April Fools: New Facebook opportunity to help with Sesame Street DVD

[minor muppetz]

The Sesame Street Facebook page has posted a new opportunity to help out with a future Sesame Street DVD set, much like they did in 2008 for 40 Years of Sunny Days (I know, that was the Sesame Workshop Facebook page as opposed to the Sesame Street page) and in 2012 for Best of Friends. But this release is for a two-disc set called "The Ultimate Essential Sesame Street Collection".

From the page...

Coming Fall 2016 is The Ultimate Essential Sesame Street Collection, a two-disc set with what is considered the most essential moments from Sesame Street's 46-year history. We already have the contents for disc 1 planned, with such favorite songs as "Rubber Duckie", "Elmo's Ducks", "C is for Cookie", "The Song of the Count", "Girls of the World", "Things That I Remember", "The Elmo Slide", "Imagine That", "I Like My Hair", and others, appearances by such memorable guest stars as James Earl Jones, Lena Horne, James Taylor, OK Go, and Pentatonix, such hilarious parodies as "Monsterpiece Theater: Sound of Music", "Barn in the USA", "Upside-Downton Abbey", "Orange is the New Snack", and "Game of Chairs", beloved animation as "Teeny Little Super Guy", "Pinball Animation: 12", "Jazz #8", "King of 8", "Alligator King", and "Capital I", and such additional classic moments as "Bert and Ernie: Fish in Cowboy Hat", "Kermit News: Pinocchio", "Kermit and Joey Sing the Alphabet", "Two-Headed Monster: H-ONK", and "Near and Far with Grover". Disc 1 bonus features set to appear include two clips from the upcoming 47th season and a selection of personal favorite moments from the cast and crew.

But disc 2 is where you come in. We've nominated a selection of essential clips and are giving you the opportunity to vote for what to include on disc 2. And if there's anything you want not nominated, we've provided a "write-in nominations" section, where you can nominate up to five clips for a special bonus feature, "Fans Most-Requested Clips". Keep in mind that we at Sesame Workshop reserve the right to reject any clips nominated for any reason, but vote, nominate, and look for "The Ultimate Essential Sesame Street Collection" this fall at fine retailers.

The layout is interesting. Several selections of clips are grouped together, and there's a limit on how many of each grouping you can vote for. Almost everything can be viewed at sesamestreet.org, but there is a handful of clips not available there (but I do know that everything nominated can be found on YouTube, whether or not it was uploaded by Sesame Workshop). There are some clips that I'm surprised are included. I've also noticed that the voting page does not include any guest star clips or film/animation clips (guest star clips were the only ones included in Best of Friends that were not nominated, so I'm not surprised, I guess they don't want to nominate clips that would require more clearances than usual).

And here are the nominated clips:

Bert and/or Ernie clips (vote 4 out of 10 clips)

• The Rhyming Game
• La, La, La (the original is pictured)
• Elmo Scares the Pigeons
• A Piece of Cake
• Wanna Buy an Eight?
• Caveman Days
• Don't Throw That Trash on the Ground
• Search for Dr. Livingston
• Dance Myself to Sleep
• Ernie Catches All the Fish

Grover clips (vote four out of ten)

• Over, Under, Around, and Through
• Super Grover and Super Elmo
• Grover Remembers Orders
• Heavy and Light (with Kermit)
• Grover Counts Blocks
• I Am Special
• Professor Grover's Bath Time Tips
• Grover the Plumber
• My Furry Little Shadow
• Grover the Taxi Driver

The Count clips (vote three out of five)

• Count Up to Nine
• Baby You Can Count on Me
• 20 Honks
• Little Miss Count-Along
• Sheep on Strike

Cookie Monster clips (vote two out of five)

• The First Time Me Eat Cookie
• Google Bugle
• Cookie Monster Shrinks
• Breakfast Time
• The First and Last Cookie

Additional Main Cast clips (vote eight out of fifteen)

• I Just Adore Four
• If I Was a Cloud in the Sky
• Heavy and Light (song with Elmo and Telly)
• I Love Words
• I'm Sad Because I'm Happy
• All by Myself (original)
• Because We're Friends
• Drawing with Baby Bear
• Bubble on My Snuffle
• Fuzzy and Blue
• You Tickle Me
• Telly Tut
• Mango Tango
• In Your Imagination
• Snuffy and Barkly At the Park

Old School Supporting Cast clips (vote six out of ten)

• I Can Sing When You Sing
• Guy Smiley Air Song
• Honk Around the Clock
• Look What Our Baby Can Do
• Proud to Be a Cow
• Write it Down (vaudeville version)
• Martians Telephone
• Here and There (with Roosevelt Franklin)
• Here is Your Life: House
• X Marks the Spot

Sesame Street News clips (vote one out of five)

• Rupunzel
• Three Little Pigs (the one with The Count is pictured)
• Red Riding Hood (the one with Cookie Monster is pictured)
• Old MacDonald (the spaceship one is pictured)
• Don Music's Twinkle Twinkle

Monsterpiece Theater clips (vote one out of five)

• The Taming of the Shoe
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
• The Old Man and the C
• Dances with Wolves
• Twin Beaks

Parody clips (vote six out of ten)

• Miami Mice (the one with Kermit is pictured)
• Mysterious Theater ("The Case of the Missing Roast" is pictured)
• Colambo (the intro is pictured, so I don't know which one is nominated)
• Born to Add
• Wet or Dry
• Super K Cereal
• Birdwalk Empire
• Sons of Poetry
• Mad Men
• Desperate Houseplants

In the "write-in nominations" box, I nominated Henson #9, I Wonder About the World Above Up There, We Coulda, I'm Square, and "Cast Sings About Surprise".

APRIL FOOLS!!!

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

April Fools jokes on this website have become pretty obvious.

 

[minor muppetz]

There's a similar idea I had for an April fools thread, actually thought of it a few years ago, one where Sesame Workshop was having a home video survey.

In this idea, Sesame Workshop would have asked fans to vote on different kinds of video releases, one per day, and when clicking on each one, you'd be taken to a page where you could vote on various clips to include.

One section would be on different educational subjects - letters, numbers, shapes, opposites, and other things. With letters, you'd be able to vote for one out of four nominated clips for each letter, in addition to four general alphabet segments. For numbers, you'd vote for one out of four nominated clips for each number from at least 1-12, maybe higher.

Another section would be for other themes, like friendship and songs.

Another section would be to vote on a character spotlight video. I think the characters I would have planned would have been Bert and Ernie, The Count, Oscar, Telly, Abby Cadabby, and Zoe.

And finally there would have been a section where you could vote on a release intended for older audiences, like Old School Volume 4, a 1970s collection, a boxed set of the Hawaii episodes, and a second "Best of Sesame Street Spoofs".

But the April fools thread for this year, if it actually happened, would likely be less complicated.

As I was writing the "press release", when listing a few guest stars whose clips would have been included, I had considered listing a few controversial celebrities, like Bill Cosby and Chris Brown, but felt like doing so would be too soon for an April fools joke.

Listing five "essential" Count moments was a bit hard. I avoided a few that I felt should have been on disc 1 (The Song of the Count, The Batty Bat, and The Count and Cookie Monster Cooperate), whether mentioned in the "press release" or not, had decided to include The Count's appearance in Sesame Street News in that section, and decided that no celebrity appearances would be nominated, eliminating any of The Count's moments with celebrities. So I was a little short on Count segments I felt were really essential (even if I did list a few things in the voting that I don't really see as essential). I had decided not to list anything really rare, whether they have surfaced recently or not. And now I realize that I should have listed Squeal of Fortune in there.

 

[minor muppetz]

Here's a list of what I think would make a good disc 1, based on what I think of as "essential" (and I'll try not to list personal favorites that, otherwise, I don't really see as essential).

Disc 1

• Rubber Duckie
• Elmo's Ducks
• Henson #3
• The Count and Cookie Monster Co-Operate
• The Alligator King
• The King of 8
• Bert and Ernie: Fish in Cowboy Hat
• Teeny Little Super Guy: Crossing the Street
• Kids with Wings
• No Matter What Your Language
• Waiter Grover Serves a Burger
• Mad Painter #3
• Three Primary Colors
• Bein' Green (with Lena Horne)
• What I Am
• I Love My Hair
• Super-Grover: Computer
• Doin' the Pigeon
• I Love Trash (let's say the 1991 version)
• I in the Sky
• Snuffy jumps on Big Bird's trampoline
• Monsterpiece Theater: The Sound of Music
• I Can't Help It
• Lost Boy Remembers
• Two-Headed Monster: H-ONK
• Number Three Ball Film
• ABC-DEF-GHI (1980s version)
• Kermit and Joey sing the alphabet
• C is for Cookie
• J Friends
• Harvey Kneeslapper: B
• The Nobel Ostrich
• Alone in the Swamp with You
• Jazz #8
• Bert and Ernie: Sandbox Game
• Beat the Time: Cookie Monster
• Barn in the USA
• Upside-Downton Abbey
• Abby and Cookie Monster play checkers
• Bread, Milk, and Butter
• Near and Far with Grover
• Imagine That
• The Batty Bat
• Suzy Kabloozy: Somebody Come and Play
• Pre-School Musical
• Hola
• Sing (with celebrities)
• Kermit and Grover: Earmuff Salesman
• Herry and John-John Count to 20
• The Count and Susan Sarandon Knock
• Game of Chairs
• Telephone Rock
• Pentatonix: Numbers Medley
• Pinball Animation #12
• Sing the Sesame Street Alphabet
• James Earl Jones: Alphabet
• The Amazing Mumford's Full and Empty Trick
• Elmo's Song
• That Grouchy Face
• What's the Name of That Song? (with Forgetful Jones)
• Things That I Remember
• Girls of the World
• Orange is the New Snack
• Everybody Sleeps
• The People in Your Neighborhood: Postman and Fireman
• Kermit's Mystery Box
• Twiddlebugs Go to the Zoo
• A Flower Grows
• Everybody Be Yo'Self
• The Elmo Slide

And a wishlist for disc 2, based on what I would have voted for in that ficticious list of nominations, with a few additional celebrity and film/animation inserts included as well:

• Elmo Scares the Pigeons
• Grover Remembers Orders
• Baby You Can Count on Me
• Breakfast Time
• I Just Adore Four
• I Can Sing When You Sing
• Kermit News: Don Music's Twinkle Twinkle
• Monsterpiece Theater: The Taming of the Shoe
• Miami Mice
• City Alphabet
• Bert and Ernie: A Piece of Cake
• The First and Last Cookie
• Wanda the Witch
• X Marks the Spot
• Typewriter: X-x-ray
• Heavy and Light (with Kermit and Grover)
• Super K Cereal
• Birdwalk Empire
• Grover Counts Blocks
• Itzak Pearlman: Easy and Hard
• Because We're Friends
• Bubble on my Snuffle
• Guy Smiley Air Song
• Wanna Buy an Eight?
• Gospel Alphabet
• Felines
• Ernie Catches All the Fish
• I Am Special
• Wet or Dry
• Mango Tango
• All by Myself
• 20 Peacock Feathers
• Snuffy and Barkly at the Park
• Sheep on Strike
• I'm Sad Because I'm Happy
• Because We're Friends
• Sons of Poetry
• Mysterious Theater
• Proud to Be a Cow
• Water Conservation
• Honk Around the Clock
• Sing After Me (with Madeline Kahn)
• Drawing with Baby Bear
• I Like Words
• Geometry of Circles
• Fay Ray: Animal Costumes
• Sons of Poetry
• Write It Down
• Here and There (with Roosevelt Franklin)
• Raise Up Your Hand High (can't remember if that's the right title... I'm referring to the recent celebrity montage led by Segi)