There once was a hand...

[mikealan]

Hi! I think I remember seeing the old live-action film where the hand who was doing a sort of things on an Unpaved episode #162 and I remember how it went:

The scene is plain light-blue and the live hand rises up slowly as the voice off-screen says, "There once was a hand..." Then, it does a lot of sort of things like being scary or thinking about what it has to do. Suddenly, it meets another hand and gives themselves a Hi-five and wiggle their fingers togeter.

Anybody got in touch of this skit from the old days, yet?

 

[jeffkjoe]

This skit appeared on Sesame Street Unpaved. I believe it was as early as in one of the 1970 or 1971 shows, but I remember: At the end, the two hands clap together.

 

[mikebennidict]

there were acouple of other hand films as well. rememeber the 1 were 1 hand was just standing there and the other came by with a feather and began tickling it? 3rd time it did it, the hand growled and the other hand. another one was wher the 1 hand was sqeeze ping pong balls for some reason and another 1 gives him an egg and doesn't realize it and you know what happenes.

 

[Ziffel]

This neat sketch also came up a little on the "Sesame Street films" thread.
I never had Noggin (it's been mentioned that it was on one of the Unpaved shows) but recall it almost word for word. I thought I'd try to re-enact what I recall:

(Light blue background)
Narrator (Skip Hinnant): There once was a hand.
(Hand appears from the bottom of the screen)
Like most hands, it had a thumb and four fingers. One, two , three, four.
This particular hand, though, felt especially proud of all the things it could do. For instance, he could wave hello. (Waves) He could wave good-bye. (Waves the other direction). He could tell someone to come ahead (Finger motions to come). Or stop. (Hand makes a stop motion). He could say when things are okay (Makes a circle with the thumb and index finger). And he could point to exactly what he wanted (Points in various directions). He was also able to show that he was so strong! (Makes a fist). And gentle (makes a gentle patting motion). And scary! (Makes a cat claw like figure). And he could stand at attention. But the one thing that bothered the hand who could do so many things, he could not for the life of him make a noise. (Makes some futile attempts at making noise). And once the little pinky told the others about how he had seen another hand make a noise (The pinky is shown turning to the other fingers as if talking to them). So they tried that too (Hand starts to snap its fingers with the thumb and middle finger). But somehow it wasn't really what they were after. And the hand became quite dejected (Shows the hand turning downward as if saddened).
Then ... something happened! (Another hand appears in front of him and he opens up wide and jerks around as if really pleasantly surprised and happy. Meanwhile some cool music is playing. The two hands are facing each other about six inches apart and they are fully opened up with the fingers against each other and facing upward. At first the music goes like, 'doo doo DOO doo. doo doo doo DOO doo. dooooo dodo do dodo do do do do.' Then it almost sounds like church bells, 'DING ding ding ding DING ding, ding ding ding ding, DING ding ding ding DING ding, ding ding ding.' Then the music stops. The hands clap together once. They clap again. They start to clap faster. Then we hear a bunch of clapping as if from an audience of people. The two hands continue to clap faster. Then they stop and it's quiet again).
Then the narrator's final lines: Which only goes to show, there's really no way around it. It takes two hands to clap (And the hands then come together with interlocked fingers as if embracing in love and appreciation).

This would be yet another real fun one to see again. And interesting that the hand was personified (called "he") instead of being called "it." Also, one thing I didn't understand as a child and still don't really get, was why the hand was not happy after snapping its fingers. True, clapping involves another hand so it's nicer than being all alone, but snapping is still making a noise. And that's what the thing was that bothered the hand for a long time - that he could not make a noise, not that he was lonely.