Sesame Street Classic Episodes Vol. 1 now available for download on iTunes and Amazon

[minor muppetz]

For the last year I've had some sort of problem downloading from iTunes, but now it seems to be fixed, so I've downloaded some episodes. I've downloaded "Here Comes Cookie Monster" (haven't watched it yet) and "Grover the Waiter at Your Service". The latter is a great episode.

It may not be the best of all time, but there are things to like. It has some of my favorite skecthes that I wished would be released on video for a long time, like "Ernie and the U/V Salesman" and "Grover Serves a Burger". I've been watching these on sesamestreet.org and Sesame Workshop's official YouTueb channel for so long that I've kinda been thrown off by the fact that in the episodes they don't fade to black at the end.

I really enjoyed many of the film and animation inserts. Many of them I don't remember knowing about (despite the fact that Muppet Wiki has had a full guide with pictures for that episode for quite some time). I also like the street scene, despite limited Muppet involvement. Buffy looks different here from what I'm used to. She sort of looks like Lilly Thomlin.

If there's one piece of criticism I have, it's that the building inspectors dialogue is either badly written or badly said (sorry Jerry or whoever the writer is). I don't know if that was intended, but it seems so monotonous. I guess they needed some way to let the viewers know, but it just comes off odd to me.

Also noticed that the Bert and Ernie: Slice of Life sketch is a little longer than on Old School Volume 2. I checked it on the DVD after watching the episode, and in this episode at the very end it cuts to a wide shot where we get to see Ernie eating some of the pie, while on the DVD it fades to black on the close-up of Bert.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well I just got done watching episode 123, aka "Here Comes Cookie Monster". With that title I was expecting a little more Cookie Monster (aside from him being in a two-part skit and a four-part skit). It was great for me to finally see that formerly rare segment with Cookie Monster using Ernie's phone (and hey, he refers to himself by the name "Tiny"). You could say it hasn't been seen for a.... long time.

Is it just me or is Cookie Monster bigger than usual compared to other first season segments? In all of his segments here he sure does look bigger and fatter than in other season one segments I've seen him in. In the two-part "monster with flute" sketch I feel like I can see a seam around his neck.

The two-part street scene with Big Bird and the letter r was funny. Could this have been an inspiration for the original Snuffleupagus running gag? I wonder how they made those r's move (Waldo-style?).

I also like that rectangles segment, and the Noises film (there were three of them, another one of which appears in one of the other first season episodes in "Sesame Street Classics Volume 1"). I noticed that before the Ernie and Bert drawings segment Susan introduces Ernie as someone who can draw a 3, but the segment starts out with him drawing the llama. It takes a few minutes before they get to the topic Susan introduced, and they never do show Ernie drawing a 3 (I wonder if they dropped the segment because of that).

I wonder what copies were used for these. There's a number of times, particularly in the street scenes, where the screen seems to glitch. Perhaps it was always like that on the master copy. We may never know. I also find it interesting that Alphabet Bates is just called "Sky Writer". I wonder if he was ever called Alphabet Bates in the first season (or is the sky writer supposed to be a different character?). And it's great to see the Buddy and Jim ironing board sketch. I think this is the only Buddy and Jim segment in these "Sesame Street Classics" episodes that didn't make it to Noggin airings. It was funny how they kept getting the board in and out the right way without realising it. I wonder if the saw was already sawed in half before shooting, and if the wall already had those holes. I sort of feel I could see some broken seams in the side of the wall right before they broke it, and after cutting the saw it's hard for the cut line to be seen on camera.

I'm undecided on whether I'll eventually download the season 20 episodes (or the season 25 episodes in volume 2). I'll have to look at the Muppet Wiki guides and see if those have anything of interest (long-unseen/rare characters, certain segments, though I know those are the only episodes on iTunes to have Monsterpiece Theater).

 

[minor muppetz]

Just watched episode 2517, with a repeated street plot starring Placido Flamingo and Olivia. It is great, though Placido isn't one of my favorite classic characters.

Interesting that this episode has Lena Horne singing "How Do You Do?", and the title given on iTunes represents that segment, and an episode in volume 2 has Lena Horne singing the alphabet and the "title" representing that segment. I wonder if volume 3 will include an episode with her version of "Bein' Green" and a relevent episode title.

 

[minor muppetz]

I just downloaded and watched episode 56.

Some observations:

• The scenes with Oscar and Mr. Hooper make me wonder how long they have known each other. Mr. Hooper seems surprised that Oscar would order such a disgusting sundae. It's also funny how when Oscar invited Mr. Hooper to dinner he accepted without thinking that Oscar would make something disgusting to him.
• Even more pecuilier is how Big Bird seems to like baked bean sundaes, though a different flavor than what Oscar ordered. But this was in the first season and he hadn't been developed much yet (well, they have had 56 episodes to develop him so far). I think if this was done in the second or third season he wouldn't make such a comment.
• I have a feeling that the scene after Ernie and Bert's "What Happens Next" game wasn't repeated, but should have been.
• Wow, Buddy and Jim never do figure out to put both big shoes in the big box. They don't even do such a thing by accident. I wonder if there are any Buddy and Jim segments that end with them doing something the right way (there's only six segments we have access to). If the characters lasted past the first season I have a feeling that segment would have been dropped soon.
• When Kermit talks about hair, he doesn't seem to know what a beard is, or even that people have beards on their faces. I would have thought Kermit would have known better (even in 1969).
• So I'm guessing the animal pairs segment always had one of the adults providing different voice-overs in each segment. I wonder if any episodes ever aired the segment without vocals. If that segment ever gets uploaded on sesamestreet.org or Hulu or Sesame Workshop's YouTube channel, I wonder how it would be presented.

So far this is my least-favortie of the three season one episodes I have seen in full (I still haven't seen episode 115), but it's still good.

 

[minor muppetz]

I watched episode 2598 tonight, and it was better than I had expected. I wasn't expecting much to write about.

I wonder if the scene with Snuffy and his grandma constantly missing each other was meant to be a reference to the days when everybody missed Snuffy. Except in this case it's Snuffleupaguses who just barely miss each other, and of course they know they are real. But it still gets me wondering if the writers had a hankering to do a "Snuffy is just missed" scene again (maybe a writer who joined after the adults met Snuffy?).

Interesting to see a Muppet sketch dubbed in spanish, though I know that one of the season 5 episodes on volume 2 features a spanish dub of the season one "forwards and backwards" sketch. I hope that Sesame Workshop goes through what spanish dubs appear in these episodes and uploads the original english-audio versions online (though I'm pretty sure one of us has the 11 sketch in this episode in english, though I've never seen the original english version online... I haven't neccessarily looked for it, though). When dubbed in spanish the Anything Muppet woman kinda sounds like Elmo.

I really like that animated segment where the screen gets eaten, piece by piece, by an unseen character. And this is the first time I remember hearing Joe Raposo sing "I Believe in Little Things". His version sounds so great.

Aside from Guy Smiley and David this episode doesn't include any long-gone characters (Mumford's in this episode, but I've heard he recently appeared in a season 42 episode, after a six-year absense). Wait, would Snuffy's grandma count? I know there's an episode from season 29 where his grandma appears, but I'm not sure whether that's the same one (I wouldn't be surprised either way).

At first I was thinking that the majority of Muppet inserts in this were ones I'd seen many times, but that's really only the case with Imagine That. I've watched Professor Grover: School a number of times on sesamestreet.org, but otherwise all other Muppet segments that I remember seeing I only saw once on YouTube and/or sesamestreet.org.

And wow, three Ernie segments in one episode, and none of them feature Bert?