Official Segment Titles

[minor muppetz]

Does anybody know if the various segments on Sesame Street are officially titled? I've seen a few different sources for various titles, and it seems like many are often different. Among the "sources" for titles are the first season show content (found at the University of Maryland, as well as in the Muppet Wiki talk page for the University of Maryland), additional CTW Archives documents, the titles used for bonus sketches on the Old School DVds (I don't know if scene selection titles should count), and what's used in the Sesame Street Video Player. I am unsure whether the titles used in Sesame Street Unpaved should count.

I would also think of song titles as being the official titles for the sketches. Then again, the sketches could have their own titles, which don't always have to be the same as the music used in the songs. For example, the music used in a film that was listed at a festival as "Number Three Ball Film" is called "No. 3 Ball Powder", while Old School Vol. 2 lists it as "Henson Ball Wire #3". Sometiems sketches about letters have numbers put intot he titles even if that segment is not a recurring sketch (for example, The Alligator King is sometimes listed as "The Alligator King #7").

Sometimes, sketches have on-screen titles, and I would assume that these are the official titles. If it's a recurring sketch then there's probably a title to disambiguate it. However, on the Sesame Street web video player, the Bea tthe Time sketch is listed as "5: Beat the Game Show". The 5 helps dismbiguate it (though I would have titled it "Beat the Time: Grover", or, if the number had to be included, "Beat the Time: 5"). But it's weird that the site mistakenly called it "Beat the Game Show", which is a weird title for a game show.

It seems like the Old School sets refer to Sesame Street News as "Kermit News" (the theme music is officially titled "Kermit News Theme"), though Kermit always refers to it as "Sesame Street News", and the title card says "Newsflash". The web video player usually lists it as just "News" (though I think I've seen "Kermit News" used there at least once).

One of the few titles that I've seen used consistently is "Big Bird Meets Little Bird", used in Sesame Street Unpaved, the first season show content, and Old School Vol. 1.

I would think that the scripts are titled. I don't know if that automatically gives the sketches those titles, or if those titles are used on the master tapes. The creators of the various animation and film sketches probably have official titles, whetehr or not Sesame Workshop uses those titles.

 

[ISNorden]

Another example of "song title vs. segment title" conflict, which I learned from Nanto on YouTube:

"Madrigal Alphabet" is the title of the music used in that segment (and the one used on the Old School DVDs). But the cartoon's official title is "Uppercase Letters", according to the CTW Archives.

 

[minor muppetz]

Muppet Wiki says that seasons 36 and 37 are the only ones with official titles for the episodes. Of course, it's also said that the unaired divorce epsidoe was called "Snuffy's Parents Get a Divorce". Would this mena that titles used in scripts are not official? I would expect each script to be titled. I'd be surprised if the script writers knew exactly what epsidoe number the scripts would air as before writing.

And I would guess that there would ned to be reference for what segments get included in the epsiodes and video releases. I've seen scans of a few scripts at Mo Williems website which shows how the sketches are put in the scripts.