Little things we've noticed

[LittleJerry92]

To be honest, looking at the two Don Music street appearances in season 16, I feel like Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats were shoe-horned in “Imagine That,” as were the country AM band trio with two members closely resembling the Alphabeats.

I mean it’s clear women were providing backing vocals for both songs…… and yet they didn’t take into consideration just how completely unfitting the backup vocals would be for the puppets when lip-syncing.

 

[minor muppetz]

We've noted many times that Jim Henson was rarely in street scenes, but it seems like quite a few of those rare instances were when it would have been more of an emergency.

Jim Henson filled in for Caroll as Oscar once in the first season, and I found that he also voiced Big Bird in one song in the first season.

The script for the episode where Kermit is sick had Grover be the sick one instead.

I recently saw that the script for a lost episode where Ernie is on the street had notes that the script was originally written for Big Bird and Ernie was replacing the bird (and yet it seems there's also a TV listing description that suggests Big Bird replaced Ernie).

 

[YellowYahooey]

I've noticed in a sketch about Manny's Casting Office, Manny sounds a lot like Biff.

 

[minor muppetz]

So various sketches have been given different titles depending on official releases, and people say that titles aren't really important or meant to be "official". Though it seems like each sketch usually has the same title in each script to list it, and there are titles that tend to be sure to disambiguate it from other potential same titles (the two Kermit News: Sleeping Beauty sketches have a I and II besides them, but it seems like when Sesame Street News returns to a fairy tale, they usually give it a different title than the previous ones which were just the title of the original story... The first Three Little Pigs seems to have been titled "Kermit News: Three Little Pigs", then the one with The Count is "3 Pigs and 1 Count", and there's "Three Little Pigs (emotions)", and "3 Pigs and Subtraction").

As the wiki has been starting to create individual Muppet sketch pages, they mention that many of the titles are misleading or something like that. I have seen examples of scripted titles that do seem a little hard to determine immediately, and some that have surprised me that THAT would be the title, but I do feel like most of the titles are accurate enough (there are also some that seem wrong - like a Guy Smiley sketch titled "Dinner for 39", when the sketch involves lunch).

The scripts have also noted info such as episode numbers or production season numbers. Even if the titles aren't important, somebody would have to know where to find the sketches or what titles to use (and there's been so many writers, who probably aren't that familiar with the "titles" without using a reference or something).

But lately I have been thinking about this and wondering if "titles" should have just been multiple keywords (and maybe something specific when necessary).

A few examples:

• Bert's Bust - Ernie/Bert/Nose/Bust/Same and Different
• Rubber Duckie - Ernie/Song: Rubber Duckie/bathtime/Season 2 remake
• Everybody Sleeps - Film/Song: Everybody Sleeps
• Monsterpiece Theater: Chariots of Fur - Cookie Monster/Grover/Herry Monster/Monsterpiece Theater: Chariots of Fur/exercise
• Kermit News: Rapunzel - Kermit/Rapunzel/Prince Charming/News/Louder
• Come Join Us - Anything Muppets/Song: Come Join Us/band/friendship
• Luis: Agua - Luis/Spanish Sight Word/AGUA (water)
• Pinball Number Count #4 - Animation/Song: Pinball Number Count/Number 4

Of course there's been years of them coming up with titles and ways to list them in the scripts and such, but it is fun to think of this "what if".

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently I was looking at "what links here" for many of the Anything Muppet covers of popular songs, and found that most of them last aired in season five or sooner. The only cover I found that did air later (and many times) is season two's The Inch Worm, I can't remember which season was the last but it was around season 22.

I'm guessing clearances for those songs must have expired around season five, either that or maybe they thought having song covers was now out of place on the show, which was now mainly just doing original songs (with the occasional celebrity guest doing one of their hits).

 

[YellowYahooey]

I wonder if "D Duah Duah" was actually a cover version of a song by a licensed recording act? If I recall, the segment was kept intact only in one episode, but was cut from the Max offering of Ep. 2256.

 

[LittleJerry92]

No, that was an original song by Donald Siegal and Luis Santerio. I don’t know why that one was cut because it was fully intact in its final episode airing of 3611 on HBO Kids.

 

[minor muppetz]

In watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street recently, I only now noticed that during the opening skating sequence, we never see the walk-around versions of the Muppets (aside from Big Bird) at the same time that we see the human cast. Even though it's obvious they are puppets, I guess they didn't want to show the scale difference. In fact Big Bird is never shown with the larger versions of the other Muppets.

At first, it seems less noticeable (well, 39 years less noticeable for me), we get close-up cuts of the cast and close-up cuts of the Muppets. But then when the Muppets do their routines, the skating rink looks otherwise empty. In these scenes, we see just about the whole rink, so it's not like the cast is just off-camera. And there aren't many shots where we see the cast outside of the rink (I did notice Bob and Linda way in the back outside the rink at one point, can't remember if it's when a girl helps Big Bird skate or when Gordon, David, and a kid show off their skating moves).

I also only now noticed that at the end, when the characters make a chain, the walk-around Oscar is large, with a large trash can (which I have seen in the "Oscar whistles on ice" sketch). I rewatched the scene, and while they used a larger can here, it looks like the regular "walking Oscar" with smaller can also appears in this sequence, in the couple of shots of just Oscar on the ice that come before this scene. Seems weird they would go with both, unless they wanted a more professional skater for that stunt.

 

[YellowYahooey]

Something I discovered just now on YouTube, I noticed that there were two versions of the Herbert Birdsfoot M/W lecture. An earlier version of such segment has mostly silence at the beginning for a longer period before Herb starts speaking. In the version many are more familiar wtih , Herb clears his throat quickly then starts speaking. Plus, in the earlier segment (supposedly aired on Ep. 255, as we see a very tiny bit of the very beginning of "Melvin the Moving Man" at the end of the clip), there is dialogue never used in the version seen mostly in the 1980s, and camera rotates 180 degrees clockwise more smoothly without a shaking effect - just like in the Upside Down 11 segment, only the latter was not precisely 180 degrees.

You know, I am beginning to wonder if this so-called Version 1.0 was used only during Season 2, and after the segment went on hiatus during Seasons 3 and 4, when it returned in Season 5 do you suppose that was when Version 2.0 was shown from there on out? I remember there being two versions of the "Alphabet Chat" segment about the letter R, and in all the years I watched the show I only saw the Version 2.0 - the one many are most familiar with. I am thinking version 1.0 of that particular "Chat" segment was only shown for the first few airings, then they likely used Version 2.0 afterwards from then on out.

Below is the clip to the unusual version supposedly from episode 255.

EDIT: I found out my answer. This video was actually Version 2.0, which was known to be used only one time, in Episode 255. All other airings have Version 1.0, which many have been more familiar with - though it is not known if Version 2.0 was used in Episode 155, due to being a lost episode. Discovered this information in the Sandbox page listing alternate takes in Muppet skits.

 

[minor muppetz]

Seems like in a number of segments that had two tapings, one of the takes was only used in one episode (often its first appearance).