"Sesame Street Treasures Collection" coming this summer!

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,074
Reaction score
2,660
Well, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news concerns an e-mail I got from Sesame Workshop. I sent Sesame Workshop an E-mail supporting the possibilities of a special DVD release of classic sesame Street material, and here is th e-mail I got back from Sesame Workshop.

"Dear Concerned Sesame Street Fan,

It is true that Sesame Workshop is planning on releasing some special Sesame Street DVDs. However, while we at Sesame Workshop have thought that it would take untill at least 2007 to get a lot of legal clearances done, the clearances have been cleared faster than we had expected, and we have been getting so many e-mails about such a product that we'd like you to pass the following news around. We had wanted to wait untill we could get a major magazine company to announce it, but we'd rather put an end to all of these constant e-mails right now.

Anyway, we'd like to announce our upcoming collection, "The Sesame Street Treasures Collection", which will be released by Sony Wonder. We plan on releasing at least two two-disc DVD sets every 4-6 months, but if they sell well enough, we might start releasing 4 sets every 4-6 months.

Our first two releases will be released on July 11, and will be The Ultimate Ernie & Bert Collection Vol. 1 and The Sesame Street Film Festival Vol. 1 Suggested retail price for these are expected to be $48.99.

The Ultimate Ernie and Bert Collection Vol. 1 will feature nearly every Ernie and Bert inserts produced between 1969 and 1974, in produciton order. We will also include special animated segments that led to certain sketches (which the characters acknowledged in those skits). This collection will mostly include sketches that either star both characters or take place in their apartment, but we will also include some solo skits that take place outside of their apartment, such as the Ernie and Lefty skits, and the sketch where Ernie wants to borrow a vaccume from Herbert Birdsfoot. Also included will be a booklet with written introduction by Frank Oz and a listing of sketches, with actual titles, original broadcast dates (so if you want to knwo the broadcast order you can look at the dates), number of the episode they originally aired in, writer credits and director credits. Special features will include two classic episodes of Sesame Street from the first season that focus on Ernie and Bert (street stories only, no inserts from actual episode), a mini-documentary on Ernie and Bert featuring interviews with Frank Oz, Eric Jacopson, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, Caroll Spinney, and Jane Henson, a photo gallery featuring design sketches, behind-the-scenes photos, a few scripts (including scripts for two unproduced segments), and a few storyboards, and The Best of Ernie and Bert, making it's DVD debut.

The Sesame Street Film Festival Vol. 1 will include over 150 segments, mostly film and animated segments. There will be 10 Muppet segments, such as "Kermit's Bear Excersizes", "What's My Part?: Foot", and two Roosevelt Franklin segments, but for the most part it will focus on films and animations produced between 1969 and 1975, including all of Budd Lucky's contricutions (The Alligator King, That's About the Size of It, etc), many of Jim Henson's non-muppet works from Sesame Street (including all 10 Baker filsm, The King of 8, The Queen of 6, Cheer 11, ect.), Wanda the Witch, all of The Number Painter films, all of The Jazzy Spies films, and a lot more. There will be many special introductions for these segments from the creators of the segments, or living relatives of the animators/ filmakers. Special features will include a photo gallery, street segments from a few Sesame Street episodes from the first three seasons, pencil tests, and The Grover Monster/ Jean Marsh Cartoon Special, a rarely-seen special from the 1970s.

We have two more DVDs in this collection planned to be released on November 7. These will be titled Sesame Street Trips Vol. 1 and The Stars Come To Sesame Street Vol. 1.

Sesame Street Trips Vol. 1 will include all street segments from the 6-part episode where the cast went to Hawai and the 5-part episode where the cast went to Puerto Rico. There will also be bonus segments that have to do with travel, such as the first four Global Grover segments produyced and the first two Global Thingy segments. Features will include a featurette on traveling to various parts of the world, select clips rom various international versions of Sesame Street (with optional english subtitles), and outtakes from the two episodes featured.

The Stars Come To Sesame Street Vol. 1 will feature inserts that have celebrity guests. The celebrity-filled versions of Monster in the Mirror, Put Down the Duckie, and Sing will be included, and we will also be putting in segments with guests such as James Earl Jones, Jim Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Norah Jones, Rick Moranis, James Taylor, Leena Horne, Paul Simon, Inzak Pearlman, Judy Collins, Billy Joel, Johnny Cash, and Stevie Wonder, plus street segments from epsiodes that had celebrity guests, such as Seth Green, madleine kahn, Fred Rogers, and Danny DeVito. Special Features will include the 1973 special Julie on Sesame Street, and clips from variety and talk shows featuring guest appearances by the Sesame Street cast, including Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Hee Haw, The Flip Wilson Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show. We wanted to include the entire episode of The Rosie O'Donald Show that was tapped on the Sesame Street set, but our budget wouldn't allow that and the various talk/ variety show clips, so we will save it for a possible volume 2.

Finally, in response to your other question, we will be releasing I'm Glad I'm Me and Getting Ready for School, as well as Big Bird's Birthday and Big Bird's Favorite Party Games on DVD on June 5.

Yours Truly, Sesame Workshop"

And now the bad news.... it's not really hapening. April Fools! :stick_out_tongue:
 

TheJimHensonHour

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Messages
1,419
Reaction score
0
:rolleyes: ok you guys are taking this april fools stuff a bit far...it's really annoying but to be expected I guess :smirk:
 

Erine81981

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
10,559
Reaction score
277
Oh I was so happy but then seeing that at the end....you got me good. I was just about to go and tell my mom about this. Even tho she not into this at all. Thanks. I've been gotten. I was wondering if there was going to be one of these April Fools threads. Thanks for the prank minor muppetz. Your good.
 

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,074
Reaction score
2,660
TheJimHensonHour said:
:rolleyes: ok you guys are taking this april fools stuff a bit far...it's really annoying but to be expected I guess :smirk:
I haven't seen very many April Fools-type pranks in threads on Muppet Central. A few, but not too many. I also posted an April Fools-type thread similar to this one at The Muppet Newsflash forum, in which I posted "news" about upcoming Disney and Hit! releases, stating that Disney and Hit! made a deal to re-release Emmet Otter on DVD with the Kermit scenes, claiming that Disney bought Sony's ownership of MTM, MFS and KSY, mentioning features for The Muppet Show Season 2, and some other stuff. You can go to the Muppet Newsflash Forum and check it out, in the "Merchandise" section.
 

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,074
Reaction score
2,660
There are a few things I wanted to mention in my prank, but didn't want it to sound too detailed.

One thing I was going to say about the Ernie and Bert collection was that it was going to have a picture of Ernie and Bert from 1970 on the cover and the packaging, menu and disc art would look very retro. Disc one would be a picture of Ernie from the cover of Ernie's Hits, and disc two would be a picture of Bert from the cover of Bert's Blockbusters.

There are some things about my "letter" that I feel, if you read the letter closely without reading the April Fools part, would help make you realize that it's just a joke. One of those things is that the letter mentioned that The Ultimate Ernie and Bert Collection would have a booklet, with introduction by Frank Oz, but no mention of a booklet for the other DVD set. If I had mentioned a booklet for the Sesame Street Film Festival, I would have mentioned that the booklet would have an introduction by Budd Lucky.
 

MartyMuppets

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
6,171
Reaction score
131
Good prank minor muppetz.:smirk:

I think I'll wait until we get home before I shoot you heh-heh-heh:rolleyes: :stick_out_tongue:
 

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,074
Reaction score
2,660
Bill Bubble Guy said:
I think I'll wait until we get home before I shoot you heh-heh-heh
Since I change my signature every once in awhile, I figured I'd explain that I think this line is a refference to my current signature, "Would you like to shoot me now, or ait 'till we get home?", in case I change my signature and somebody wonders about this.
 

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,074
Reaction score
2,660
Although I've already made the prank and April Fools Day is over, I've thought of another paragraph that could have been used:

"...As a special way to test the market for these, we made a special deal with Blockbuster Video to release special one-disc test market editions, to be available exclusively for rent at Blockbuster and exclusively for purchase at select gift shops at Sesame Place. These DVDs will be one-disc releases of both sets, with slightly different packaging and somewhat different summaries on the back of the packaging. The test market version of The Ultimate Ernie and Bert Collection will only the top 8-12 skits from each season represented (these skits are picked by a small staff) while the test market version of The Sesame Street Film festival will only include 58 of the skits included in the more major collectors market release, with no special introductions for any segments/ grouping of segments. Both test market DVDs will also have no special features and will cost close to the same price as our regular Sesame Street DVDs. These will be available at Blockbuster on the last full week of may, and at our Sesame Place gift shops 1-2 weeks later. A limited run of 10,000 test market versions will be released: 100 available to buy at Sesame Place, and the rest for rent at Blockbuster (Blockbuster will be free to sell any of it's copies after awhile). Each individual Blockbuster video store will get an average of only 1-4 of each disc to have available for rent.

We really want these collections to be seen as collectors editions, and not just as something for the 2-3 year olds, so when we start shipping these to stores, we will send instructions to all of the stores, with the exception of Toys R Us, to put these in the shelves/ sections that sell TV Shows on DVD/ Collectors DVDs, rather than in the childrens DVD section. We would also like to point out that the DVDs will not have any previews at all, not even the promos for international versiosn of Sesame Street seen on every DVD since 2004. The only advertisements included will be in a two-page booklet promoting other Sesame Street DVDs."

Of course, it's not neccessary anymore, but still something I should have said.

Man, this joke was fun. Maybe I should add more "news" to it just for fun.
 

MartyMuppets

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
6,171
Reaction score
131
minor muppetz said:
Man, this joke was fun. Maybe I should add more "news" to it just for fun.
Yes minor muppetz it was a fun joke and really very harmless even though some of us may have been bitterly disappointed at the time. I'm sure however we were all able to appreciate the humour of it when we got over the shock.

Hmm. If you add more "news" to it you'll be experimenting with fan fiction of a different new kind won't you?:wink:
 
Top