Favorite Animal Films

[Ziffel]

The song goes like this....

1 for the fiddle, 2 for the bow, 3 for the trumpet, and 4 to blow, 5 for the drum, 6 for the stick, 7 for the guitar, 8 for the pick, 9 for the piano, 10 for the hand. Hooray for the octopus, one man band!

I had thought drum and guitar might have been the instruments in the 5 through 8 category. Forgot about the pick. Thanks for filling in the gaps.

The only octopus film I remember began with a male voice announcing "And now, the octopus!". The soundtrack was an organ rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance", the piece traditionally played at graduations.

Yep that's the one. And the guy who says, "Octopus!" sounds like Luis, which mikebennidict concurred that it was. Also, cool that you know the music was an organ rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance." You are real good at accurately describing the kind of music and instruments used in these old segments. A lot of times I don't know what kind of music was used and so I just say, "The music was really neat in this one!"

 

[Ziffel]

And then there was that film of the penguins sliding down the slide into the pool. The voices of several children were counting them one by one as they came down. After #19 a penguin stood at the top but paused. For several seconds the kids were wondering why he was delaying. Then he starts to slide and a kid says, "There he comes!". The kids then say "Twenty." A kid giggles and the film ends.

 

[Ziffel]

And I just thought of a short film that had, I think, one or two macaws. I think there were unseen voices of a man and woman. The woman asks what kind of bird that is. The man says, "It's a macaw, Myrtle." The woman says, "Who's Myrtle?" and then squawks like a bird. That would lead me to think that the man and woman were supposed to be voicing the birds but then the question asking what kind of bird is that instead of what kind of bird are you would suggest otherwise. Oh well. The main thing is it was neat to see the pretty macaw(s)!
And I wanted to quote myself on the following again, because no one commented on it and maybe that particular night no one happened to see the post who has seen the segment. It was a pretty funny one and shown quite a bit so here it is again in case any of you viewing tonight have seen it:

There's one from the early 70's I got a kick out of but I'm not exactly sure what kind of animals were in it. Orangutans maybe? It showed a bunch of these sitting around and maikng very interesting (and funny to a small child!) noises. Sounded like, "Myu! Myu hoo!". They all kept doing a sound like this until near the end where the sound shifted to like, (this is going to be VERY hard to describe in typing) "bloo o woy bloo o woy!"

 

[Rosewood]

"Memories!"

And then there was that film of the penguins sliding down the slide into the pool. The voices of several children were counting them one by one as they came down. After #19 a penguin stood at the top but paused. For several seconds the kids were wondering why he was delaying. Then he starts to slide and a kid says, "There he comes!". The kids then say "Twenty." A kid giggles and the film ends.

I love that film! When I was 3 we had to move to San Diego, Ca. to live with my grandparents for a year while my dad went to school. I remember going to Sea World while we were there, and the penguins going down the slide,(all 20 of them!), was the opening part of the seal act! Talk about good nostalgia!
We also used to go to the zoo quite often while we were there, and I believe those apes making noises that you refered to were probably ones called "gibbons" or "howler monkeys". I remember a film showing them swinging, arm under arm, across a set of bars they used to have for them to exercise on. (I remember covering my ears because their howl was so loud!)

 

[Rosewood]

"Weave, little weaver bird!"

This film, showing tons of little birds weaving nests that hung from the ends of tree branches, had to be one of my all time favorites! Joe Raposo wrote and sang the beautifull song that went with it. I haven't seen it in over 30 yrs., but I can still remember the tune and words by heart! The closest rival to that one would be the "Rock-a-by baby" with the Koala, (another one which I haven't seen in over 30 years.) I would love to see those films again!

 

[abiraniriba]

Animal babies

My fave is this film they did about animals and their babies. There was also a song to accompany it, I don't remember all of the animals it went through but I remember at the end it said "goats have kids, like people have kids, like me and you"
sidenote from Sam the Eagle when I heard that song I was in grade school and I had a teacher who preferred the formal word children to the slang word kids for young humans. It's disgusting that now that usage of the word is in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) without the slang connotation. However it is listed as an Americanism

 

[Kimp the Shrimp]

Animal Farm

 

[Ziffel]

This film, showing tons of little birds weaving nests that hung from the ends of tree branches, had to be one of my all time favorites! Joe Raposo wrote and sang the beautifull song that went with it. I haven't seen it in over 30 yrs., but I can still remember the tune and words by heart! The closest rival to that one would be the "Rock-a-by baby" with the Koala, (another one which I haven't seen in over 30 years.) I would love to see those films again!

Yes it was a nice song to listen to, as were a lot of Joe Raposo's. This one I caught again once around 1990 or so. But like you, Rosewood, there's quite a few SS segments that I find myself saying it's been over 30 years since I've seen. (And also that I would love to see again, of course. ).

 

[Rosewood]

Yes it was a nice song to listen to, as were a lot of Joe Raposo's. This one I caught again once around 1990 or so.

Would you happen to know anyone who caught that on tape, by any chance? Or would you happen to know the latter episode #? It would bring me tears of joy to see and hear that clip again! ( the weaver bird song )

P.S. - I have a personal question I would like to ask you, but you have no E-mail address. Could you mabey contact me?

 

[Ziffel]

I'm sorry Rosewood, but I'm not sure which episodes had that one. In the 80's and 90's I would occasionally watch or tape SS in order to see any vintage clips and I think it was around 1988-1991 some time that I saw this one. But couldn't tell you the #. I also searched for some comments on this one here in MC and I only found someone inquiring if it was shown on Noggin. The replies listed some other ones shown on Noggin but not this one so I don't know if anyone owns this segment or not. I never saved any of the shows I taped. I sure wish I had.
I see in another thread someone else was expressing disappointment that the new Sprout channel is not showing any pre-1998 SS episodes, at least for now.
But maybe the one hope we have is that TEC is coming out on dvd in February and if it does really well it could send a message to Sesame Workshop that there is a market for classic SS on dvd and then we'll get to see some of these again. The weaver bird would be great to see again but there are also so many others I would love to see.