Sesame Street Live: Big Bird's Sesame Street Story

minor muppetz

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I thought I saw this one when I was a kid. The program cover looked familiar, and the wiki mentioned a number of songs I specifically remember seeing at Sesame Street Live, but there was one vague memory I had which I see was in this, confirming I had seen it. It's the scene where Prairie Dawn babysits Elmo. I had remembered a room backdrop being lowered on stage, and remember that room looking like that, remember Elmo being in the scene and remember him saying he wanted to watch cartoons (which, given the plot, I had suspected was this). For years I wondered how the scene coming on stage like that was done (I was thinking the set lowered and another set came in from above - my memory also had Elmo sitting on a bed as it lowered).

When Mr. Molehill says kids just want to see shows with little cute blue people, I wonder if that was meant to be a reference to the Smurfs. And when Cookie and Grover point out they are fuzzy and blue, I was expecting that to lead to a performance of Fuzzy and Blue. I do remember seeing a Sesame Street Live show that had Cookie and Grover singing that song (in addition to Elmo and Telly joining in, though they are not orange). Of course the Muppet Wiki pages for the ones I recall seeing a sa kid do not mention this song being in any of them (I do recall that Cookie Monster also sang the song on his own in Elmo's Magic Coloring Book).

Elmo looks a little weird with his shoes. I wonder why they went with shoes (was it that hard to make furry red feet?). I wonder if he wore red shoes so he could keep talking about them or if they had him talk about them because they gave him shoes.

Considering none of Richard Hunt's characters are in this, I would have had Hunt do the voice of Molehill (or was he just completely unavailable for this, maybe that's why none of his characters were involved).

I guess those random Anything Muppet characters seen in some of the group scenes were the understudies. Seems most of the shows had more familiar characters as understudies, I feel maybe it's better for understudy characters (who may or may not be in a show) to be random AMs whom the audience is not likely to miss.

It seems like this was meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary, I wonder if this plot would have been perfect for the special (though I do enjoy the special as-is). With it being an anniversary, it would have been great if it had included more of the best-known songs (well, we do get some of them, but not really that many), or even if this one could have had a lot more familiar characters (I figure the lack of certain characters would be due to a limit on how many characters they could include).
 

Phillip

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minor muppetz

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I've noticed in some scenes with the main characters there are a few random characters with them, I'm guessing they were the understudies for this show. They almost stick out.

I know with many of the Sesame Street Live shows, familiar characters are silent understudies. Which makes me wonder if it's better for the understudies to be familiar characters (whom the fans would want to hear from and might be disappointed not to see - I remember in 1997, I saw Elmo's Magic Coloring Book and was expecting Grover and disappointed he was not in it, and later learned he was one of the understudies), or for the understudies to be unknown characters (like original designs, or characters built especially foe other SSL shows).
 

muppet maniac

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I'm not a Sesame Street Live fan, but it's always nice to see a piece of "lost" material from decades ago finally made available for the general public to see again.
 
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