The Sesame Street Treasury Book, 1983

[Mario]

On the front cover it reads, "CTW Sesame Street. CTW Volume 1. The Sesame Street Treasury Featuring Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets. Starring the Number 1 and the Letter A. Children's Television Workshop/Funk & Wagnalls, Inc." The book is yellow and on the front cover has a live action photo of Big Bird and Little Bird in front of a chalk board with the alphabet written in chalk and Big Bird is holding a pointer stick towards the letter Q.

On the back it reads, "This book was created in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, producers of "Sesame Street." Children do not have to watch the television show to benefit from this book. Workshop revenues from this book will be used to help support CTW educational projects. Copyright 1983 Children's Television Workshop MUPPET Characters 1983 Muppets Inc.

The picture on the first page and second are squares with letters and drawn characters in them. The squares run across both pages 6X10. The illustrated characters are The Count, the detective Sherlocke Holmes guy, Oscar, Prairie Dawn, The the blue guy that Grover waits on, Barkley, Betty Lou, a blue monster with red shaggy Ernie-like hair and a orange nose, Big Bird, Grover, a metal robot witha wide football like mouth and a red and white spotted bow tie and a beanie with an arrow instead of a propeller, Snuffelupagus, Telly, Cookie Monster (with cookie in hand), Ernie, The Amazing Mumford, Same pic of Oscar in can with can lid on head, a cowgirl with a big mouth, prominant teeth, orange pigtails a white cowboy hat and purpleish skin, the same pic of the blue monster with red hair and an orange nose, Harry Monster, same pic of the guy that Grover waits on, Bert, and a pink tweedle bug with a yellow stripe on its belly.

Written By: Linda Bove with the National Theatre of the Deaf, Michael Frith, Emily Perl Kingsley, Sharon Lerner, Jeffrey Moss, Norman Stiles, Ellen Weiss, Daniel Wilcox

Illustrated By: Tom Cooke, A. Delaney, Mary Grace Eubank, Michael Frith, Randy Jones, Joe Mathieu, Maggie Swanson.

Copyright 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983

The stories are One For Big Bird. It is Big Bird's birthday and the count has an idea of counting objects that there are only one of. "One Moon...only one pigeon as great as Bernice..."

When Is It Spring? A poem with a great very 70s drawing of butterflies and flowers and Bert, Prairie Dawn and Harry.

A recipe for Cookie Monster's Famous Cookie Dough
"Cookies Gratia Cookies" (Which is a play on Ars Gratis Artia which means art for art's sake or don't ask why we have art, we just have it because its art. You can see it on MGM's logo with the roaring lion.)
"Dear Reader, Hello there! Me COOKIE MONSTER and my favorite thing is EATING COOKIES. In this wonderful set of books me going to show you how to make ALL KINDS OF COOKIES! But first...me tell you secret recipe for COOKIE DOUGH (It been in my family for years.)"
If anyone wants me to write the recipe I will.

Big Bird, Home: The Nest, Sesame Street. Favorite Foods: Birdseed Soup, peanut butter and birdseed sandwiches, birdseed ice cream. Favorite Drink: Birdseed Float. Best Friend: Mr. Snuffle-upagus. Pet: Barkley. Favorite Activities: Roller Skating, hopscotch, and hide-and-seek. Height: 8 feet 2 inches. Favorite Color: Yellow. Favorite Wish: To Introduce Mr. Snuffle-upagus to Sesame Street friends. Favorite Saying: "Everyone makes mistakes, so why can't I?"

There is then a little red riding hood maze to Granny's Cottage, followed by a story about Queen Agatha with Big Bird as a noble Knight. Say it in Spanish barnyard animals.

A drawing of the Count on a bucking bronco, "howdy! It is I, the Count. I am riding a wild bucking bronco horsey. But not only can I ride him... I can COUNT him, too! 1! One horsey! Ha, ha, ha."

The next page is the same picture as the front cover, and it reads...
"Do you know what this is, Little Bird?"
"Sure, Big Bird. It's a stick!"
"Not what I'm pointing with, Little Bird. What am I pointing at?"
"Oh...hmm...let's see..."
"It's the alphabet, Little Bird. Just think- every word you can think of is made from these letters!"
"Even 'stick'?"
"Yes, Little Bird. Even 'stick.'"

The next 2 pages are of Linda say it in sign language in the morning. And the next page has a picture of Bert and Ernie getting ready for the day and it says, "How many things in this picture can you "sign"? The clock btw says 7:30 when Bert is stretching in bed.

Then there's a story called, "Grover's Bedtime Story" Where Praire Dawn sleeps over and she asks him to tell her a story and he is shocked because he hasn't ever told one before. Praire Dawn tells him he needs a beginning middle and end. "Once upon a time there was a king named Roundtree and he had a very smart and beautiful daughter named Victoria Joyce..."

Then Big Bird's Colors a rhyme about colors. And on the next page Find the Things That Begin with the Letter A. Ernie is seen painting a picture of an alligator. Next page we see count counting his lunch items and cookie steals his cookie, "Shh!" The next few pages tell the story of Ernie looking for his Rubber Duckie at night while Bert is trying to sleep and at the end Ernie of course acts like Bert is keeping him awake and that he just wants to go to sleep. The next pic is of Bert holding a candle on the floor between a chair with a busted spring and a pillow and Ernie jumping over him. "Jack be nimble..."

The last two pages show Big Bird and Oscar. Big Bird says to Oscar, "If you think Cookie's Cookies were delicious, wait until you taste my banana bread. The recipe is in volume 2." Oscar replies, "Banana bread! Blecch! That's three B words."

We've had this book forever. And, I love picking it up every once in awhile and going off to a quiet room in my house and just spending some time looking at the different pictures and enveloping myself in the goodness of Sesame Street. Its neat to see how different Sesame Street is today. They would never attempt to teach kids sign language now.

--Edit--
I found an Ebay auction for that doesnt end? well here's the url for it if anyone's interested, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7918849128&category=279. (I'm not selling it, btw.) The auction also had a picture which I added to the top.

 

[BEAR]

We've had this book forever. And, I love picking it up every once in awhile and going off to a quiet room in my house and just spending some time looking at the different pictures and enveloping myself in the goodness of Sesame Street. Its neat to see how different Sesame Street is today. They would never attempt to teach kids sign language now.

First of all, that was exhausting reading your very detailed description of every thing on everypage of the book (no offense). I have this book. In fact, I have about 10 volumes of the series. I have had them since I was a little boy and loved them. In fact I just picked one up today and looked through it for the first time in what feels like forever.
The reason I am really responding to this is because of your comment regarding sign language. You say they would never attempt to teach kids sign language now. Why do you say that. They have been using sign language for as long as Linda has been on the show. She left the show fairly recently and sign language has not been featured quite as much as it was when she was there. However there is nothing standing in the way of them still doing it.

 

[Mario]

I have had them since I was a little boy and loved them. In fact I just picked one up today and looked through it for the first time in what feels like forever.

Yeah, there's just something very warm about them that just makes me feel safe. So I wanted to share it with others that might not have the oppurtunity to get their hands on one.

Yeah, I know that it is long but I wanted to be thurough just incase anybody had any questions regaurding publishing or pictures or story lines. And, in my opinion, its not that there's anything stopping them, its just that to me it seems that they often under appreciate how smart kids are. And, I just don't see a hand signing segment or a Spanish speaking segment that actually teaches something being introduced. (Just my opinion. )

 

[minor muppetz]

The picture on the first page and second are squares with letters and drawn characters in them. The squares run across both pages 6X10. The illustrated characters are The Count, the detective Sherlocke Holmes guy, Oscar, Prairie Dawn, The the blue guy that Grover waits on, Barkley, Betty Lou, a blue monster with red shaggy Ernie-like hair and a orange nose, Big Bird, Grover, a metal robot witha wide football like mouth and a red and white spotted bow tie and a beanie with an arrow instead of a propeller, Snuffelupagus, Telly, Cookie Monster (with cookie in hand), Ernie, The Amazing Mumford, Same pic of Oscar in can with can lid on head, a cowgirl with a big mouth, prominant teeth, orange pigtails a white cowboy hat and purpleish skin, the same pic of the blue monster with red hair and an orange nose, Harry Monster, same pic of the guy that Grover waits on, Bert, and a pink tweedle bug with a yellow stripe on its belly.

The detectives name is Sherlock Hemlock. The blue guy seen is not fat blue, who grover usually waits on, but is Simon Soundman, who makes noises of objects (but Grover did wait on him once). the cowgirls name is Rodeo Rosie. The robots name is Sam The Robot. and the blue monster with shaggy red hair is named Aristotle.

We've had this book forever. And, I love picking it up every once in awhile and going off to a quiet room in my house and just spending some time looking at the different pictures and enveloping myself in the goodness of Sesame Street. Its neat to see how different Sesame Street is today. They would never attempt to teach kids sign language now.

Actually, I think that the current season has a regular segment that teaches sign language.

 

[The Count]

A few things...

1 Mario, there is a segment on this season of SS that does a bit of sign language word-teaching. It's only been seen on episodes 4091 and 4092, but it might be continued on the later episodes that'll air in September. Of course, I make no guarantee of that since I haven't watched them yet.

2 The SS Treasury... Ah, I always like reading threads that talk about it, and this one was great for me.
See, I grew up with the set of books that preceeded the Treasury, the Sesame Street Library. This was a set of 15 volumes "featuring" the various letters and numbers. There was a story for each letter and each number featured in the varying volumes. For example... Volume 1 had An A Adventure (the story of Sir Big Bird trying to find an A item for Queen Agatha the Alligator), Bert and the Beanstalk for the letter B, and Bert's Bath as a story for the number 1. Also, the volumes had a Count's Counting Page, the page you mentioned of the Count counting 1 bucking bronco. This went on for only the first ten volumes in the set. There was a small thunder cloud with a black number in its center for the items Count was counting.

However, on one of my last trips to Baltimore where I used to get my eyes examined by an opthalmologist who understood my condition, I found about seven volumes of this other book... The SS Treasury. Problem was my sight was starting to fade and I had those drops that blur your vision by dilating the pupils later.
What I remember is the following cover images:
Volume 1: Big Bird pointing to the alphabet for the letter A.
Volume 2: Grover trying to catch a butterfly for the letter B.
Volume 3: Prairie Dawn playing with a toy car for the letter C.
Volume 4: Grover's Mommy walking Dimples the Dog for the letter D.
Volume 5: Oscar's can with eggbeaters attached to the bottom trying to do some fly fishing for the letters E and F.
Volume 6 was G and H, but I forgot the image.
Volume 7: Ernie holding an ice cream cone and rolling the crank to pop Bert out of the jack-in-the-box for the letters I and J.

3 It's interesting that Big Bird and Oscar are the ones who interact at the end of the book, as if they've been witnessing all that went on in the book, with a comment leading to the next book. In the SS Library volumes, there were two last pages with Bert and Ernie in these circular frames doing that same sort of thing. And you know about the SS Dictionary? Well, there are eight individual volumes dividing all the entries of the dictionary into these volumes. The individual dictionary volumes contain little extras like a page to count all the different things that start with the letter C as we see Cookie eating some cookies and Count driving up to his castle behind, and then a story about Grover drawing a dragon in the volume for the letters C and D. In these books, Big Bird and Little Bird were the ones interacting at the end.

Hope this helps, and if you have the other volumes of the Treasury I'd look forward to you posting more like your Volume 1 review in this thread.

 

[minor muppetz]

What I remember is the following cover images:
Volume 1: Big Bird pointing to the alphabet for the letter A.
Volume 2: Grover trying to catch a butterfly for the letter B.
Volume 3: Prairie Dawn playing with a toy car for the letter C.
Volume 4: Grover's Mommy walking Dimples the Dog for the letter D.
Volume 5: Oscar's can with eggbeaters attached to the bottom trying to do some fly fishing for the letters E and F.
Volume 6 was G and H, but I forgot the image.
Volume 7: Ernie holding an ice cream cone and rolling the crank to pop Bert out of the jack-in-the-box for the letters I and J.

I know that one volume has a picture of Ernie and an octopus swimming. they are both halfway in the water (or at the top), and their full bodies are shown. I believe the octopus was yellow. I am not sure if it was ever used outside of the cover. I think there was also a cover that just had Bert, but I forget the details. I forget the other covers.

 

[The Count]

Thanks for the info. Maybe over the years I've gotten the covers and the letters "starring" in the Treasury volumes muddled up. Then again, maybe Mario can help out with another vonderfully detailed review of the next volume. And if so, maybe we can go through the entire collection. Of course, Mario, if you're reading this and either don't have the other volumes or don't have the energy to go through the whole thing... We'll understand, but here's hoping to more in this thread.

 

[That Announcer]

A few things...

See, I grew up with the set of books that preceeded the Treasury, the Sesame Street Library. This was a set of 15 volumes "featuring" the various letters and numbers. There was a story for each letter and each number featured in the varying volumes. For example... Volume 1 had An A Adventure (the story of Sir Big Bird trying to find an A item for Queen Agatha the Alligator), Bert and the Beanstalk for the letter B, and Bert's Bath as a story for the number 1. Also, the volumes had a Count's Counting Page, the page you mentioned of the Count counting 1 bucking bronco. This went on for only the first ten volumes in the set. There was a small thunder cloud with a black number in its center for the items Count was counting.

Yup, I have those too. I'm unaware of their value, but I got them for free off of my aunt, who was trying to clear out her room to make way for more Terry Pratchett stuff. Great books, and if my memory is correct, I baked a few of the "Cookie Monster's Cookies" recipes within. Great stuff.

 

[The Count]

Yeah... The ones I have are Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8. Though there might be some er... scribbling throughout. From my younger phase before I learned the importance of preserving the quality and condition of a book I cared about. The rest are in my library too, but in photocopy version. Knew this teacher back from my elementary school who had them all, borrowed them for at least making copies of the volumes we didn't have here in my home. Then again, what with my blind batty eyes nowadays... But at least I have my memories.

LMK if there's anything you wanna know about those books.

 

[BEAR]

Yes, they are very warm and comforting, but then again so are all things Sesame Street. Am I right? Watching a Sesame Street movie or listening to the music always lifts my spirits and make me feel better. That is why these guys are our friends. Ever since we were little kids they have always been their for us.