What's your favorite Sesame 1-2-3's?

[Soul H]

It's come back to me! I remember what happened!

It starts off with the 4 sitting in an open field, then 4 men grow from the ground and carry the 4 into the castle.

They show the 4 in the castle, then the 4 becomes all sparkly, and many wavy, sparkly lines go everywhere.

They go back outside to show the castle sparkling, them 4 balls fly out of the castle turning into 4 unicorns, then the unicorns fly away leaving a small blue 4 at the bottom centre of the land.

don't know if this one was mentioned but it was a 4 cartooon where tis 4 located in some open field and these 4 men carry it off to a castle and can't remember what happenes exactly. this one was from the 80s.

 

[mikebennidict]

6 kids playing.

I just heard the song on MC radio. Apparently it was just from the show, Takes place in a park and it starts out 6 kids playing at the end of the day with their mommies & daddies arrive etc. Anyone know or has a rough idea on when this sketch was made? Unless it's a newer one.

 

[ISNorden]

That sketch was made in the early 90's, although I don't remember an exact year or an episode number. The setting I do remember: it was a day-care center, not a park.

 

[ISNorden]

There were a lot of number segments where they counted the numbers in really neat sounding and catchy ways with cool music too....A couple of more obscure ones I recall had one that went up to eleven. It started out with cool music which I have no idea how to describe in words....Then people unseen sang/counted up to eleven with one of those three beats between each number. When they got to eleven they shouted it happily and excitedly. Then they counted up to eleven fast --"1,2,3,4,5,6,7...8,9,10,11". Then there was some more music and some animation that I don't remember. You could hear the people being happy and going "Woo!" (was a pretty festive sketch). Then they counted up to eleven again the slower way. Then some final festive music and it ends.

That's one of the earliest number segments I remember seeing; does anybody know whether it aired in Season Two? (I seem to remember that Season One episodes never taught numbers higher than ten; if I'm right, the "11" clip couldn't be that old.)

The other more obscure one I thought of goes up to five. Also an animated sketch with unseen people singing/counting. I forgot most of the animation that happens in this one. I imagine it was a lot of the numbers 1 through 5, especially 5. They would frequently say, "1,2,3,4,5" with a very slight pause between the 3 and 4. (Kind of like "one, two, threeeee, four , five." At one point they substituted "da,da,da,da,da" for the numbers for a little bit. Then near the end they went back to "1,2,3,4,5" a few times, with the final time going, "1,2,3.....(long pause with a music beat) 4,5!"
Oh so many great memories!

Heck, yeah...I must've driven Mom crazy singing that one when I was a girl. If Sesame Workshop ever records a DVD of classic number clips, the "11" and "5" oldies definitely belong there.

 

[ISNorden]

Another I really loved to see and listen to was those jazzy spies/ race car segments I've seen talked about here from time to time (Apparently a lot of them were shown on Noggin, which I didn't have).
Loved the beginnings the best with the numbers flashing fast and the lady at first whispering 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and then counting louder a second time. Great music background. And yes, psychedelic. The only ones I really remember fairly well are the ones I caught in more recent times (1980-1991): the numbers 3,8, and 10.

I'd nominate the "Jazzy Spies" series as my favorite classic number segments, with the "Pinball" series in second place and the "Baker" series in third. (I've always had a fear of falling, so those endings scared me when I was a kid.)

I've seen some other ones described here but don't really remember them too well. It was the opening and closing parts of these that were the best parts anyway , I think. The 10 one I recall about the cars racing and at the end the woman saying "ten" throughout says, "teh hennnn!" in a rather eerie way. In the 8 one it was kind of a hoot as creatures kept eating other creatures, right? (Thus, 8 and ate). And in #3 one of the bizarre things was a cartoon devil, I think. Anyone who's seen #3 able to verify that?

I've seen the #2 and #7 clips on a couple of vintage-TV sites (which closed down a few years ago, unfortunately). I remember reading that CTW pulled the #2 clip because parents complained about the two gangsters firing guns at each other. I also vaguely remember a devil's trident (held sideways to form a number 3 at the end) in the #3 clip...but haven't seen the whole thing since I was in grade school.

I agree with you that the "8/ate" wordplay in the #8 clip was pretty funny...I wonder how many other kids got the joke right away. (Ernie and Bert's "I ate the sandbox" sketch probably helped them, though!)

 

[ISNorden]

Anyone this animation, possibly computerized, about the number four?

We see 4 white or yellow squares against a black background. A man asks
"How many is this?"
A chorus of kids, probably boys all answered "four".

The above process repeated once. Then the male voiceover asked
"How many is this?"
We then saw 100 or so of those squares. The kids reply:
"Oh... haha... 'four'... too many... hahaha..."
The screen, in one swift and smooth swoop, whittled down to only 4 squares.

MAN: "NOW how many are there."
KIDS: "Four. Yayyyyyy!"
As the kids were "yay"ing, a numeral 4 faded in over the remaining 4 squares.

*nods* That was an early computer animation, all right; the style reminds me of the "Nobody" sketch about the number 10. ("Nobody" was an unofficial nickname for the disembodied rubber-band face which did most of the talking/counting.)

Back to the 4 sketch, though: in addition to the squares, I have vague memories of other shapes illustrating the number (four vertical strokes, four rosette-like animations). Am I confusing sketches here? Please let me know...

 

[ISNorden]

there was a cartoon about 18 from the 90s witch i can't remember how it goes but it was a take on the 1971 Alice Cooper 18 and i like it song. anyone recall this one?

Yep, the parody was sung by a girl who takes a lunch break, but can't make up her mind about the sandwiches on a menu ("There's 18, and I don't know what I want...there's 18, I can't decide what I want"). She then sings a list of the sandwiches featured on the menu; a picture of each one appears, with its number in a corner nearby. (Believe it or not, when the girl sang "chopped liver, pastrami" I originally heard it as "chocolate or pastrami"--and wondered what a chocolate sandwich was doing on the menu. )

The song ends with the girl rejecting the menu: "18 sandwiches, I just don't know...forget the whole thing, I'll get a pizza to go!" (When she mentions the pizza, a drawing of the pizza fills the screen; a crowd of hands remove it slice by slice, revealing the number 18.)

 

[ISNorden]

[various classic favorites cut]
Elephant counting to 20

Did that elephant get stuck at the number 14, by any chance? If he did, then that clip was dubbed from a Swedish original....I can't resist doing an impression when the elephant hits "14--14--14" in Swedish. )

Hawaiian counting song (1-20)

Is that the animation of a tropical island underneath a full moon, whose reflection morphs into the numbers? It did have Hawaiian-style guitar music and a male offscreen voice naming each number (in English) as it appeared.

[more great number segments snipped]
40 Dots
Star light, Star Bright
Lemmings Wuntafordy (1-40)

The "40 Dots" segment is on my scariest-ever list; that voice hyperventilating and screeching "thirty-niiiiine..." would sound evil in any language on Earth.

"Star Light" (with its "and many more!" ending as the speaker raises his arms skyward) is thought-provoking; that cartoon is the closest Sesame Street has come to teaching about infinity. (Simplifying that idea to "numbers go on forever" is appropriate to a children's show IMO.)

"Lemmings 1-40" amused me only mildly, although the surprise ending (all the others jumping onto the HUGE back of Lemming #40) was a clever sight gag.

While we're discussing those old counting-to-40 cartoons, I'm surprised you never listed "40 Blocks to School": the bluesy melody, the boy describing his reactions, and the clever placement of numbers were well done in my opinion.

 

[ISNorden]

I also heard the Grace Slick 12345678910 song (4 version) in Hebrew. That was also freky! From what I remember, when the singer makes the number 4 sound like an airplane, it went (this is from memmory, I don't speak Hebrew) "Allllbaaa, yyy-aaaaalllllbaaa!" Fah-reaky!!!!!

I don't speak more than a smattering of Hebrew (thanks to some Jewish friends online), but the word should be transliterated as arba. I agree with you, though, that the Hebrew-dubbed version of that clip sounded weird. (Not to mention more awkward than the Spanish version; almost all Hebrew number-words have more than one syllable.)

 

[mikebennidict]

*nods* That was an early computer animation, all right; the style reminds me of the "Nobody" sketch about the number 10. ("Nobody" was an unofficial nickname for the disembodied rubber-band face which did most of the talking/counting.)

Back to the 4 sketch, though: in addition to the squares, I have vague memories of other shapes illustrating the number (four vertical strokes, four rosette-like animations). Am I confusing sketches here? Please let me know...

I think you're right. There were a few thing that dealt with 4.