Up, Up and Away

[fuzzygobo]

One cool Muppet clip that hasn't been shown in decades was Betty Lou and her friend Jack (looks like Roosevelt Franklin with different colored hair) singing this great version of the Fifth Dimension classic. Jim really did have a fine voice. Betty Lou's friend Billy invites her to fly in his airplane, but our hero convinces her to join him in his hot air balloon. Then the song starts.
Near the end, Billy comes flying by in his plane, and pokes a small hole in the balloon, and we hear the air hissing and the balloon starts to sink. But Billy picks up the other two and flies away in his plane. Betty Lou looks pleased as punch, but our friend Jack is more than a little miffed.

At a young age, I thought this and Octopus's Garden were Sesame songs. I had no idea they were just covers of famous groups. At the age of five I had a lot to learn.

Does anybody in this vast universe remember this one, let alone have it?

 

[Mokeystar]

Yes, Mr. Fuzzygobo, even though I don't remember seeing Octopus' Garden on Sesame Street, I do remember seeing this one. For many years I associated the Fifth Dimension's song with the clip, not realizing that the lyrics had nothing to do with some guy who lost the opportunity for a Muppety romance with Betty Lou.

I'm sure your memory serves you much better than mine, but for some strange reason, I remember the guy in the balloon going down with the balloon. I don't know why I remember it that way.

And, by the way, if I had the clip, you would have had a copy years ago. But you already knew that.....

 

[matthewxel]

What year was this song from?

 

[Mark The Shark]

One cool Muppet clip that hasn't been shown in decades was Betty Lou and her friend Jack (looks like Roosevelt Franklin with different colored hair) singing this great version of the Fifth Dimension classic. Jim really did have a fine voice. Betty Lou's friend Billy invites her to fly in his airplane, but our hero convinces her to join him in his hot air balloon. Then the song starts.
Near the end, Billy comes flying by in his plane, and pokes a small hole in the balloon, and we hear the air hissing and the balloon starts to sink. But Billy picks up the other two and flies away in his plane. Betty Lou looks pleased as punch, but our friend Jack is more than a little miffed.

At a young age, I thought this and Octopus's Garden were Sesame songs. I had no idea they were just covers of famous groups. At the age of five I had a lot to learn.

Does anybody in this vast universe remember this one, let alone have it?

I don't have it, but I think I might possibly have a vague memory of it.

Just as an off-topic aside, I love that song. It came out when I was about 2 years old. I remember hearing it a lot in my youth. One of my childhood heroes is Bill Jackson, a Chicago TV guy who created "BJ & Dirty Dragon" (a local show in Chicago which evolved into the syndicated "Gigglesnort Hotel"). BJ's puppets (he sculpted and voiced them all himself) are very Muppetesque in terms of design and operation, and BJ was doing his show before SS (he started out in the early 1960s doing various local things in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne before he moved to Chicago in 1965 to do "Clown Alley," where he introduced Dirty Dragon, The Blob, The Old Professor, Mother Plumtree and other characters; he moved to WFLD-Channel 32 in 1968 and WGN-Channel 9 in 1973, then to WLS-Channel 7 in 1975). He must have liked that song too. I have found tapes of old shows where that song is featured; one is his 1968 Thanksgiving special, "Please Open Before Christmas," and another is a late local Chicago show, "BJ & Dirty Dragon" #176 (from WGN dated 1974). Both of these and other shows can be viewed at the Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago (when they reopen in their new location next year). Anyone here who likes the Muppets who hasn't seen Bill Jackson's characters, you really owe it to yourself to check them out. You won't be disappointed. He sells a few videos through his website, at

dirtydragon.com

One other anecdote is that one semi-regular feature of his show (when it aired on Channel 32 in Chicago) is periodically he would do "serials" (in the style of the old movie cliffhangers) using some of the characters. In 1970, he did one called "Dirty Dragon Meets The Monsters" in which Wally and Weird are turned into Wolf-Wally and Frankenweird. He'd promoted the serial on the air and it had been advertised in the newspapers, and the day he taped the first one (for the show which was to air later that afternoon), the station's program director called him up and told him not to do the segment because he thought it would create "a bad image" and scare the kids. The way BJ tells the story, he was on the phone trying to convince the program director to let him go ahead and finally he said "Sesame Street has monsters! They're the same thing! There's not going to be any violence on this...these are *fun* monsters!" The PD said, "Well, okay." (Hangs up phone) "Roll tape!"

Seriously, you folks should check this stuff out.

 

[Mokeystar]

Probably 1969.

The original four-time Grammy award winning song was from 1967. So perfect for the Summer of Love.

 

[Ziffel]

The "up up and away" skit was very well done. I always loved when this one came on. I also didn't know until I was a teen that this song preceded SS (by The Fifth Dimension). I always liked the line, "The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon." How very true! (Well, not for this muppet, though, since he gets a hole poked in his balloon by the muppet in a plane!)
This is actually another old skit along the lines of a "sketch that scared you as a kid" upon its first viewing. Because when the balloon is popped and starts fallling with the guy yelling, "My ballooooooooooooon!" , it's kind of frightening thinking what might happen. But once the plane catches them, the skit was always a delight to see for me on all future replayings.

 

[Xerus]

I would've loved to see that skit. Up Up and Away is one of my all time favorite songs.

I remember on the Muppet Show, Rowlf was about to sing that very song, he was at his piano and just as he sang, "Up Up and Away!" the candle holder sitting on his piano blasted off like a rocket. And the song never got sung. It was kind of a disappointment.

 

[Fuzzy and Blue]

Is "Up, Up, and Away" the song that goes, "Up, up, and away in my beautiful balloon?"

~Dana~

 

[Ziffel]

You got it.
Pretty neat how SS used a lot of the song and showed the visual of the air balloon going up up and away. Though I'm sure certain lyrics like, "If you'll hold my hand we'll chase your dream across the sky" were not used in the SS version!
Since I saw the SS skit a lot of times before I ever heard the Fifth Dimension song, any time I hear that song now I think of the skit too.

 

[Ziffel]

And the up up and away SS skit is still nowhere to be found. Maybe some day. But at least youtube does have the classic song by the Fifth Dimension to enjoy.