborhood segments with Bob or any of the other regular humans that did air in the 1990s, however many that may be, would be from the 1980s and maybe late-1970s. With the song often having new verses to accommodate different jobs and it being such a big part of the show, it is interesting how at the same time they basically stopped doing new versions and basically stopped airing many of the old ones.

 

[DatH]

To be fair, there were way more episodes per season back then
Over 100 a season vs 26 now
So segments not being used all the time for new material shouldn't be unexpected. Though the opposite is true for mass reusing a segment....

 

[minor muppetz]

In the age of Muppet Wiki having full guides for post-season 20 episodes, I've seen that there's a few episodes around seasons 24-26 that have Biff and Roxy Marie in a workshop of Biff's, scenes that could have easily been repeated as inserts, but they only show up in one episode. I know back in the 1990s there were still street scenes that didn't have to do with a plot, but it does seem odd for a scene not taking place at one of the main street locations just being done for a stand-alone scene not to be repeated in further episodes. Unless these were actually intended to be repeated but all of the segments taking place there just happened to only appear in one episode. I'm starting to think that the scripts don't indicate whether a street scene was intended to be repeated later, and the wiki guides to refer to these as scenes in the episode (like, "scene 2" or "scene 4" or whatever).

Of course in the first season there seemed to be a lot of segments with the human cast that took place on the limbo set that were only used in one episode, that don't get noted in the "first season show content" (the segment with Gordon meeting Penelope Peppercot seems to be one of these). Those files do include some street scenes that were clearly only meant to one episode, but it is kind of weird for segments taking place on other sets to only be meant for one episode. Though the Bob and Sherlock Hemlock "who are you?" segment, done on the limbo set, has Sherlock mention the Sesame Street sign being right in their view, so I guess the limbo set was sometimes considered part of the street.