sesame street

Chris Knight's avatar

So, Duke fell to North Carolina last night.  I now have no one to cheer for in this tournament.  Kansas always seemed too overhyped to me, and they beat Villanova yesterday.  Or maybe I’ll root for UNC tomorrow night just because they’re still from my neck of the woods.

Mike Krzyzewski made a mistake in announcing his retirement well before the season.  He should have waited until after the tournament.  Instead he made this entire season about himself and his ego.  When it should have been about the players and the program in general.  He fell victim to hubris, and I
really thought more of him.

Even so, let’s never forget that he
contributed a lot to the game. Mock him all one wants, but the man
deserves respect.

Okay, that’s everything substantive I have to say today.  Currently I’m enduring hay fever and all kinds of exotic antihistamines are ...

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Nearly thirty years after the Challenger disaster, it is now coming out that the first “regular citizen” to fly on a space shuttle mission was originally going to be an eight-foot tall yellow Muppet loved and adored by what has become generations of devoted fans.

Strange, but true: Big Bird almost had a seat on Challenger for its final flight.

In the new documentary I Am Big Bird, the most massive fowl on Sesame Street was in early talks to fly as he’d never flown before.  Muppeteer Caroll Spinney would have gone aboard Challenger for mission STS-51L.  It was meant to be something that would enthuse and excite children about the space program.

Can you imagine that?  Big Bird himself in orbit around the Earth, talking to children via live television.  To say nothing of what would have been some amazing footage for Sesame Street itself.

There was one, ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

It’s been some time since I posted any classic Sesame Street material.  Need to get better about that.

Well anyway, here from 1971 or so it’s the very timeless “Ladybugs’ Picnic”!






Few items of interest about this clip. Firstly, that’s legendary muppeteer Jerry Nelson singing, with fellow muppet operator Richard Hunt playing the kazoo.

And it’s also worth noting that this was animated by Bud Luckey, who is currently an animator at Pixar. Just think: this cartoon is from a guy who went on to work on stuff like Toy Story, WALL-E and a bunch of other Disney/Pixar movies.

This song was always memorable to me for some reason.  At one point it was seriously stuck in my head.  So now I’m showing it to you guys so that you can share my, errr… enjoyment 🙂...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Good googeley moogely… it’s been ages since I posted any Sesame Street clips!!  I think maybe at least two years, maybe longer than that.  How in the world did I overlook such timeless material?  Shame on me!

Time to make up for it.  And boy howdy, do I get to make up for it…

I was waaaay young when this aired but I vividly remember it.  It was part of a Sesame Street Christmas special from… I think it was 1980?  The other part of it that’s still in my head is Big Bird sitting on top of the apartment building waiting for Santa, and wondering how in the world would the big guy get into those tiny little chimneys.

But this is the real highlight of the show: Bert and Ernie in an adaptation of O. Henry’s classic holiday tale “The Gift of the Magi”, as only Bert and ...

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Gadzooks it had been an awful long time since I’ve posted anything from Sesame Street!  I need to get on the ball about that.

Well, it’s a new year and since this blog just turned a couple of milestones with being ten years old and hitting 5,000 posts, maybe it’s time to start some stuff fresh.  So here’s a great clip to get us back on track.  I think this is from the early Eighties, ‘cuz that’s the first I ever saw this.  Witness poor Kermit the Frog try to keep a newscast on track despite a very wacky weatherman (or two):


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Most of you have seen this already, I’d bet. The only thing I know about Downton Abbey is that it has the inimitable Maggie Smith among the cast and for that alone I’m gonna make time to eventually watch this show.

This series must be a big deal. For one thing my Facebook front page was loaded with all kinds of numbstruck horror over the weekend because of the Downton Abbey season finale. And then there’s the fact that Sesame Street has now spoofed it! Even without knowing the particulars of the source material, I thought this was pretty funny.

So here is “Uptown Downton Abbey”…

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Late last night it hit me that I haven’t posted any classic Sesame Street clips in quite some time. And I almost went for another Bert and Ernie skit. Even had one picked out. It just sorta popped into mind for no apparent reason. Dunno why I didn’t use it at the time but it was like something was telling me, “wait”. Maybe it was providential…

The very sad news today is that Jerry Nelson, legendary puppeteer who brought Count von Count, Herry Monster, Sherlock Hemlock, Amazing Mumford and many other lovable Sesame Street characters to life, has died at the age of 78. It had been eight years since Nelson had done physical puppeteering but he continued to provide his voice to the characters. He even appeared as the telethon announcer in last year’s movie The Muppets. Nelson also worked on The Muppet Show and Fraggle ...

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Been a few months since I posted a classic clip from Sesame Street. I figure it’s time for another great Bert and Ernie sketch 🙂

This one is definitely from way back. For one thing you can hear Mr. Hooper (the actor who played him passed away in 1982) and for another, there’s no way that a sketch like this would be broadcast on Sesame Street today. Ahhh those were the days…

So here is Bert and Ernie in “What Time Is It?”

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The bloggin’ might be sparse the next few days as I am going out of town on a mission of considerable import. So in the meantime…

It occurred to me this afternoon that I haven’t posted a vintage Sesame Street clip in a good long while. The ones with Bert and Ernie seem to be especially popular. So here’s one from the 1970s (way before the advent of 1080P) which finds Bert plagued with “H” all over his television screen…

I remember this sketch cracking me up bad when I first saw it as a pre-schooler! Thirty years later, it’s lost none of its hilarity 🙂...

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