Sesame Street films

[Gags Beazley]

i'm sure we all recall the firefughters film. you know with the song the fireman he's ready to go the fireman. what's interesting about this 1 is you never know when or where a fire will break out so i wonder if maybe they send film crews to various stations and them when a fire broke out in the teritory of the station that 1 of the film crews were, then they finally they had what they wanted. i figure this might of been possible because to have 1 film crew sit at 1 station to wait for a fire, they might of been waiting for a long time.

That was filmed in Trenton, NJ. About 5 years back I saw it after many years and noticed "Trenton" lettered on the trucks. I'm surprised that back in the day I never realized that. Also, I'm guessing that they had the film crew at the busiest station in the city, that way they'd be sure they'd be able to get exactly what they want. I'm extremely involved in fire service history and such, so if you'd like, I can use some of my contacts and see what kind of information on this film they can dig up.

 

[mikebennidict]

that would be great if you can.

 

[SesameMike]

Old stop-motion film

Remember this old stop-motion film about some crazy guy who saws his table and chair down until they're just the right size?

To a soundtrack of nothing but wild and crazy music on kazoo and what sounded like a cross between a banjo and steel drum, you have this man (in overalls, I think, against a plain dark background) who is about to sit down at a table to drink a cup of something, presumably coffee. But he decides that the table is too high (or did the chair come first). So he saws each of the table legs shorter. With the stop motion film effect, you see him sawing at each leg for about a second, then instantly cut to the next leg until all four are shortened. But now the table is too low! So he saws each of the four chair legs. Now the table is too high again, so he shortens the table legs again. The table is now too low, and... He keeps repeating the process of alternately shortening the table and chair legs until he has what must be his perfect solution: the tabletop sitting on the floor, and himself sitting on the floor having gotten rid of the chair altogether. Now he is ready to drink his (having grown cold by now) cup of coffee. As he started to drink he leaned back, then tumbled back out of the picture in stop-mo with the coffee cup still to his lips.

The kazoo-only finale as that happened went "eee-eee-ee, ee-ee, e-e-eee".

 

[SesameMike]

Boy fetching water from a lake?

Does anyone remember a somewhat speeded-up film of a boy fetching water from a lake?

If I remember correctly, and I'm not sure I do since this is from circa 1972, there was this film in which a boy and a girl were making something in or around a house. One of the first steps of this process requires some water. The boy volunteers to get some.

The next scene was a film of the boy getting water from a nearby lake. But the sequence was either sped-up or had stop-motion elements worked in. The boy ran/slid/moved in one direction, scooped up some water in a pie plate or bowl or something, then returned. The soundtrack (for the boy-fetching-water part only) made extensive if not exclusive use of maracas. I remember this because when I got some real maracas shortly after, I noticed they sounded like the Sesame Street film.

Once this film segment ended, the boy and the girl took the water and continued to do whatever it was they were doing.

Were the boy and girl making mudpies by chance?

The boy-fetching-water sequence was weird enough that it worked its way into at least one dream of mine, albeit in a skewed fashion.

 

[mikebennidict]

I think I mentioned these films elsewhere about people and the jobs they do. 1 of them was a lady who was an architect. kids off camera would see what she was doing and figure out what her job was. she drew a design of an apartment building I think and it gets built and she turns around saying I'm an architect. well hears something you might find interesting. i'm sure there's a few of you who remember the show Zoom and of of it returned to thw air 6 years ago. well there's an episode from this seasons edition witch shows a young 13 year old who want to become an architect and goes and visits 1. it too was alady and while I'm not totally sure something tells me this might be the same lady in the old SS film even though Zoom's out of Boston, this film was made in NY. now this lady in the Zoom film is at lest 40 or 50 something. obvioiusly if she's 40 something she wouldn't of been an architect when the SS film was made but if she's 50 something, then that's a different story. these days it's not always easy to tell how old someone is.

 

[SesameMike]

Me and Mrs. Wilson

Does anyone remember a film in which a little girl visits a woman named "Mrs. Wilson" who has a vegetable garden?

In the film, a lady takes a little girl out to a large garden she has in her backyard. The girl did most of the narrating about the different kinds of vegetables. For example, we watched her pull a carrot out of the ground. We also saw how tomatoes grow, that they are green before they are red (there may have been a separate film demonstrating this), then she picked one off the vine.

After they've harvested a fair amount of veggies, the two of them go inside the house where they wash/prepare the vegetables, and at the end the girl is sitting at the table for a mini-feast of greens. I think toward the end she reiterated the identity of each item.

I always found this one intriguing because (1) it was my first "experience" with gardening, which I would enjoy in subsequent years, and (2) at the time we had a neighbor named Mrs. Wilson. (Hey, when you're a little kid you get all excited about things like that )

 

[mikebennidict]

yupe. it was 1st aired in season 1 and don't recall it being reused after the 1970s.

 

[Ziffel]

I think I recall it too. This must have been the one where they pick corn and the girl says, "The outside of the corn is called the husk." It was the first time I heard that word and asked my parents and they confirmed it. Guess it was a rather corny question for a pretty husky guy!

 

[mikebennidict]

That was filmed in Trenton, NJ. About 5 years back I saw it after many years and noticed "Trenton" lettered on the trucks. I'm surprised that back in the day I never realized that. Also, I'm guessing that they had the film crew at the busiest station in the city, that way they'd be sure they'd be able to get exactly what they want. I'm extremely involved in fire service history and such, so if you'd like, I can use some of my contacts and see what kind of information on this film they can dig up.

I just tracked down the Trenton FD's website and I'm now in the process of emailing them right now and seeing if they have anything on record about this.

 

[SesameMike]

The Story of the Beans (and other farm films)

Does anyone remember a film which showed how green beans are grown and get to market?

The film had a musical soundtrack with a woman describing each scene in song. The woman sounded a little like Linda Rondstadt (but I doubt it was her). First it showed beans being planted, then growing, then being harvested. The beans were then taken to a facility where they were put on a conveyor belt and inspected by quality control people.

I only remember a few of the lines to this song. At this point it went:

"... to a string bean plant
Where they really fix them up
So that we can eat the beans!"

The final scene showed a mother and a kid picking up some beans in the produce section of a grocery.

"Going to the store
Pick up some of them beans
You may have wondered how they got there
But now we've really had a scene
And that's the story of the beans."

Another farm film showed some children in the back of a field truck that was being loaded with the output of a combine harvester. The kids were literally being showered with the (probably) corn as it was being harvested, and appeared to be having such a good time that I was actually slightly jealous watching it. The soundtrack was a man singing to some music. One of the verses just had him going "bum, ba ba-ba bum", but the part I remember best was sung as we watched the truck trudge away from us in the field; he sang "Won't you come with us to the farm. Won't you come with us to the farm." (repeat and fade)

That one reminds me a little of an earlier film, possibly from the first season. All I remember is it showed some kids riding in the back of a pickup truck or a hay wagon, as some strange music (possibly electric piano) played a repeating phrase.

Finally there was this film in which an unseen little girl narrates how hay is made. First the grass is cut using a mower. Then the grass is spun around to give it a chance to dry out. When it's dry, the hay is tied into bales -- I must say I was most impressed with this particular scene; the baler automatically made the hay bales, which emerged and dropped out of the machine in a manner, IMHO, similar to, (ahem!) a certain elimination process. The next scene showed men loading hay bales onto a flat bed. Lastly, the girl said something like "Now the hay is taken to the barn, and will be used to feed the horses.", as the final scene showed an equine creature dining on some Grasse a la King.