Your Thoughts: The Street We Live On

[Stulz]

research

Sesame Workshop continually does research testing to see what works and what does't work with the show.

This was reinforced by another independent study that revealed that children are watching T.V. at a younger age then ever before.
(This study is teh reason why you have so many shows now aimed at that level - Teletubbies, Boobahhs Etc).

SS made a conscience decsision to now focus on this audience as they thaught it would help them be more prepared for Preschool.

Cheebo: (Sorry to keep picking on you) I actually meant the 25th ann. TV special. I keep meaning to buy the DVD, but because I heard it's a edited version of the special and keep putting it off.

I have an old copy of the 20th Ann. show. I'm in the process of transferring all my Muppet tapes to DVD.
Shoot me an e-mail and I will make a dup. when I'm done for you. - Yes it really is as good as everyone keeps harping about.

 

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Sesame Workshop continually does research testing to see what works and what does't work with the show.

This was reinforced by another independent study that revealed that children are watching T.V. at a younger age then ever before.
(This study is teh reason why you have so many shows now aimed at that level - Teletubbies, Boobahhs Etc).

SS made a conscience decsision to now focus on this audience as they thaught it would help them be more prepared for Preschool.

I don't doubt that children are watching television at a younger age now. What I don't understand is why they felt Sesame Street had to target that particular age group when they do in fact already have shows like Teletubbies, Boobahhs Etc. for them. Older children need television shows too.

 

[mikebennidict]

this thread has gotten out of hand. this was supposed to be about the aniversary special. lets bring it back to that and post the other unrelated stuff elsewhere. anyway, i wonder how what the SS cast would say if they saw this thread of so many of us criticizing the aniversary special?

 

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i wonder how what the SS cast would say if they saw this thread of so many of us criticizing the aniversary special?

That they need to do it over and get it right this time?

 

[Mark The Shark]

Also, game show fans may be one of the few other television audiences who would have the same difficulty in finding reruns of their favorite shows in their prime. I'm not even sure if they saved every episode of old game shows. Game shows aren't my thing, but if anything from television still exists, and it was good enough for public viewing at one time, people should be able to see it somehow today. Bring in the new, but don't erase the history of the old.

In a great many cases, no...a lot of the vintage game shows of the 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s *do not* exist on tape any more; they were erased years and years ago, long before anyone had ever even thought about there one day being a cable channel to rerun them on.

This is why in many cases, older game shows aired on Game Show Network are only seen in small packages of 65 or so episodes, and in some cases, it's only the *evening version* of a show which also aired in daytime, etc. It's because the tapes were erased and reused 20 or 30 years ago.

This is why I was very, very surprised back in the late 1980s or early 1990s to discover that the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago had a tape of the very first "Sesame Street." CTW had done a couple of anniversary specials and had never once shown any clips from it, not one time. "20 Years And Counting" had a clip of the "Mr. Hooper death scene" but not a single frame of footage of Mr. Hooper himself on the show. Even going back to the beginning of the show, CTW aired the shows over a period of one year, then a new season started and the shows from the previous year were never shown again. Ninety percent of other shows which aired a couple of times over a period of a year or show and never got rerun again would *not* have been saved in an archive. A lot of you probably don't realize how *lucky* we are that we've been able to see as many of these shows (through Noggin etc.) as we have. Yes, the Noggin shows were a tiny fraction of all the shows that CTW produced over the years, just the tip of the iceberg...but try to find that many examples of a lot of other shows from that era. Gone. Erased. Forget it. I was very surprised to discover that CTW had maintained a huge archive of their shows, and God bless them for it.

 

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In a great many cases, no...a lot of the vintage game shows of the 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s *do not* exist on tape any more; they were erased years and years ago, long before anyone had ever even thought about there one day being a cable channel to rerun them on.

This is why in many cases, older game shows aired on Game Show Network are only seen in small packages of 65 or so episodes, and in some cases, it's only the *evening version* of a show which also aired in daytime, etc. It's because the tapes were erased and reused 20 or 30 years ago.

This is why I was very, very surprised back in the late 1980s or early 1990s to discover that the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago had a tape of the very first "Sesame Street." CTW had done a couple of anniversary specials and had never once shown any clips from it, not one time. "20 Years And Counting" had a clip of the "Mr. Hooper death scene" but not a single frame of footage of Mr. Hooper himself on the show. Even going back to the beginning of the show, CTW aired the shows over a period of one year, then a new season started and the shows from the previous year were never shown again. Ninety percent of other shows which aired a couple of times over a period of a year or show and never got rerun again would *not* have been saved in an archive. A lot of you probably don't realize how *lucky* we are that we've been able to see as many of these shows (through Noggin etc.) as we have. Yes, the Noggin shows were a tiny fraction of all the shows that CTW produced over the years, just the tip of the iceberg...but try to find that many examples of a lot of other shows from that era. Gone. Erased. Forget it. I was very surprised to discover that CTW had maintained a huge archive of their shows, and God bless them for it.

True, and the fact that they saved them, implies that they had plans for them to possibly be seen again. I wonder if the current producers at Sesame Workshop have lost sight of this.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Actually, I watched my tape of the special and I thought it was really good. It was nice to see all those classic skits that they haven't played in a while. (counting sketch with the baker; Kermits News Flashes, etc.) I also got a glimpse of Matt Robinson as Gordon near the end. I didn't think they'd do something like that. I can see where Journey to Ernie and Global Grover got in the way and that "how does Cookie Monster eat a cookie thing" could have been shortened so that they just show the scene with Cookie Monster as a baby, but other than that I really enjoyed the show.

 

[Philo and Gunge]

This special to me was half crap, half good. I mean, who in the world would want to watch a normal Sesame episode at 8PM? This special would proably make Jim Henson turn in his grave. I can picture it now in Heaven:

Joe Raposo: "Hey, Jim! The show's starting, get the donuts."
Jim Henson: "Oh, sorry about that."
Jon Stone: "You know, I was dissapionted with these new Sesame episodes but now with this special I hope they bring the gist Sesame had when we were still alive."
Jim Henson: "Yeah, they should just re-name the show Elmo Street." (He takes a drink of water when Elmo's World starts and he spits out the water) "WHAT THE HECK DOES SESAME WORKSHOP CALL THIS?" (He gets off the couch)
Jon Stone: "Where are you going?"
Jim Henson: "Back to Earth."

And come see "The Passion Of Elmo".

Seriously, I think the fans could have done better special.

 

[DancingLauren]

Cool. If you like Fisher Price Websites, check out this one:

http://www.angelfire.com/ab2/ablpph/


Yeah, Gordon only had his goatee for the first season. It may have had something to do with the other role Roscoe Orman was playing at the same time, an abusive pimp on All My Children (I'm not kidding). I read that Orman knew one role had to go and since the real bad guys don't last long on soaps anyway, he chose Sesame Street.

Back to Fisher Price, I'm really not sure why they didn't create a Bob Little Person, unless it was for the very reason that they didn't think he'd look much different than the generic Little Person Dad with black hair. A drawing of Luis in his Fix-It-Shop also made it on the lithos of the Sesame Street Playset and the Fisher Price Sesame Street Clubhouse has a heart with an arrow that says, "David + Maria".

Here is a list of all the Sesame Street characters made in the vintage FP Little Person style: Ernie, Bert, Big Bird, Gordon, Susan, Mr. Hooper, Oscar, Cookie Monster, Grover, The Count, Roosevelt Franklin, Prarie Dawn, Herry Monster, Sherlock Hemlock, and Snuffy.

I am an avid FP Little People collector, and so if you have any questions ask me. But yeah, it was weird that the only human ss characters they made were Gordon, Susan and Mr Hooper.

 

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I am an avid FP Little People collector, and so if you have any questions ask me. But yeah, it was weird that the only human ss characters they made were Gordon, Susan and Mr Hooper.

Cool! Great to meet another Little Person collector.

As for humans, one thing I've noticed is that these days, NO toy company seems to make toys with ANY of the current human cast. At least I haven't seen any that are sold. It seems like Sesame Street sets only have the muppets now.