old Billboard article on launch of Sesame Street videos

[minor muppetz]

I've been looking at some old Billboard issues online and found an article from 1986 about the early Sesame Street video releases.

Here's a link: https://books.google.com/books?id=-...nepage&q=billboard 1988 sesame street&f=false The article begins on page 63.

Interestingly, in addition to mentioning the original six from 1986, it mentions plans to release four more in 1987, another four in 1988, and then plans to release more Sesame Street videos outside of the My Sesame Street Home Video series. They already planned far ahead.

 

[minor muppetz]

I was just looking at this again, and noticed that it said that Random House and CTW worked together on the videos, with Random House choosing the themes. I previously thought it said that Random House chose themes and CTW selected clips, but I guess CTW could have suggested some themes as well.

But in thinking about Random House selecting themes, it got me thinking about The Best of Ernie and Bert, the first character compilation. If Random House chose that as a theme, it makes me wonder if the videos with Ernie and/or Bert on the cover were the best-selling ones when that compilation was put together, or even if Ernie and Bert merchandise was among the highest-selling Sesame Street merchandise. I do not know this as fact and have not seen anything to suggest this, but it is a thought I had.

Of course, I saw one Billboard issue from 1986 that listed at least five of the 1986 titles on the best-selling children's video charts, and I'm pretty sure that the two highest-sellers listed were Learning About Letters and Learning About Numbers (neither have E or B on the covers). I've looked at a number of old Billboard issues from the 1980s and 1990s, and Follow That Bird seems to have shown up more than any other SST video, and I don't recall too many other times when SST videos were listed (I've also tried to see if any of the Muppet compilations from 1985 made the charts but haven't found anything, though I did find an article talking about the start of that line as well as a Playhouse Video ad which looked like it said the Muppet videos were among the first Playhouse Video releases. I also tried to see if the Play-Along Videos made the charts but couldn't find any Billboard issues from 1988 or 1989, when I would expect to see them listed).