Unearthing previously "lost" Sesame Street episodes

[scarecroe]

I would really like to see some of these:

Celebrities Wanted

muppet.fandom.com

That's an interesting list. We're pretty sure that Tom Hanks never appeared. Which is a shame. Some others appear to have been announced in the press, but also didn't happen. Some of them are detailed here.

Some of the others are coming soon. Like Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Rita Moreno, and Billy Dee Williams.

Let me know if there are any celebrities not listed there that there's otherwise proof of an appearance and I'll see what I can do.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

That's an interesting list. We're pretty sure that Tom Hanks never appeared. Which is a shame. Some others appear to have been announced in the press, but also didn't happen. Some of them are detailed here.

Some of the others are coming soon. Like Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Rita Moreno, and Billy Dee Williams.

Let me know if there are any celebrities not listed there that there's otherwise proof of an appearance and I'll see what I can do.

Okay, I will let you know.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

That's an interesting list. We're pretty sure that Tom Hanks never appeared. Which is a shame. Some others appear to have been announced in the press, but also didn't happen. Some of them are detailed here.

Some of the others are coming soon. Like Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Rita Moreno, and Billy Dee Williams.

Let me know if there are any celebrities not listed there that there's otherwise proof of an appearance and I'll see what I can do.

It's a shame that Tom Hanks didn't appear, but I agree with you that it's an interesting list. Same with potential guest stars as well.

 

[scarecroe]

It's a shame that Tom Hanks didn't appear...

It's looking very unlikely. Although, I can imagine a scenario where he came in very late in the process (after a script was completed), and filmed something that was either written for someone else, or largely improvised on-set. That said, the likelihood of a celebrity of Hanks' prominence appeared on Sesame Street and the segment went completey lost for decades (without even a single photo showing up or anyone involved in production mentioning it) is, again, very unlikely.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

It's looking very unlikely. Although, I can imagine a scenario where he came in very late in the process (after a script was completed), and filmed something that was either written for someone else, or largely improvised on-set. That said, the likelihood of a celebrity of Hanks' prominence appeared on Sesame Street and the segment went completey lost for decades (without even a single photo showing up or anyone involved in production mentioning it) is, again, very unlikely.

The list does need to be updated though.

 

[scarecroe]

It has. There's a note next to his name that reads "no such mention in any Season 24 script ". That basically means we've looked as hard as we can for now with the current materials available, it looks unlikely, but we're still tracking it because it was noted in Sesame Workshop documents.

 

[minor muppetz]

I wonder if the "Mr. Cunningham" comment to Mr. Hooper was a faulty memory too

I wonder if that was really on the show or if it's more of a funny anecdote that Caroll Spinney says in interviews, maybe as Big Bird. I first heard of such an instance in Sesame Street Unpaved when Big Bird was quoted as saying, paraphrased, "one time I walked in and said, 'hello, Mr. Cunningham!'... Gee, I wasn't even close." With that quote being him recounting the past, I would have expected that to be in an episode where they reminisce about Mr. Hooper, but I think the wiki has details on all such episodes (and we've had video of most of them for years) and it's not in any of those.

Regarding the Baby Monster clip: I wonder if we would have determined the case solved if we didn't know the segment was internally titled "Baby Monster: IS". He's not referred to by name, doesn't really look like a baby aside from being small (and arguably with him wanting to learn a word).

Regarding episode 1259: I wonder if the originally-scripted street scenes were shot and replaced. Has it ever been specifically stated that the unaired divorce episode is the only episode/street story that never aired? I always assumed that, the A&E Biography says (and this is paraphrased from memory) "one episode went unaired", not "only one episode went unaired". If another episode or two was taped but unaired, they might just simplify the info as just one (if the quote was "one of two unaired episodes was about divorce", fans might be wondering about the other - though maybe not so much if they said "one of only a handful of episodes went unaired"). The idea of an unaired episode of divorce seems more likely for them to talk about than an episode that properly introduced a character who's not that well-known.

 

[minor muppetz]

I'm more willing to bet that either Tom Hanks was scheduled to make an appearance but canceled, or they taped material with Hanks that ended up not airing (failing with test audiences) and it wasn't in any of the final aired version scripts (though I do know that one of the scripts included a "Maria as Chaplin" sketch that ended up never airing, not sure how common it was for "final aired version" scripts to include segments that wound up unaired).

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

It has. There's a note next to his name that reads "no such mention in any Season 24 script ". That basically means we've looked as hard as we can for now with the current materials available, it looks unlikely, but we're still tracking it because it was noted in Sesame Workshop documents.

I did check, but that makes sense.

 

[hooperfan]

Episode 2279

muppet.fandom.com

I remember this one! But that dragon puppet looks like a reject from Eureka's Castle!