Little things we've noticed

[cjd874]

Nah.

In rock bands, it's not uncommon for keyboardists to bang their heads into their keyboards, not unlike guitarists who smash their guitars after a song. It's just one of those things.

To add on to that, John Lennon used to play the electric piano with his elbows during live Beatles concerts in 1965 & 1966. And before that, Jerry Lee Lewis would practically jump on his piano while playing it. Other players like Elton John and Billy Joel followed suit in the 1970s.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Speaking of the keyboardist, I actually think he might have been performed by Richard Hunt. I notice in both songs he has the common head tilt Richard does with many of his characters (though I’d have to pay more attention to how he operate the pumpkins).

 

[minor muppetz]

So recently in the classic clips on YouTube thread we were talking a little bit about the two Chrissy's (of the Alphabeats and Monotones) and how the writers most likely didn't care too much about consistency/minutia on such minor characters back then.

But it seems they were a little consistent on the names of one-shot characters who were not referred to by name in their own segments.

I remember when I first saw Count It Higher: Great Music Videos from Sesame Street, I thought it was great that they cared to remember that the singers of The Ten Commandments of Health were named Dr. Thad and the Medications, as listed when the song was included as an album track in Born to Add. And until then I didn't really think about whether they were used in other segments, but at that point I did wonder.

Album releases of "(I Can't Get No) Co-Operation" list the singers as Mick Swagger and the Sesame Street Cobblestones, while Rock & Roll is slightly consistent by referring to them as just the Cobblestones. But the lead singer didn't need to be named. After all, the group they parody is not called "Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones".

I wonder about Bruce Stringbean and the S. Street Band. Bruce Stringbean was only in two numbers, "Born to Add" and "Barn in the USA", which came over a decade apart. He doesn't look too different, just as different as a character would between that time, not to mention as different as the average Anything Muppet appears in multiple segments. It's the same AM, the same hair, the same voice, and while he's not wearing the leather jacket, it's the same shirt. But I wonder, if the Born to Add album didn't list the same group for both songs (or if I hadn't seen the track and singer listing first), would I register that they were the same character? With the song being in a rerelease of an album that had another song where Christopher Cerf did a Bruce Springsteen parody, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to just call them the same thing. It's also possible that they chose to do another Springsteen parody and somebody remembered "Born to Add" and decided to bring that character back.

While not a one-shot, it is amazing that the green Anything Muppet known as Tony was identified by name when Gordon introduced an airing of "Lulu's Back in Town", and was soon given that name on the style guide. And I think I recently read that the name was used in another sketch.

Unfortunately, poor Max Monster didn't get the consistency, though I don't blame them since until recently the fans didn't even know about this. He appeared with that name in an episode that came shortly before "Comb Your Face", where the script just called him "monster" (and album releases call him "a monster"), likely they didn't decide to use him until taping (and maybe they put him in at the last minute in an attempt to make him a recurring character), and then on the video Monster Hits he was called Furline Husky.

I wonder if those various groups were named in the scripts or if the names first appeared on the album track listings (or home videos where they had on-screen captions identifying them). It is a little cool that they did that as opposed to just listing them all as "The Anything People" or "Anything Muppets" like some album tracks do (when I first saw the term listed on albums, they were for songs I had not been familiar with seeing and wondered what an Anything Muppet was).

I wonder, if the songs had appeared on an official album, if they would have applied names to characters like the cowboys who sang the two "Try, Try Again" songs or the monster who sang "Disco Toothbrush" or the shark who sang "Pearl White Teeth" or the baritone who sang "Ah, For the Joys of the Countryside".

 

[LittleJerry92]

So for a good while I used to think the original 2008 upload of “Wet Paint” with the SMV introduction where the intro just starts off with the host saying “How Now Brown, and the Moo Wave, and..... WET PAINT! Riiiiiight!” on sesamestreet.org was just an awkward edit on Sesame Workshop’s part (since I know some segments like the Lefty scale one had that issue with trimming a good portion of the beginning of clips in their early uploads), but I noticed in 2326 that the airing of the song airs the exact same way the original video upload was presented. I would have never guessed the segment with the intro would start that way.

I also noticed in the 2816 airing you can see two of the transitioning block squares briefly. Makes me wonder why they didn’t just bother using the intro for that airing, but then again.... there’s also timing.

 

[minor muppetz]

So for a good while I used to think the original 2008 upload of “Wet Paint” with the SMV introduction where the intro just starts off with the host saying “How Now Brown, and the Moo Wave, and..... WET PAINT! Riiiiiight!” on sesame street.org was just an awkward edit on Sesame Workshop’s part (since I know some segments like the Lefty scale one had that issue with trimming a good portion of the beginning of clips in their early uploads), but I noticed in 2326 that the airing of the song airs the exact same way the original video upload was presented. I would have never guessed the segment with the intro would start that way.

I also noticed in the 2816 airing you can see two of the transitioning block squares briefly. Makes me wonder why they didn’t just bother using the intro for that airing, but then again.... there’s also timing.

Makes me wonder if they thought the intro was too long and decided to just shorten it before completely dropping it. Though starting that way is a rather awkward edit as well.

I wonder if some of the edited segments as presented on the site were edited that way on the show at some point. I suspect the "five... whatever they are" part of Henson #5 might have been edited in the 1980s. I also wonder this about the endings to the Roosevelt Franklin here and there segment and Bert and Ernie and the TV chair.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I noticed with each airing of the SMV intro it gets shorter and shorter.

2033 had the full intro with the flashing logo. 2199 it drops the flashing logo. 2326 it gets chopped in half, and then it’s never seen again afterwards.

 

[minor muppetz]

That sure is sad (and I really like that SMV logo sequence).

 

[YellowYahooey]

Does anybody notice that the scat note sequence in "Handclapping Number" sounds reminiscent of an early Michael Jackson record "Rockin' Robin"?

 

[YellowYahooey]

I have to ask something about the "Bert gets locked out" sketch. In the surprise party at the end of the sketch, a mail carrier was a guest at the party. Was that the same mail carrier seen in the Harvey Kneeslapper letter "R" sketch? And if so, is it possible that both the aforementioned Harvey Kneeslapper and Ernie & Bert sketches were taped within a short time frame?

 

[LittleJerry92]

No, that skit is from season 4 while the Harvey one is from season 5.