The Beatles

[SesameMike]

As it's been 50 years since The Beatles first performed in the USA, let us explore the appearances of the Fab Four in the earliest years of Sesame Street.

Back when the show used to cover popular songs just as they were, with no parody or lesson, no less than 4 songs were sung as part of a Muppet sketch. They were:

• Yellow Submarine -- Anything and regular Muppets partied on a yellow submersible that looked remarkably similar to one seen in a certain animated movie.
• Octopus' Garden -- Three muppets sing against a unique chroma-key of a fish tank. A "hanging" octopus appears who helps us count out his tentacles.
• Help! -- A male Muppet can't get a date, so a blue-nosed Herry Monster in drag starts chasing him around the room. This one has recently surfaced on YouTube, albeit in Spanish.
• The Word -- A Muppet boy and some other Muppets, either monsters or "hippie" characters, stack the word LOVE out of building blocks on the wall. This is the only one that has not appeared online AFAIK.

Another song from that era sounded remarkably similar to Twist and Shout: "Count It Higher" by Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats. The "ahh-ahh-ahh" part was replaced by "1, 2 , 3..."

None of these songs actually mentioned The Beatles by name. But one early skit with Ernie and Beautiful Day Monster did. Ernie was discussing "between", and one of the items used to demonstrate was a "phonograph record of The Beatles". (I never heard of the group until much later, so I assumed it was an educational record about the insect order coleoptera) Beautiful Day Monster shows up -- who, at the time, had the same characteristics as the then-unnamed Cookie Monster, particularly in terms of having a voracious, and undiscriminating appetite. Before eating the vinyl he calls out "Record! omm-num-num..." But he saved the record label (Apple records?) for last, and called out "Beatles!". I'm told that the "omm-num-num" that followed had something of a "yeah-yeah-yeah!" element to it. This, too, has yet to appear online to my knowledge.

Of course, in later years they did a number of parody songs: Letter B, Hey Food, and With a Little Yelp From My Friends, though the latter is more in the style of Joe Cocker than the Fab Four.

 

[cjd874]

Sesame Street also did covers of "Good Morning Starshine" from Hair (the musical) and "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears. I saw a half-complete video with full audio on Youtube, but I'm not not sure if it's still up.
Let's not forget that SS's versions of Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden were released as a single under the Sesame Street Records label! Amazing photo, too!

 

[Bliffenstimmers]

Another Beatles cover from Sesame Street that has yet to resurface is "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds."

So far all we have is this black and white photo from the taping of the segment.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Thanks for sharing. I clearly remember the show's Muppet version of "The Beatles," but I guess what you're talking about is different. It is interesting how they used to do what they did on "The Muppet Show," about just playing songs that were out on the time without changing them in any form. I'd love to see the American version of "Help."

 

[Drtooth]

I think we're also forgetting these fine Liverpudlian chaps...

 

[fuzzygobo]

In the skit with Kermit and Beautiful Day demonstrating "between" (Kermit describes as a far-out groovy word), B.D. eats a ping pong ball and a donut before eating the Beatle record. "Yeah Yeah Yeah" being a reference to "She Loves You".

I remember this when it originally aired when I was little, and it upset me that B.D. would eat a Beatle record. However, he could eat my copy of "The Long and Winding Road" and he'd be doing me a favor.

Besides the Beatle skits from the first season, I'm still holding out someday we might see "Windy" again (in English), and to me the holiest of grails, "Up ,Up and Away".

 

[Drtooth]

Even though the parody is of a cover, I'm still counting this as well.

 

[SesameMike]

Regarding cover songs of (mostly) showtunes, don't forget in the very first episode, the Anything Muppet family sang "Consider Yourself" from the musical Oliver! Gotta like how they threw in "soft drinks!" after the "drinks are on the house" line. Sadly, the DVD includes Gordon assembling the Muppets, but they leave out the song, presumably due to copyright/royalty issues.

Another rarity is Susan singing "Swinging on a Star". She, too, assembles Muppets, but does so while singing, and in context with the song, e.g., makes up a pig Muppet to "A pig is an animal with dirt on his face...". At the very end she is handed a star prop and she counts the 5 points.

Then there was "Lulu's Back in Town", which featured the same Muppet as in Help! (wikia says his name is Tony), but this time being pursued by Beautiful Day Monster in drag.

Other songs not written for the show originally included "Mahna Mahna" and "I Am a Fine Musician" (check out the Dick van Dyke Show cover.)

An inversion would be the song Sing, which was written for the show, and then covered by a popular group. But I only ever heard the second verse ("let the world, sing along) sung by The Carpenters; the Sesame Street version would typically reprise the first verse in Spanish. Not sure who wrote that verse.

 

[AmandaFrancis]

Thank you for sharing. Its nice to see these songs. I like the Beatles work but I don't love to see Octopus' Garden.