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GonzoLeaper
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At long last- a new review for this thread!
Review-
"Sesame Sings Karaoke" - 2003 video, runtime approximately 41 minutes
Plot- Video opens with Elmo humming a song on the steps of 123 Sesame Street. (The tune sounds very similar to "The Wonder Years" (I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker, also recorded by The Beatles)
theme song, by the way, though Elmo's just singing "La, La, La". ) We see notes coming out when Elmo's singing and one of the animated notes stays when the others disappear and the note plays both a happy and sad version of the same tune Elmo was humming and Elmo suggests that they just stick to happy songs. From this point on, Elmo remembers a day when everyone just wanted to sing and we have a really long flashback.
- Camera swings out to Fix It Shop (I guess it's the Mail It Shop now, but I'm still used to saying Fix It Shop) and we see Bob coming out to join Alan on the street as they're singing a new song called "There's Something in the Air" (that makes them want to sing!) Big Bird joins in and others come along, including Gabi and Miles and Elmo and some sheep.
Withhin the song, Bob breaks into a bit of "Sing" for a bit. After the song, Gabi and Miles go off to play basketball, Alan offers Bob free coffee from Hooper's Store, Big Bird goes off and Elmo goes to wait for Rosita to meet him to play. Elmo sings "Somebody Come and Play". Lots of others are playing in the background, including a few familiar monsters like the gray one and an orange one with horns. Oscar and Grungetta are seen in the background while Elmo's singing and a Honker and Dinger come by. Elmo says he hopes Rosita gets there soon. Then there's a big medley of "Somebody come and Play" with Suzy Kabloozy (cartoon) singing, Ernie with 2 birds and a squirrel in the park, and Snuffy. Rosita then comes up singing the same song and runs into Miles and Gabi and basically Rosita and Elmo spend most of the rest of the flashback sequence looking for each other and keep missing each other. Elmo goes to check with Big Bird at his nest to see if he's seen Rosita and of course, Rosita walks right by and misses him. Then "Sing" is played while claymation animations are played on the screen. And then we jump back to the sheep humming "Sing" while Elmo emerges from Big Bird's nest. Elmo and Rosita both ask the sheep if they've seen each other and both miss each other again. (The sheep are singing "Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa" instead of the "La La La"s). Rosita sings "I'm Going to Get to You" and the sheep join in on backup "Baa"s.
-Classic animation clip- Claymation orange sings "I'm Going to Get to You"
Elmo and Rosita come to the conclusion that each other forgot about their play date and they both sing a slow version of "Somebody Come and Play" and they finally wind up right next to each other and then turn around and find each other! And then they sing a happy version of "Somebody Come and Play". Bob and Alan come from Hooper's Store and Big Bird, Miles, Gabi, horned orange monster from before, sheep, and Herry all come together and sing a quick reprise of the "There's Something in the Air Today" song again. I may be totally crazy on this one but in that mix I saw a Muppet that very much resembled Roosevelt Franklin!!!!!!! He had the purple face (though the face looked a little bit off- it was still quite close) and he had the same black crop of hair and the same yellow shirt!!! He wasn't identified by anyone on the video, but I'm calling him Roosevelt Franklin! That's so awesome to see a character who hasn't shown up in forever suddenly make a cool cameo there!
Then we go back to Elmo sitting on the stoop and he starts off his next flashback, telling about the time that everyone on Sesame Street got together to sing karaoke songs.
-Jazz player type Muppet is seen playing the Sesame Street theme song on a harmonica from a top window above Hooper's Store, which is hosting a Karaoke night. Maria and Susan go by to set up and Bob walks by with a grey Honker and Baby Bear goes by with Telly, explaining to him about Karaoke. Elmo, Zoey, Big Bird, Baby Bear, and Telly are all there, along with Gladys the Cow, who actually has a fairly big role. And a penguin's in the audience too and a Dinger is there too.
Orange monster with long blue nose is seen in background (Monster Clubhouse monster) For the humans, Bob, Alan, Maria, Luis, Gabi, Susan, Gordon, Miles and Gina are all there. And the kids, of course. Some interesting Muppets make cameos in the background shots like- Phoebe (green girl monster), Grandma from "Telephone Rock" song, purple AM that looks like Murray the Mediocre from "A Magical Halloween Adventure" video and even what seems to be Prairie Dawn as well (though a slightly different look from her normal appearance- I was almost thinking it might be Betty Lou, but she doesn't have the ponytails.) A duck is also looking in from the windows.
Alan hosts the whole thing. Gladys keeps trying to sing throughout the whole thing and keeps grabbing the mic- even though she's not signed up to sing. She keeps calling it a cowaoke night. At first she sings "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and later sings another song I"m not familiar with.
Set list for songs-
1. Big Bird sings "ABC DEF GHI"
And all throughout songs, Baby Bear is trying to encourage Telly and show him that karaoke is easy and fun. Telly is made good use of with his propensivity for worrying.
2. Rosita sings "You Say Hola" and initially messes up, but everyone encourages her to start again. Her song is interspersed with a clip of Gloria Estefan singing the same song, along with Humphrey and Ingrid, Curly Bear and his wife, Telly and Rosita and Zoey and Baby Bear. (Each of these celebrity clips has some kind of bar taking up some of the screen with the blue note on it that Elmo was talking with at the beginning of the video)
3. Gabi and Miles sing "A New Way to Walk"- it's interspersed with "Destiny's Child's version of the song, also featuring Zoey, Elmo and Grover and Mr. Noodle (or is that Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle?
) A couple of familiar live action video clips are shown with this song too.
4. Gladys jumps in again and tries to sing "That's Amore" but Alan cuts her off, announcing Gina and Elmo and Alan are up next. They have a false start, but then sing "The Ladybugs' Picnic", which is of course, interspersed with the classic cartoon clips, more or less seen in its entirety, along with the blue note jumping around the screen.
5. Baby Bear is up to sing "Let's Go Driving". And Baby Bear, who'd been so confident to Telly, is suddenly hit with stage fright. Telly rushes up to help Baby Bear and actually helps him sing the song. This is interspersed with the classic "Let's Go Driving" song video clips, as originally performed by AMs (I remember watching this one as a kid!), and other driving scenes are thrown into the mix too. Grover driving a taxi with Fat Blue as his customer, cartoon cars in traffic, Zoey driving a car down Sesame Street going by Oscar and Elmo, another cartoon car, live action cars gong by and then back to AMs. (Again, blue note is jumping around the screen). On the next verse, there's more clips of The Two-Headed Monster driving a green jeep, Oscar in his car (loaded with junk, of course), cartoon family in their car, black and white '20s style cars clip, Zoey riding by again, and cartoon family in car again. Back to AMs. And then back to Baby Bear and Telly.
6. which is actually 7. Bob sings "People in Your Neighborhood"- starts out okay, but the karaoke machine breaks down. Telly offers to get his tuba to play for Bob and Rosita offers her guitar and Zoey offers her tambourine and Elmo offers his drum and Gladys offers her harmonica and Bob points out that his voice is an instrument. Then we jump to clip of Ben Stiller and Telly singing "People in Your Neighborhood", with a female letter carrier in the first verse and the cable guy in the 2nd. verse and then Ben wants to be in the song. Telly starts singing about Ben being a person in the neighborhood, but Ben decides to go put on a costume first. He comes out as a cheese and sings about a cheese being a person in your neighborhood. Telly sensibly points out that a cheese isn't a person in your neighborhood, but then says "Oh why not?" and sings along with Ben. Jumps back to Bob and his ensemble singing "People in Your Neighborhood" and whole audience joins in.
Oscar is in the distance and getting upset that everyone's happy in the day and even at night. He drops back into his trash can upset.
Then Gladys calls for a reprise and everyone sings "People in Your Neighborhood" again, ending with the jazz player dude briefly playing his harmonica.
Then we're back to Elmo and the blue note who suggests that the viewers try some singing. The blue note jumps through an animated alphabet and Elmo takes viewer through the ABCs song and then offers just the tune and lets the viewer sing for themselves. Then Elmo suggests that everyone sing together and we all sing his "La La La" song again and after a reminder to keep singing, the video ends with that same tune that sounds a bit like The Wonder Years theme song.
Many songs are repeated a lot in this video, but at least they're classic songs and there are some cool surprises in here, like favorites like "A New Way to Walk" and "Let's Go Driving". Wasn't expecting to see those again. I'd prefer the original versions over the celebrity-studded ones, but oh well. At least the songs were there. And there were some very cool cameos from very rarely-seen Muppets, especially if those Prairie Dawn (okay, she's still pretty regularly seen) and Roosevelt Franklin ones count! Good to see Oscar included even though he didn't have a big role, along with Grundgetta and Herry making some cameos. And Snuffy showed up in one of the songs. It might have been nice if Bert and Ernie had been there to sing too. Ernie could've sung "Rubber Duckie" or "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" and Bert could've sung "Doing the Pigeon" or they could even have sung one of their great duets like "I Like You". Grover could've sung "Monster in the Mirror", Herry could've sung "Herry's Family" song, Cookie Monster could've sung "C is for Cookie" or "Me Gotta Be Blue", Oscar could've sung "I Love Trash" and it would have been really cool to even have Kermit there to sing "Bein' Green" or one of his many other SS classics like "This Frog", "Frogs in the Glen" or "In the Quiet of the Evening".
But it was good to see some classics and hear a lot of singing of some of my favorite Sesame Street songs, so that was cool. And there were some classic full segments and clips that made it worth watching too. It's a definitely a good one, like they all are!
Review-
"Sesame Sings Karaoke" - 2003 video, runtime approximately 41 minutes
Plot- Video opens with Elmo humming a song on the steps of 123 Sesame Street. (The tune sounds very similar to "The Wonder Years" (I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends by Joe Cocker, also recorded by The Beatles)
theme song, by the way, though Elmo's just singing "La, La, La". ) We see notes coming out when Elmo's singing and one of the animated notes stays when the others disappear and the note plays both a happy and sad version of the same tune Elmo was humming and Elmo suggests that they just stick to happy songs. From this point on, Elmo remembers a day when everyone just wanted to sing and we have a really long flashback.
- Camera swings out to Fix It Shop (I guess it's the Mail It Shop now, but I'm still used to saying Fix It Shop) and we see Bob coming out to join Alan on the street as they're singing a new song called "There's Something in the Air" (that makes them want to sing!) Big Bird joins in and others come along, including Gabi and Miles and Elmo and some sheep.
Withhin the song, Bob breaks into a bit of "Sing" for a bit. After the song, Gabi and Miles go off to play basketball, Alan offers Bob free coffee from Hooper's Store, Big Bird goes off and Elmo goes to wait for Rosita to meet him to play. Elmo sings "Somebody Come and Play". Lots of others are playing in the background, including a few familiar monsters like the gray one and an orange one with horns. Oscar and Grungetta are seen in the background while Elmo's singing and a Honker and Dinger come by. Elmo says he hopes Rosita gets there soon. Then there's a big medley of "Somebody come and Play" with Suzy Kabloozy (cartoon) singing, Ernie with 2 birds and a squirrel in the park, and Snuffy. Rosita then comes up singing the same song and runs into Miles and Gabi and basically Rosita and Elmo spend most of the rest of the flashback sequence looking for each other and keep missing each other. Elmo goes to check with Big Bird at his nest to see if he's seen Rosita and of course, Rosita walks right by and misses him. Then "Sing" is played while claymation animations are played on the screen. And then we jump back to the sheep humming "Sing" while Elmo emerges from Big Bird's nest. Elmo and Rosita both ask the sheep if they've seen each other and both miss each other again. (The sheep are singing "Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa" instead of the "La La La"s). Rosita sings "I'm Going to Get to You" and the sheep join in on backup "Baa"s.
-Classic animation clip- Claymation orange sings "I'm Going to Get to You"
Elmo and Rosita come to the conclusion that each other forgot about their play date and they both sing a slow version of "Somebody Come and Play" and they finally wind up right next to each other and then turn around and find each other! And then they sing a happy version of "Somebody Come and Play". Bob and Alan come from Hooper's Store and Big Bird, Miles, Gabi, horned orange monster from before, sheep, and Herry all come together and sing a quick reprise of the "There's Something in the Air Today" song again. I may be totally crazy on this one but in that mix I saw a Muppet that very much resembled Roosevelt Franklin!!!!!!! He had the purple face (though the face looked a little bit off- it was still quite close) and he had the same black crop of hair and the same yellow shirt!!! He wasn't identified by anyone on the video, but I'm calling him Roosevelt Franklin! That's so awesome to see a character who hasn't shown up in forever suddenly make a cool cameo there!
Then we go back to Elmo sitting on the stoop and he starts off his next flashback, telling about the time that everyone on Sesame Street got together to sing karaoke songs.
-Jazz player type Muppet is seen playing the Sesame Street theme song on a harmonica from a top window above Hooper's Store, which is hosting a Karaoke night. Maria and Susan go by to set up and Bob walks by with a grey Honker and Baby Bear goes by with Telly, explaining to him about Karaoke. Elmo, Zoey, Big Bird, Baby Bear, and Telly are all there, along with Gladys the Cow, who actually has a fairly big role. And a penguin's in the audience too and a Dinger is there too.
Orange monster with long blue nose is seen in background (Monster Clubhouse monster) For the humans, Bob, Alan, Maria, Luis, Gabi, Susan, Gordon, Miles and Gina are all there. And the kids, of course. Some interesting Muppets make cameos in the background shots like- Phoebe (green girl monster), Grandma from "Telephone Rock" song, purple AM that looks like Murray the Mediocre from "A Magical Halloween Adventure" video and even what seems to be Prairie Dawn as well (though a slightly different look from her normal appearance- I was almost thinking it might be Betty Lou, but she doesn't have the ponytails.) A duck is also looking in from the windows.
Alan hosts the whole thing. Gladys keeps trying to sing throughout the whole thing and keeps grabbing the mic- even though she's not signed up to sing. She keeps calling it a cowaoke night. At first she sings "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and later sings another song I"m not familiar with.
Set list for songs-
1. Big Bird sings "ABC DEF GHI"
And all throughout songs, Baby Bear is trying to encourage Telly and show him that karaoke is easy and fun. Telly is made good use of with his propensivity for worrying.
2. Rosita sings "You Say Hola" and initially messes up, but everyone encourages her to start again. Her song is interspersed with a clip of Gloria Estefan singing the same song, along with Humphrey and Ingrid, Curly Bear and his wife, Telly and Rosita and Zoey and Baby Bear. (Each of these celebrity clips has some kind of bar taking up some of the screen with the blue note on it that Elmo was talking with at the beginning of the video)
3. Gabi and Miles sing "A New Way to Walk"- it's interspersed with "Destiny's Child's version of the song, also featuring Zoey, Elmo and Grover and Mr. Noodle (or is that Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle?
) A couple of familiar live action video clips are shown with this song too.4. Gladys jumps in again and tries to sing "That's Amore" but Alan cuts her off, announcing Gina and Elmo and Alan are up next. They have a false start, but then sing "The Ladybugs' Picnic", which is of course, interspersed with the classic cartoon clips, more or less seen in its entirety, along with the blue note jumping around the screen.
5. Baby Bear is up to sing "Let's Go Driving". And Baby Bear, who'd been so confident to Telly, is suddenly hit with stage fright. Telly rushes up to help Baby Bear and actually helps him sing the song. This is interspersed with the classic "Let's Go Driving" song video clips, as originally performed by AMs (I remember watching this one as a kid!
), and other driving scenes are thrown into the mix too. Grover driving a taxi with Fat Blue as his customer, cartoon cars in traffic, Zoey driving a car down Sesame Street going by Oscar and Elmo, another cartoon car, live action cars gong by and then back to AMs. (Again, blue note is jumping around the screen). On the next verse, there's more clips of The Two-Headed Monster driving a green jeep, Oscar in his car (loaded with junk, of course), cartoon family in their car, black and white '20s style cars clip, Zoey riding by again, and cartoon family in car again. Back to AMs. And then back to Baby Bear and Telly.6. which is actually 7. Bob sings "People in Your Neighborhood"- starts out okay, but the karaoke machine breaks down. Telly offers to get his tuba to play for Bob and Rosita offers her guitar and Zoey offers her tambourine and Elmo offers his drum and Gladys offers her harmonica and Bob points out that his voice is an instrument. Then we jump to clip of Ben Stiller and Telly singing "People in Your Neighborhood", with a female letter carrier in the first verse and the cable guy in the 2nd. verse and then Ben wants to be in the song. Telly starts singing about Ben being a person in the neighborhood, but Ben decides to go put on a costume first. He comes out as a cheese and sings about a cheese being a person in your neighborhood. Telly sensibly points out that a cheese isn't a person in your neighborhood, but then says "Oh why not?" and sings along with Ben. Jumps back to Bob and his ensemble singing "People in Your Neighborhood" and whole audience joins in.
Oscar is in the distance and getting upset that everyone's happy in the day and even at night. He drops back into his trash can upset.
Then Gladys calls for a reprise and everyone sings "People in Your Neighborhood" again, ending with the jazz player dude briefly playing his harmonica.
Then we're back to Elmo and the blue note who suggests that the viewers try some singing. The blue note jumps through an animated alphabet and Elmo takes viewer through the ABCs song and then offers just the tune and lets the viewer sing for themselves. Then Elmo suggests that everyone sing together and we all sing his "La La La" song again and after a reminder to keep singing, the video ends with that same tune that sounds a bit like The Wonder Years theme song.
Many songs are repeated a lot in this video, but at least they're classic songs and there are some cool surprises in here, like favorites like "A New Way to Walk" and "Let's Go Driving". Wasn't expecting to see those again. I'd prefer the original versions over the celebrity-studded ones, but oh well. At least the songs were there. And there were some very cool cameos from very rarely-seen Muppets, especially if those Prairie Dawn (okay, she's still pretty regularly seen) and Roosevelt Franklin ones count!
Good to see Oscar included even though he didn't have a big role, along with Grundgetta and Herry making some cameos. And Snuffy showed up in one of the songs. It might have been nice if Bert and Ernie had been there to sing too. Ernie could've sung "Rubber Duckie" or "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" and Bert could've sung "Doing the Pigeon" or they could even have sung one of their great duets like "I Like You". Grover could've sung "Monster in the Mirror", Herry could've sung "Herry's Family" song, Cookie Monster could've sung "C is for Cookie" or "Me Gotta Be Blue", Oscar could've sung "I Love Trash" and it would have been really cool to even have Kermit there to sing "Bein' Green" or one of his many other SS classics like "This Frog", "Frogs in the Glen" or "In the Quiet of the Evening".But it was good to see some classics and hear a lot of singing of some of my favorite Sesame Street songs, so that was cool. And there were some classic full segments and clips that made it worth watching too. It's a definitely a good one, like they all are!