What sketches scared you as a kid?

[Convincing John]

You mean the one when Hoopers' store has a fire? It was pretty dark and realistic, and it had really tense music that reminded me of the Mysterious Theater theme. But I thought I heard that there was an episode where 123 Sesame Street caught fire. When was this episode, and can someone give me a detailed synopsis on it?

Can't remember the exact details, but I can give you the basics.

There was one week back in the late 80's when Miles was around 10. They did a whole week on fire safety. A lot of it was set in Susan and Gordon's apartment. They showed a lot of basic fire safety stuff. Crawl on the floor to avoid smoke, make sure to check your smoke alarms, etc.

So, on Friday, there was a fire in the middle of the night at 123 Sesame. They showed Miles going through the safety procedures and the gang assembled outside. The smoke was coming from the basement.

Big Bird asked "What about Ernie and Bert?" Maria said they were on vacation as the fire trucks pulled up.

It turned out there was an electrical fire in some sub-basement (storage room?) below Ernie and Bert's. The only thing that got burned/destroyed was (get this) Big Bird's nest. No, not his big, regular nest, it was the nest he had when he was a baby bird. (I guess he kept in in storage). I remember the firefighter bringing it out and it was all black and charred.

Naturally, Big Bird was sad, and everyone was there to help him feel better. In the end, Big Bird wanted to do something special with the nest, but it smelled too bad because of the smoke, so he gave it to Oscar. Oscar liked it, naturally and the Friday "nighttime credits" began to roll. All was right with the world once again.

That's about all I remember from that incident.

Convincing John

 

[wiley207]

That sounds pretty neat. A friend of mine told me that fire thing actually happened in the early 1990s even though he didn't remember the plot. The Ernie and Bert line was funny, though.

 

[MisterDuhFrog]

LOLOLOL THAT's A RIOT. Dr Tooth

My little brother had a big bird that played tapes, and when you bought the formatted tapes he would read you a story...and his mouth would move along with the words on the tape.
If it was an unformatted tape, though, his mouth would move sporatically. That was in 89.

OH MAN I REMEMBER THAT! I used to cry whenever he sang those songs right in front of me. I felt a little weirded out by all that because he was SO CLOSE, and I was used to him being on this tube that you can't get out of, and it was a little alarming to see his mouth move face to face. I have more things that scare me, and I'll give them to you soon.

 

[lalalei]

I was scared when the hurricane hit Sesame Street. Even though I was old enough to know things were going to be okay, it scared me that little kids would be scared. If that makes sense.

 

[MisterDuhFrog]

I never had a problem with the Jazz segments, but what you said about it creeping you out at night reminded me of something-I recently watched the "Pretty Great Performances" sketch with Placido Flamingo and the All-Animal Orchestra at around 1 in the morning...as I said, I was terrified of him as a child, and I'm still somewhat creeped out by this segment (for some reason, this segment and none of his others), so not only did I have trouble falling asleep that night, but I had nightmares about him when I finally fell asleep.

What always scared me were the sampled sounds of quacking, snorting, clucking, barking, and BLEATING (that was the worst), played back at different pitches and speeds through digital sampler. That kinda irked me and it still does. Also the fact that a great conductor like Seiji Ozawa was conducting an All-Animal orchestra. I always used to think that Placido Flamingo had the voice of a real opera singer, but then I heard him recently, and I thought he sounded more like Scooter with an accent and a more trained voice, and now I was less scared about that. Only the All-Animal Orchestra still scares me.

 

[finamonster]

scariest sketch

It was the one where the parrot keeps saying "Who is it?"
Then the man outside says
'It's the plumber , I've come to fix the sink'.
then he gets so angry he has a heart attack and dies.
That was horrifying!
But I still liked the parrot.

 

[ISNorden]

Another one that sent me screaming was this animation (if you could call it that!) of an elephant counting to twenty. I was frightened by the Spanish version. It was so long too! He counted twice and everytime he got to fourteen, he'd angrilly repeat it (Fourteen) over and over until it appeared on screen!

Funny thing is, that clip (complete with the angry repetition of "14") wasn't originally made for Sesame Street; it was made for an unrelated kids' show in Sweden, the one that CTW eventually got the "Swedish number animations" from. The untranslated version sounds just as disconcerting to me, and I'm old enough to have grandkids in kindergarten (theoretically). I guess European TV stations are more open about showing scary or negative scenes on shows geared for that age!

 

[finamonster]

tweedle bugs were my favorite!

I loved how they'd say Tweedle Tweedle,
they were so tiny, maybe that could be scary( perspective is
hard to deal with when you are a kid).
Tweedle, tweedle tweedle!
lol
I also liked the manamana monsters!

 

[torontoguy]

i agree with you Jennifer, i have always been bothered/scared of the willie wimple water pollution cartoon/song clip. i have never forgotten it and i saw it the other night on youtube and i have felt like i have been some sort of funk since then. like i have seen a ghost or something terrible happened to me. i have been searching for the clip, but never could find it until i posted a message asking anybody if they remember it. i got a reply and the moment i knew the title of the song and that i was about to see the clip again, i was scared. i should have never tried to search for it cause i never want to see it again and i want that **** song out of my head. i feel for you and i have always been the same way about this song. i am glad to know that other people felt this way towards the willie wimple cartoon. when i start talking about what scared me on SS, i always get this strang look on people's faces. they say how can SS be scary when it was a kids show. then i tell they about willie wimple, lowercase n, yo yo master and lost kid and king minus.

 

[ISNorden]

Fear isn't the only negative reaction that some of the old clips can inspire: I was never frightened by the "lost kid/yo-yo master" or the "King Minus" clips when I was a girl, but I certainly felt sorry for the main characters. (No wonder poor ol' Minus subtracted himself out of existence at the end, for instance: he'd worked hard to save the princess, but then lost her accidentally.) "Lower-case n" seemed more bittersweet than frightening to me, even way back when; seeing that sad, lonely letter made me sad, but the other "n" coming from space never frightened me. (If anything, I felt relieved...and the way both letters emoted love at the end made me think "Awww..." )