Unearthing previously "lost" Sesame Street episodes

[ssetta]

You'll probably have to wait forever.

 

[DotBridgekeeper]

Did this ever make its way into an episode, and if so, which one(s)?

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Cracks

 

[minor muppetz]

Did this ever make its way into an episode, and if so, which one(s)?

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Cracks

Yes. The article mentions the first and last episodes to include it. It has appeared in 12 episodes. Clicking "what links here" on the first image can lead to "what links here" and a list of all episodes it was in (you have to be signed in to Muppet Wiki to see "what links here" for the image).

 

[Gordon Matt]

Have any of the Test Shows 2-5 leaked anywhere, or are they "lost"? Just a thought that occurred to me the other day.

I have wondered that myself. They technically are the first episodes of the series, as they did air (albeit only on a local station).

The first one and a segment from another are out there. They aren't part of the AAPB holdings, are they?

This is just speculation on my part -- but "if" those shows maintained the convention of the time where the credits appeared on the Friday episode, then it would seem it would have been a lot easier to identify the "test pilot Gordon" (i.e. they wouldn't have had to make a public appeal for information) if the Friday episode existed. But this is just assuming this was done the same way there as it would later be done on the regular series. (Sesame wasn't the first show to do the credits that way, I have seen earlier examples.)

(Speaking of Garrett Saunders -- I note that in some early promotion for the series, including the cover photo on some of the learning guides or whatever they were called, they used pictures with Garrett Saunders in them, clearly after the show settled on Matt Robinson.)

 

[dvakman]

The first one and a segment from another are out there. They aren't part of the AAPB holdings, are they?

As of now, no test shows have been uploaded to AAPB.

 

[Gordon Matt]

I just hope Andrew is not the one responsible for uploading episode 847, and any other episodes that may have leaked. All I will say is that if he is, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I swear on my mother’s grave. But he did recently upload an episode to his YouTube channel “1999 Fan”, episode 2740, and he “dedicated” it to me, and in the comments he even stated that he purposely uploads those episodes to make me mad. He even talked publicly about some of the personal things we’d been through. The episode has since been taken down. That account seriously needs to be reported.

I maintain that I am happy to see any vintage shows that pop up, regardless of where they came from or how they were retrieved from the archives.

But reading this stuff again, I completely see your point about grabbing stuff and posting it on the internet. It's weird the way this stuff works, but collectors (including myself) can be an odd bunch and one thing I have learned over the years is, if someone supplies a copy of something rare and asks for it not to be spread around (for whatever reason) or not have their name identified, it's in everyone's best interests to honor those requests because (again, in my experience) it's more likely to be able to get more stuff through them. And if there's other means of accessing whatever, it's probably best to keep that on the down low, at least publicly. If a lot of flags are waved about it, that can be enough for someone to realize they left the garage door open (metaphorically) and they have to go out and shut it.

 

[Gordon Matt]

Speaking from experience as someone who did binge a lot of full episodes of Sesame Street during some stressful periods in 2020 and 2021 - I personally find enjoyment more out of seasons I saw as a kid (24-32, and an occasional select amount from 18-23). Otherwise, I have tried it with seasons I have only checked out for entertainment with certain segments and historic purposes with street scenes, and I just find myself bored. Especially with season 1 where so many inserts repeat themselves and get repetitive, and just the 70s stuff in general where a lot of it was all improvised street scenes thrown together.

You might like the idea of going through every single episode that exists, but it’s easier said than done, and the inserts will eventually catch up with you depending on which era of episodes you’re watching.

If you’re gonna go through every episode, you’re better off just skipping around to see material/street scenes you haven’t seen yet. Otherwise you’ll get bored constantly seeing the Number Counting Series and Jazz number cartoons constantly repeated over and over.

For me it goes in "cycles" when I want to revisit certain things I enjoyed when I was younger. I have gotten on another "kick" of revisiting the Sesame Street of my youth after several years of not watching any of it. I can tell you when I first got the Noggin channel in 2002 (when they were starting to "wind down" their repeats of SS Unpaved and The Electric Company) I hadn't seen this stuff since childhood and I was very thrilled, sometimes staying up until 2 in the morning to see these shows for the first time since they were first on. (When I saw the episode where Big Bird first meets Mr. Snuffleupagus, I was surprised at how well I remembered it.) I'm always excited to find more, particularly from the earliest years, but probably not to the point I was in the Noggin days, when I hadn't seen any of it at all for so long.

I don't find Season 1 "boring" because the early seasons were the Sesame Street I knew, and I was used to how they were presented. Granted there is a lot of repetition and I'm not crazy about that (I think they were trying to emulate the way commercials played on "regular" TV, even down to saying the show was "brought to you by" certain letters and numbers).

There's less repetition as the show goes on because they have more material to use. But while they continued to do a great show well past the time I originally checked out of watching it, with the later episodes I am always the most excited to see stuff from the early seasons (a lot of the Muppet bits and animations were repeated for many years) because that's "my" Sesame Street.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I mean truthfully if I were alive in the early 70s…. MAYBE I would have liked season 1. The inserts for the most part are fine, but I find the street scenes just….. really drag. And yeah, there’s the repetition as well.

You could easily just have the cast members stand in the middle of the street awkwardly doing nothing and it would still feel the same way for me.

 

[Gordon Matt]

I mean truthfully if I were alive in the early 70s…. MAYBE I would have liked season 1. The inserts for the most part are fine, but I find the street scenes just….. really drag. And yeah, there’s the repetition as well.

You could easily just have the cast members stand in the middle of the street awkwardly doing nothing and it would still feel the same way for me.

I think it's evident that there's a lot of ad-libbing. Matt Robinson in particular is very deadpan but often hilarious. But yeah, like the show where they pretend to go for an imaginary car ride, stuff like that does tend to drag.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Sharing this one just because it’s a Don Music episode.

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_1729