Why was Sesame Street Unpaved shown late weekend nights?

Do you know WHY Noggin wants SSU and TEC to play on late Friday and Saturday nights?

I know why. It's because nobody likes THEM.

Okay, I understand you are new to Noggin, and have only known about it for a few months. But Noggin has been on for almost 4 years now. And the 65 shows they have are the same ones they've been airing for the past 4 years. I would be happy (well, actually sad) to explain why they moved them to the wee hours on the weekend.

Noggin first signed on in Feb. 1999, with endless hours of vintage programming, and no stupid shows of their own. I remember they had SSU 5 times a day, and TEC about the same, maybe more. Not only that, but they were shown non-stop. I remember SSU was on at 6 PM, and during prime time, they had 2 SSUs back-to-back, and then 2 more during the wee hours. Not too bad, huh? But then, 5 months later, they started this "Phred on Your Head" show, and they did away with the one at 6 PM, and it was only shown during the late night and wee hours, but it was still on 4 times a night. And after a few months, they extended all their programming for older kids, and did away with the 2 episodes in prime time, and from then on, it was only on during the wee hours. But it was still on 3 times a night (1 am, 2 am, 4 am). And TEC and 3-2-1 Contact were on in between. Then after about a year, they did away with one, and it was decreased from 3 airings to 2 airings a night. That's not very much compared to what they used to have, is it? And then, last April, when they re-vamped the channel into 2, "Noggin/The N", it was only on ONCE each night, at 5 am, and twice on weekends, 3:30 and 5 am. It stayed there for a few months, and then it got pushed to weekends only at 3:30 am, where it is now. I am very upset to say that the next thing they will do is completely take it off the schedule!

But I do know the exact reason for this. See, the channel isn't really Noggin anymore. It's only Noggin during the day, which is for preschoolers, and from 6 PM on, it's called "The N" which is for older kids, and young teenagers. And what she said is that SSU doesn't go with either of those, and isn't really for anyone anymore. I mean, it WAS for preschoolers 25 years ago. But she just doesn't understand! It's for us classic SS fans! That's who it's for! I have been very upset since I found out in July. I even tried a petition to keep it on, but we have all decided that it won't work, because it currently only has 135 signatures on it, and Noggin/The N is in 26 million homes. And she said that they're not really gearing their channel for us. The purpose of Noggin was so that CTW/Sesame Workshop could get into cable, and make some shows of their own, but not necessarily just keep re-running old shows all the time. That's what happens with ALL cable networks when they're new. I even suggested a CTW channel, but that's completely unrealistic, right? It's actually Jeffrey Gray who told me all this. But I don't LIKE it. It makes me sad.

All this is so confusing...

Wasnt there a Kermit channel at one point? I never had anyone explain that one to me. So Odyssey, Kermit channel, Noggin...ack, so confused.

Fact is, if the world were fair...we would have:

JHC owning itself and being very financially sound
A 24 hour JHC channel, as well as a CTW channel.

I will explain what ssetta said in shorter form: Noggin doesn't want to put SSU in normal hours because nobody watched it when it was airing in normal hours, but they want to keep it on for the fans, and since not many people are even awake late at night, so they don't have to worry about ratings, they show it late at night, to please us without taking up space a more popular program could occupy. A very wise decision, IMO...

That's something I've been meaning to ask about for a while on here... the Kermit Channel. I remember a few years ago one of my high school teachers who was a big Muppet fan (he wore a Kermit tie often) brought in an article about the Kermit Channel. Supposdly the Kermit Channel had more "adult oriented" entertainment and had skits about Miss Piggy thinking Kermit was bi-sexual.

Well that's good it is still on. Sadly CTW/SW will not extend the full courtesy to grown up fans with merchandising.

I realize CTW/SW really does not want a grown up audience of people who grew up on it...they make zero effort to appease to people over the age of 2 when it comes to Sesame(be it products, etc) Unless youre a parent, they dont care.

Sony Wonder in Japan however...well thats another story,
If *ONLY* we could somehow import that cool stuff!

Well, even someone at Sesame Workshop told me they think the whole idea of re-vamping Noggin into 2 different networks was a bad idea. Because that "N" wipes out a lot of CTW's programming. She was the one who originally said she thinks there should be a CTW channel. But I don't know how popular that would be. However, they are coming out with new digital cable channels all the time. Our cable company adds at least 1 new one every couple of months.

Guys, we wish that SS from 1969-present would be on video and DVD. We'd better make the petition that they would be on video and DVD. Would that work?

I believe there WAS some sort of petition started for that purpose a while ago, but I think the most signatures it got (including mine)was something like just under two hundred and that's nowhere near the amount needed for a petition like this to have effect. 10,000 or more signatures and things might be different -- then again maybe not given that most of those would be from an audience that's totally invisible to Sesame Workshop. Whoever wrote above that SW dosen't seem to care about their adult audience is right and I think that just MIGHT have something to do with the fact that Sesame Street is and always has been a show intended for preschoolers.

I think that's true, because I have been convinced that my petition to keep Unpaved on Noggin will not work either. Because, again, we are not who the show was geared for in the first place. Look at it this way: Just as we don't like the new version of the show as much, they don't like the old version as much as the new one, mainly because it has Elmo's World. I know most of us here don't like Elmo's World, but it's extremely popular with the age group the show is geared for.

I should also add that there's a few reasons I can think of as to why a CTW channel is unlikely to become a reality either: First of all CTW dosen't exist anymore, they've been Sesame Workshop for some time now, which is pretty wise since Sesame Street is the only show they're producing these days. And even when they were CTW back in the day, they weren't producing that many shows. You can count the total number of shows they were producing on the fingers of one hand: Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and 3-2-1 Contact. Thats all, AFAIK and three TV shows does not a channel make. And even if it did, it would still be a channel for kids and therefore it would be kind of hard to justify airing TV programs that were made for kids twenty to thirty years ago, particularly educational ones.

What I think is that somebody --it could be an organization or handful of individuals with the money, the means and the wherewithall to do so -- should come up with some kind of a channel geared toward retro and nostalgia buffs where they could fill there programming schedule with all kinds of classic TV shows like "M*A*S*H", "All In The Family", "The Brady Bunch", "Cheers" etc. AND then they could devote part of their programming line up towards children's programming INCLUDING the episodes of Sesame Street from 1969-89 Of course, they couldn't *call* them Sesame Street Unpaved since that's how Noggin presented them, but they'd still be the same shows. They could show these along with other old kids shows, including The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact essentially all of SW/CTW's past shows as well as other muppet featured shows like Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show (though I'd call that an all ages show) as well as old kids shows that aren't necessarily educational. (I mean I wouldn't mind seeing the Smurfs and G.I Joe again

But the major difference between a channel like this and a kids channel like Noggin is that even though they would show kid's programs, they're first and foremost a channel devoted to retro and therefore they wouldn't have the same issues about showing kid's programs that might be considered 'dated', like SSUnpaved or TEC, unlike Noggin or any other channel which is intended primarily for children, especially one that exists for educational purposes. If today's kids watch and like them, then great. If they don't...no biggie since the channel's purpose is nostalgia and not kid's TV.

Worth some pretty serious consideration IMNSHO

Those were not the only shows CTW produced. They also produced Square One, Cro, and Ghostwriter. But I see your point, I don't see how the channel would be popular if it only had 6 shows. What I was planning on was maybe they could air some foreign versions of the show, some old movies and specials, and that stuff.

And from what you were saying, that's what TV Land is for. Imagine this, TV Land actually did a special on Sesame Street Unpaved back in '99 when it was new. Some of the cast members shared their favorite sketches. So maybe those old shows could get moved to TV Land!

Not a bad idea! I don't know why this hasn't been done. In fact if you want to know the truth, as I was typing the post above, I thought to myself that this is an idea that's just so obvious to me and considering that there's now specialty channels for just about every genre and interest you can imagine -- science fiction, cartoons, horror, fantasy, cycling, golf, fishing, you name it -- and that the market for retro is so big now that there MUST be some sort of a channel devoted to this already and that I'm just totally ignorant and unaware of it. Not surprising given that I'm up here in Canada where TVLand is not available as part of any cable or satellite provider's programming package. I hate to admit it, but DTH and cable here sucks compared to what you guys have available to you in the U.S. DirecTV and DishNetwork are not legally allowed to distribute their programming in Canada because of almost totalitarian broadcasting regulations here. But the demand for their programing clearly exists and many subscribe to it anyway through what's called a "gray market" in which they set up a U.S mailing address and have their bills delivered there and pay for the service on their credit card in American dollars. But now the courts here have declared this to be illegal. However I have managed to obtain episodes of SSUnpaved through correspondence with some American tape traders who were good enough to tape them for me. I have eight episodes from 1969-78 and have watched them over and over again and I thank these people from the bottom of my heart for providing me with such great stuff which I otherwise might never have been able to see. But if our government gets with the times, I might yet see more. Yeah sure. And maybe there'll be a snowstorm in the Carribean

Putting 1969-86 (best era of SS IMO) SS on TV Land would be a great idea...if you'd be willing to stand edits and commercial interruption. And anyways, I'd think that if TV Land had to pick a CTW show for a retro kids' block, they'd probably pick The Electric Company instead...

OK since I don't know much about TVLand, enlighten me: Is it a channel that's now widely available as a part of basic cable that you don't need to pay for? Or is it a specialty channel only available to DTH or Cable subscribers -- meaning people are paying to receive this programming and therefore shouldn't be seeing commercials (or edits) on these channels in the first place.
And why would they have to pick one or the other not both and even if they did why would it be TEC over SS? I mean even a channel like TVLand is only going to show programs that did well when they originally aired. Not that TEC did badly, but consider this: SS has been around for nearly 35 years and is still going strong and is shown in one form or another in more than a hundred countries around the globe. Compare that to TEC, seen exclusively in the U.S and parts of Canada and which only enjoyed six years of production before they had to throw in the towel. Did you know that episodes that ran on PBS from 1977 till about the mid 80s were only repeats of the show's last three seasons of production -- why couldn't they show any from the first three during that time? When Noggin started showing them in 1999, it was the first time since their original airing that they showed episodes of the series in its entirety. And while SSUnpaved is being shown less than it used to be and will by all indicators be on for another little while, TEC has now been phased out completely. Not that TEC was bad, though but it just wasn't as successful as SS, partially because it didn't have the muppets, IMO.

I'm not sure about putting shows/sitcoms about war, ignorant armchair racism, and chronic alongsideSesame programming.

Yeah, you can call them CTW, or Sesame Workshop...but to me and the fans it is an extention of the JHC.

Btw, I havent seen Sesame since the late 80's, but Im assuming the last good years were in the 80's if you all are saying 69-89 era. My fave era was the mid to late 80's when I was growing up(the debut of Telly, Honkers, Dingers, etc) Though I have to admit
Sesame in the last few years(at least from compilation vhs and dvds Ive seen) still has its charm with good ol Telly, Baby Bear, and Zoe. Though I just cant stand non Muppet segments...if they ever put a best of Sesame on dvd they need to nix the non Muppet segments like the cartoons, etc.

If SSU is shown late Friday and Saturday nights many other Henson shows are not shown in our country, how about if Sesame Street (1969-89) and The Muppet Show would move to TV Land and they can be shown on our new Muppet channel we can make up that features Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, 3-2-1 Contract, Muppets Tonight, The Electric Company, Cro, Square One TV, etc. Give Pokemon (TV show), Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo a "big thumbs down", because I think that they are soooooo annoying!

But, when I watched the Season 30 episodes on Noggin, I love the new characters like the good old Elmo, Zoe, Rosita, Baby Bear, etc. I believe that they're muppets.

Sorry that many of you guys disliked Elmo's World, but I like it.

Well, why not pick both of them?