Awesome Alphabet Collection came out today, and it is interesting. It's the first DVD release since 2014's Alphabet Songs to have a fairly big amount of clips from the Jim Henson years (and that release just had five), and the first since 2013's Fairy Tale Fun to have full unreleased clips from those years.
It's almost a good balance of classic and newer clips, though the promotion seems to downplay the classic stuff. The official description only lists two classic clips, no classics are pictured on the back cover, and the trailer only has one '70s clip. I think '90s and later dominate the release, but it's still a good balance. I think I counted 22 clips from the first 20 seasons.
It feels like this takes so many clips that have been included in previous alphabet-themed videos, some more deserved than others.
Maybe it's just me, but the original C is for Cookie looks worse here than on past releases. Not sure if the classic clips are HD upgrades (even though this wasn't released on Blu-ray... would the digital release benefit more?), I feel like there's some interlacing for something over Cookie Monster's eyes, and when we first see the monsters behind him, the background looks a bit darker. I don't think the quality on any of the other '70s clips have this kind of problem.
With the exception of The Sound of the Letter A*, I think every segment using a track from The Muppets Alphabet Album has now been released on home video.
It was a surprise to see Ernie and Bert's "Happy Birthday to U", since he basically sings the copyrighted "Happy Birthday". I don't know if it counts as parody to replace "you" with "u". Then again, I think I read that the songs lyrics officially lost their copyright status a few years ago. Also surprising to see that "Letter B" is the edit from Count It Higher, with the music video-style captions and missing the introduction. But I am happy that Rebel L is uncut.
I did look at the sketch rundown on Muppet Wiki this morning before buying a copy, so I already knew a lot of what to expect, though there were a lot of clips listed that I wasn't instantly familiar with. There are quite a few that I couldn't tell if they were from the 1990s or 2000s (some I wondered if maybe they were from the 1980s), used Muppet Wiki's "what links here" feature on the images. Seems there's a few inserts (not just street scenes) that actually only aired once (like "Zelda's Z Day").
And there's two Kermit segments!
My only big complaint is that there's no Typewriter or AlphaQuest segments. Which are always left out of alphabet-themed releases.
*I know Professor Hastings did a lecture on the letter U in the first season, not sure if that's the same as The U Lecture on that album. I thought all the songs/skits/tracks debuted on that album, but the U lecture that aired premiered in the first season. Of course I technically don't know if the televised rendition of The Sound of the Letter A used the same audio track.