Warner Home Video now distributing Sesame Workshop DVDs

[minor muppetz]

In the speculations for the 45th anniversary thread, I posted a desire for Sesame Street to do a "Classics Collection" line of DVDs every other month. One thing I thought would be good would be if the first release was Old School Volume 4 (if we don't get one this year) and ended the year with a 45th anniversary DVD. But then again, it would be weird if Old School Volume 4 were saved for a 45th anniversary release, since it would most likely only cover five years (and this is coming from somebody who thinks the 45th anniversary should be celebrated with a collection of DVDs focusing on the classic era... an anniversary should represent all the eras almost equally, even though I'd prefer the main focus to be on the first 21 years).

With next week's C is for Cooking having material from one of the international shows and Being Brave rumored to have existing unreleased footage, I wonder if it will be a new trend for Sesame Workshop to release unseen-on-the-US-show material on its DVDs.

 

[minor muppetz]

On November 12 there will be a "Best of Sesame Street" box set, featuring The Best of Elmo, Guess That Shape and Color, Elmo's World: What Makes You Happy, Singing with the Stars, and... well, I can't remember what else off-hand. I feel like some of the choices are odd, but maybe the selection of DVDs are based on sales (I wish there was some sort of guide listing how well all the videos have sold). But there's also something intriguing - a "bonus disc". I'm guessing it's a "to be announced"/"to be determined" disc... Hopefully it isn't a disc exclusive for the box set (or something currently exclusive to come out later), I don't think I want to buy the boxed set for a bonus disc (especially since I already have some of the DVDs included).

 

[Drtooth]

The entire list...

• Elmo's Potty Time
• Elmo's World: What Makes You Happy
• The Best of Elmo
• Guess That Shape and Color
• Elmo's Alphabet Challenge
• Singing with the Stars
• Counting with Elmo
• Bonus Disc

Like shell those are the best Sesame Street has to offer. They're all Elmo-centric, even though he's only named in 5 titles. I don't see why this has such a grandiose, boastful title. Older Sesame fans will be very disappointed to see it's a bunch of semi-recent Elmo related titles and not a collection of classic or well loved Sesame Street episodes/sketches.

 

[minor muppetz]

Like shell those are the best Sesame Street has to offer. They're all Elmo-centric, even though he's only named in 5 titles. I don't see why this has such a grandiose, boastful title. Older Sesame fans will be very disappointed to see it's a bunch of semi-recent Elmo related titles and not a collection of classic or well loved Sesame Street episodes/sketches.

Maybe those are the best-selling (which can be different from what fans see as best, or what old-time collectors like best). I feel some of those are appropriate choices (Elmo's Alphabet Challenge, The Best of Elmo), but still, it could have had LearningAbout Letters or Learning About Numbers, those seem to be easy to find in stores. Ditto with the 25th anniversary special.

 

[Drtooth]

I highly doubt "Let's Guess Shapes and Colors" sells that well. I mean, that's not even the best of the last bunch of seasons. That kicked off those terrible formulaic guessing game episodes that they ran into the ground.

I still think the name should be something like "Let's learn with Elmo" or "Elmo's Favorite Adventures" 0r something. The school bus packaging is completely wasted here. Seems they should all be shrink wrapped together.

 

[D'Snowth]

Wow, talk about false advertising!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Sesame-Street-The-Best-Of-DVD-Collection/18938

Well okay, the advertising isn't false, the PACKAGING is! While the packaging looks really nice, and really makes you want to purchase this, it's clear when you read the article provided that this is NOT a "Best Of" set of SST, but rather, it's all Elmo. That almost seems rather sneaky.

 

[Drtooth]

I basically just said that. I don't care what the criteria is, Guess the Shape and Color isn't something even remotely good, let alone best.

I still think "Learn along with Elmo" or something would work fine, especially with the school bus packaging.

 

[Oscarfan]

To be fair, "Elmo's Alphabet Challenge" isn't as Elmo-centric as the rest of the DVDs.

 

[Drtooth]

To be fair, if this were legitimately a "Best of" collection, the only DVD that would stand to be there is Singing with Celebrities as they pretty much shove celebrities in your face these days. Maybe even best of Elmo.

But The two lame guessing game episodes on one DVD? Saying this is the best of Sesame Street is like a four star gourmet restaurant saying that their best dish is a poached egg with maybe some undressed lettuce underneath it. Even if this set were collected "best of" DVD's, it would make more sense. Even if they were choice DVD's, like What's the name of that Song? or something. It just seems like a bunch of left over moderately selling DVD's and some that really aren't shoved in together with a collectible box to rationalize selling old stock.

Meanwhile, a legitimate best of collection should have a collector's quality both inside and out. Even if they're made up of prior DVD's. Something that's geared to someone who would actually spend 60 bucks on a bunch of Sesame Street DVD's. A collection of "just a bunch of DVD's we had in the warehouse we can't get rid of" isn't collector friendly. Like I said, they might as well be shrink wrapped together and sold at bargain/wholesale stores.

 

[minor muppetz]

If I were in charge of that "Best of Sesame Street" collection, I think I would keep Best of Elmo, Singing with the Stars, and Elmo's Alphabet Challenge on there, and the other DVDs would include the 25th anniversary musical celebration (it's actually not one of my favorites, but it does have many of the most essential songs from the show), either Learning About Letters or Numbers, Best of Friends, and Abby in Wonderland (even though I've never seen that one).

It's so intriguing as to what the "bonus disc" might be. A selection of episodes from the three Old School volumes (obviously they can fit three hour-long episodes on one disc)? Samplings of various other Sesame Street DVDs? An exclusive DVD that won't be available separately until later (if at all)? Last night I wondered if it could be every bonus clip from the Old School releases, though considering most of the DVDs included are Elmo ones I doubt they'd include ALL of the bonus clips (I wouldn't expect the seasons 1-10 credit crawls or orange Oscar).