Your Thoughts: Street Gang – The Complete History of Sesame Street

[dwayne1115]

Sure there is going to things left out. If you put everything that happend in the past 40 years it would take almost 40 years to tell it.

 

[StreetScenes]

Having never read this book I am not really in a position to comment on it, but I would like to think this and the Louise Gikow book would complement each other. Her book mentions most of the things that minor muppetz claimed the Michael Davis book ommited, but Street Gang seems to have as many things that Sesame Street A Celebration left out.

funny how that works, isn't it? two people independently come up with the same idea for a book, and out come two TOTALLY different books. it seems like much of the criticism of street gang from fans is more just how everyone else would have written a history of sesame street differently.

am i the only one that's utterly fascinated with the "pre-history" of the show? michael davis puts it in context, explains the show's existence, which is WAY more interesting (and more important for understanding the show) than just recounting all the mundane details of forty years of writing and filming. and having since read a number of similar institutional histories, i appreciate street gang even more. it tells a great story without losing the narrative from trying to incorporate so many people, and without losing sight of the important things by getting bogged down in recounting a play-by-play of: and then they filmed this segment, and then they filmed that segment...

 

[Drtooth]

I saw the new paperback version of this book, and I gotta tell you, it has a much much more interesting cover. I gotta pick it up sometime.

 

[zns]

I'm happy with my hardback/first edition of the book myself. I also got te audio CD set in the mail, and let me tell you, it is fantastic to hear Caroll Spinney tell us the story of the show that made history in the world of television/

 

[chudman1000]

It's actually kind of funny. I saw the new soft paperback version at my local McNally Robinson today for $20, but then the hardcover version seemed to be in the bargain books for $9.99 so I immediately picked it up! So far I've just read through the prologue and I've already found it quite interesting.

 

[minor muppetz]

It seems like Sesame Street Unpaved, Street Gang, and the 40th anniversary book all compliment each other. Sesame Street Unpaved has a lot more focus on characters and individual moments, Street Gang has a lot more focus on the pre-history and people who worked on the show, and the 40th anniversary book (which I still don't have a copy of... I hope I get it tomorrow) seems to focus most of it's pages on the actual people who worked on the show, with pages on almost every important person who worked on the show (with the exception of Michael Earl), but while it looks like it does have more Muppet character presence than Street Gang, it only has a few sections devoted to characters.

There could probably be an entire book the lenght of this or one of the others that focuses on just characters, giving everybody one or two pages each.

I wonder if a Muppets book like this would be good. I can't imagine that having as much "pre-history" focus (as most of it would be on Jim Henson, who created the Muppets himself... A lot of people were invovled in the creation of Sesame Street).

 

[Fool of Ideas]

How does it compare with ' "Sesame Street" and the Reform of Children's Television ' by Robert W Morrow? i was looking at buying a few books & wasn't sure if one was better than the other but after going through a few reviews in this forum I'm definatley getting a copy of 'Street Gang' regardless. But is still wort picking up a copy of the other or is it another retelling of the same story? or is it told from another view?

 

[dmoss]

BIG Sale on this book! Looks like Amazon.com has it listed as a Bargain Book, for only $3.86! I went ahead and picked it up today, as I didn't have a copy. I'd scoop it up as soon as you can if you want one. It's been falling in price all week long, but I don't think it can get much lower!

 

[dmoss]

This is outrageous! I don't know how much longer this will last, but the book is On-Sale now for only $3.32! I'm gonna grab me another copy to give as a gift! It's the hardcover edition, too; not even paperback!

Clicky!

 

[D'Snowth]

It's amazing...

So, I had gotten the hardback edition as a Christmas present when it first came out, but like the general public, to me, I found it to be a bit of dry reading, and dare I say, I actually couldn't finish the book.

Howver, earlier in the year, a buddy of mine who works at a library sent me a copy of the audiobook version read by Caroll Spinney, and somehow, that just made the world of difference; I agree, the book itself seems to skip through any actual content regarding SST and such, but there's still some interesting anecdotes about it's conception and such, and the bonus interview with Caroll with the audiobook was a great hour of listening, because there's actually some rarely heard stories and anecdotes from him in this particular interview, like such as Yogi Berra spitting tobacco at Big Bird as he walked across the stadium, and thinking, "Gee Yogi, I really liked you... till now", and how even after all these years, Tom Bergeron recognized him out of the clear blue from when he did Big Bird on the 2000s version of Hollywood Squares and such.

My final recommendation is this: if you can't get through the actual book, then at least try to get the audio version, it makes a world of difference.