That's my favorite Monsterpiece Theater segment. Back when I was a kid, I felt like this one wasn't on enough. Maybe it wasn't shown often in the late-1980s/early-1990s, but whenever it was on I felt like it was an event. For years this was one of my most-wanted segments on DVD, and last November it was released on the DVD Sesame Street: Old School Volume 3.
For a long time I wondered if maybe this segment was dropped from airing by the early-1990s. This and Upstairs, Downstairs are the only early Monsterpiece Theater segments shown on sesamestreet.org with the original Alistair Cookie intros and closings (where he has a pipe), while other early segments are online with the redone introduction and closing (where Cookie doesn't have his pipe), and I hadn't known of any 1990s episodes that feature this. But then a few months ago I found on Muppet Wiki info on a season 26-28 (can't remember which one exactly) episode that has this, so the introduction and ending must have been redone for this one.