Your Thoughts: Sesame Street 50 Years and Counting DVD Set

[minor muppetz]

Recently I started thinking it would have been cool if there’d have been a “from the vault” section, whether as part of the main program or as a bonus feature. As a bonus feature, those Baker outtakes would have fit in, but it also could have included unaired segments (depending on if they all exist in the Sesame Workshop vaults), maybe some of the segments shot for the American show that have only aired internationally, maybe some of the footage shot and shown at Sesame Place (I wonder if that’s owned by Sesame Workshop or Busch Gardens), alternate versions of certain segments that appeared in the main program, and more.

Of course, a from the vaults section, whether as a bonus feature or as part of the main program, also could have included certain segments that might be too confusing for the young audience, depending on whether there was anything that the Workshop did not want to include for this reason (and we don’t know if that’s the case). A section for segments featuring things like Matt Robinson or Hal Miller as Gordon, gray green Grover, pre-Kevin Clash Elmo (in speaking appearances), orange Oscar, maybe imaginary Snuffleupagus (disc 2 does have two episodes concerning that, but not really anything in disc 1), maybe Michael Earl as Forgetful Jones, and other things. and I know, many of these were included in the Old School sets and/or the 40th anniversary set.

I know Joe Hennes chose many of his favorites, but I wonder if he also considered anything that he really wanted to see. But I also wonder if, as an employee, he gets to watch rare footage, or if he at least got to screen rare stuff for consideration of this set.

Reading the Muppet Central review again, I noticed when it mentions certain “best of” segments that some may be shocked to not see, among the segments listed is Mahna Mahna. That one has never actually been released on a (region 1, English-language, American released) Sesame Street video release (and was cut from The Street We Live On), though it’s been in a number of audio releases. Being a song not written especially for the show makes it easier to not be included on video. But I’d also say that the Muppet Show version is a lot more essential/iconic than the Sesame Street version.

 

[antsamthompson9]

I finally got the DVD today. I really liked seeing the version of I Love Trash with the giant trash can. I haven't seen the bit with Sherlock and Bob before. That was funny.

 

[D'Snowth]

I found a copy at Walmart today and grabbed it.

Biggest complaint: the way it was formatted. With everything formatted for 16:9, the menus are letterboxed, and the pre-HD clips are both letter and pillar-boxed, which, of course, distorts the quality considerably; it feels like watching 240 and 360p YouTube videos.

 

[Oscarfan]

The recent home video titles have also been released digitally, which allows for HD, so I understand them being 16:9.

But I dunno what kind of masters they were using for a lot of the older clips; they looked awful. They've looked better on the Old School sets or web publishings.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I blame this on the part of Shout Factory, personally. Coming from my experience with their Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs, while the Master tapes have shown age (some episodes unfortunately having some pretty bad tape hits), they have really started to become lazy in terms of quality; one re-release box set (volume 3) with the episode “The Sidehackers” clearly shows they just took a rip from YouTube and put it on DVD.

 

[Oscarfan]

I also would attribute it to this being a rushed product.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I mean, given that they do release a lot of old shows on DVD for nostalgia lovers, I can understand that they may not have had enough time to really plan out what skits to put on the DVD. Still, you would at least think they’d use their time management better with that.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'll also say the way "Everyone Likes Ice Cream" was edited is incredibly odd as well . . . why dub in "birdies" again? Honestly, the audio drop-out of "ya sissy" being censored was far less noticeable.

 

[Oscarfan]

I guess it depends on when the edit happened. We know they edited it out starting in season 2, so it's possible the audio edit was made then. And they muted it for the Noggin broadcast because they were working with a season 1 copy.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Reminds me of the late 90s-2000s days when we all thought it was just a case of Noggin giving in to political correctness, when we were proven wrong and that this edit happened long before Sesame Unpaved came about.