Off the Street
Flip greets Ernie and Bert.
Before continuing on with the fourth season of Sesame Street tomorrow, today I took a look at two guest appearances various characters from the show made in September and October of 1972, shortly before it began. The first, from Sept. 14th, is the Muppets’ 4th and final episode of The Flip Wilson Show. Whereas Big Bird, Oscar, Kermit, and some Anything Muppets visited Flip on previous occasions, Bert and Ernie show up this time around, and even reference a guest spot Flip had made on their show the previous year, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to track down that footage.
After a short prelude in which Bert is a bit nervous to perform, until Flip and then Ernie reassure him, and then Flip compliments Ernie on his
Read MoreSesame St S3: Bert & Ernie
Today, we’re up to the Bert and Ernie sketches of Season 3, and as I’ve said before, the reason some of these might be familiar to you, even if you grew up later, is that they would repeat these throughout the ’80s, as well. In fact, there have been quite a few whose year surprised me. Whereas the street scenes demonstrate change, clips either within Bert and Ernie’s apartment or with only Muppets are generally timeless, because there aren’t any humans and therefore no aging or dated styles.
Our first clip today is a classic Ernie/Lefty scene that actually ends with Bert joining Ernie, which was rare, as Lefty and Bert were both performed by Frank Oz. Also, unusually, Lefty isn’t selling a letter this time around and Ernie actually buys what he’s offering, however, for another reason than one might expect:
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Sesame St S3: Assorted Clips
Bob introduces Kermit to a bullfrog.
Today, I watched an assortment of highlights from Sesame Street‘s third season, beginning with an amazing clip that has an even more amazing backstory which I only learned recently, while watching PBS’ In Their Own Words episode on Jim Henson. In most of the Kermit lecture sketches, Kermit would be teaching a lesson to the children at home. This might be the first time that Kermit himself was taught a lesson in one of these scenes! You can watch the clip here.
It starts off with Kermit preparing to give a lecture on “one of the most exciting, wonderful things in the entire world,” namely frogs. And then Bob enters, telling him he has a surprise but to carry on with his speech first.
Read MoreSesame St S3: Songs, Etc.
Today, we’re looking at a bunch of mostly musical highlights from Sesame Street‘s third season, with a few other clips thrown in for good measure. As usual, I found the first batch of clips here on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 1 DVD set, beginning with one of the most iconic songs in the entire run of the show, Cookie Monster’s classic “C is for Cookie,” which like Ernie’s “Rubber Duckie,” entered the pop culture zeitgeist, appearing on over 25 separate Sesame Street albums. What’s so wonderful about it is that, on one level, it teaches a very simple concept, which is right there in the title, but like Ernie’s song, it’s also a character-defining and character-driven number. We love Cookie and his cookie obsession which makes the song specific and memorable in a way that a purely educational number wouldn’t be. Joe Raposo’s deliberately simplistic lyrics and tune perfectly capture Cookie’s speech patterns and personality:
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Sesame Street Ep #276
Maria and Big Bird
As Sesame Street‘s third season premiere begins (it originally aired November 8, 1971 and is available on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 1 DVD set), the voice of one off-screen child is introducing another one to the street where he lives along with all of its inhabitants, and I have to say that, after being briefly away from Sesame Street myself with Muppet specials for the past few entries, not to mention posting less due to my being away in London at the moment, it feels like a warm welcome home. There’s Ernie and Bert, and there’s Bob, and there’s Susan and Gordon! I missed you guys! Well, some of you, anyway (looking at you, not-the-Gordon-I-grew-up-with!).
But in addition to reuniting us with familiar faces, this opening narration
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