Sesame Street History

[Ilikemuppets]

Nope, that's all the opening themes.

Youd right, but there are two different variations of the first version of the song. The first one was slower and has a guitar playing throughout the song, and the kids voices were a tad more aggresive. This is also true of the current version of the theme song. At first You could here horns playing on it, then about a year later, they were replaced with harmonica playing.

There is an Interview with the harmonica player who did the theme song fron 98-01 atwww.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1603560

 

[Ilikemuppets]

At some point in to 90's, there was also a word of the day.

 

[ISNorden]

At some point in to 90's, there was also a word of the day.

Actually, only three 1990's episodes had official words of the day (i.e., included in the final "brought-to-you-today" message and shown onscreen). They were loose tie-ins with the street story, not words which would typically get their own segments on the show--

1. Oscar the Grouch had been pestered all day by talking, Muppetized words which looked and behaved like the things they name. For instance, "peanut butter" looked like a molded/embossed block of the stuff; it repeated "Pea-nut...but-ter!" in a thick, low voice which would have creeped me out if I'd seen the show as a kid. The only word to get screen credits, though, was "dog": three furry letters with Dalmatian-like spots and the personality of an over-friendly house pet. (Of course, "dog" annoyed Oscar worst of all the words he met... )


2. Big Bird and several other Muppets discussed dental hygiene throughout another 90's episode, of which I remember only two weird details. One was Big Bird trying to associate the letter F with tooth care by bringing up the Tooth Fairy; Snuffy didn't think that made sense and neither did I. The second was a choir of Anything Muppets in dental uniforms, singing a gospel-style ode to toothpaste. ("Come on, let's hear you scream for dental cream!" is the second-lamest lyric about tooth care that I've ever heard on Sesame Street; first place in the lame lyrics contest would be "Kids just love to brush!") After the usual two-letters-and-a-number, the word "toothpaste" gets screen credit as a Thing of the Day. (I hesitate to use "sponsor" in that sense any more, since Sesame Street is crediting real corporate sponsors before AND after the show now... )


3. Joey and Davey Monkeys were arguing over one of them eating the other's banana (I forget which of them started the whole scene, though). The culprit tried to apologize first with a card, then with a song-and-dance routine led by Little Chrissy. The victim wouldn't accept the apology until his banana had been replaced; the culprit eventually gave him a huge bunch of the things. Shortly after, the roles reverse: the giver became angry at the receiver, and the receiver was vainly trying to apologize. The word of the day: "banana", of course!


Other episodes in the 90s may have included words in the plot, or aired segments in which some character names a word of the day unofficially. Even those segments, however, didn't have recurring characters or the same structured feel as recent "Spanish Word of the Day" spots do.