Sesame Street (partially lost children's educational TV series; 1969-present)
Sesame Street is a childrenâs television series that started in 1969. This series is one of the most well-known and longest running childrenâs television series of all time. Since its inception in 1969, the show has earned 159 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards, and an estimated 77 million Americans watched the series as children as of 2008.[1]
Despite its massive multi-decade running time, itâs become an interest of avid fans of the series to document the series in its entirety, including descriptions for shorts in episodes ranging from the first season to the present.[2]
While episode listings adapted from Childrenâs Television Workshop archives are complete in writing, many of the segments included in the listings are not available for audiences on any home video releases or digital releases. A complete listing of these is not available, largely due to the vast number of episodes of the series produced, but many of the popular segments that have been lost and found since the genesis of the Internet have been listed below. (The following list of segments has been adapted from the âArticle Requestsâ section of the Lost Media Wiki website. Iâve also included sections and links to the pages of shorts that have received separate articles to maintain completeness in covering Sesame Streetâs massive scope and without disrupting existing coverage.)
Leslie Mostly Skits - Partially Found
Leslie Mostly is a short-lived Muppet from the twelfth season. She was the host of âThe Leslie Mostly Show,â a talk show host spoof series. Her segments are interviews with other Muppet characters, including The Amazing Mumford, Grover, Count von Count, Cookie Monster, and the word âCASA.â
Of the segments listed above, all of them have been uploaded to YouTube in English, with the exception of the Cookie Monster skit being found in Castilian Spanish. The uploaded clips can be viewed below.
Deena and Pearl Skits - Partially Found
Deena and Pearl are a Muppet duo from the twelfth season. They were seen in a total of four sketches on the show before disappearing. Their discontinuance is largely attributed to the similarity of their segments to those of Ernie and Bert.
The four sketches include Baby Deena, Toy Box, Underwater, and Pearl is Sick.[3] Of these, Baby Deena is the only sketch uploaded on YouTube in English (as âPlay Houseâ). Toy Box has been uploaded in Dutch. The other two havenât resurfaced in any language yet.
Professor Hastings Skits - Partially Found
Professor Hastings is an early Muppet professor performed by Frank Oz from the first three seasons. His character was best known for boring himself to sleep with his own lectures.
Of the eleven known skits to include him, only one (Whatâs My Part?) has resurfaced in complete English, Emotions has resurfaced in a partial-English dub (with only a few actual English audio pieces taken from another source, while a user who posted the clip has dubbed over the German voices in English himself), Spinning Wheel has surfaced in English but as incomplete (with the video starting halfway through the song), five dubbed segments (including only two that have one piece of English audio included) and one album track have resurfaced. The three segments that have not resurfaced in any form yet include Letter Y, Number 2, and the TV version of U Lecture (with Kermit the Frog instead of Ernie).
Gymnast Segments - Partially Found
The Gymnast segments are a series of shorts including a gymnast demonstrating various directions with a dark black background. Two of the six shorts following this gymnast have resurfaced on YouTube; the four that havenât are Beginning/End, Close To/Away From, Over/Under, and Slow.[4]
Assorted Audio-Only Skits
The following assorted clips, originally included in the Article Requests listing, have resurfaced in English audio only online and are included to view below:
Assorted Partial-English Skits
The following assorted clips, originally included in the Article Requests listing, have resurfaced in only partial English and partially dubbed online:
Assorted Found Skits
The following assorted clips, originally included in the Article Requests listing, have resurfaced in full in English and are included to view below:
Assorted Lost Skits
The following assorted clips, originally included in the Article Requests listing, have not resurfaced in English online:
â Windyâ Song: "Windy" is a pop song, originally a #1 hit for the Association in 1967. A version of the song was sung by Tony and Beautiful Day Monster in the first season of Sesame Street. Tony sings about his girlfriend, Windy, who can fly across the sky. The monster injures herself at the end of the song, which ends with a huge crash. Longtime sound engineer Dick Maitland recalls this song as his first experience on the show. The segment in German was once uploaded to YouTube by a German user back in 2006, but due to that German user's YouTube channel being terminated, the segment has been removed and has not resurfaced.
â Come Join Us!â Song: âCome Join Usâ is a Muppet segment written by Cheryl Hardwick in 1980. The surviving still from the skit depicts a Muppet rock band performing the song.[5]Not much else is known about this segment, but the segment in Castilian Spanish that allegedly was uploaded to YouTube has since been removed.
Dr. Nobel Price (Slushabouts skit): Dr Nobel Price is a Muppet inventor. He was best known for âinventingâ objects that already existed with other names. One example of this is the âSlushabouts,â another name for galoshes.[6]
Miami Mice (The Space Center skit): Miami Mice was a short-run âMiami Viceâ spoof starring Tito and J.P., two mouse detectives. The Space Center skit in which the mice help Count von Count get to the space center so he can do the countdown, is a lost skit from this series.[7]
Sherlock Hemlock Twiddlebug Mystery: Sherlock Hemlock is a Muppet parody of Sherlock Holmes. One of his mysteries includes The Twiddlebug Mystery that first aired in season 2[8]. The clip is available to view in a German dub on YouTube[9] but no English version has been uploaded online. However, a Sesame Street book release of the same name tells the story of this mystery[10]
David Looking For Maria Skit: An early skit about miscommunication features David and Maria looking for each other in the park. The skit has appeared in a couple of episodes, but its first televised appearance is in Episode 0677[11].
Cookie and Kermit Demonstrate Through: Cookie and Kermitâs demonstration of through, also known as âThrough,â is exactly like what the title sounds like.[12] The clip is notorious for concluding with Cookie Monster smashing a picture frame over Kermitâs head and shouting âThrough!â[13]
Big Jeffy Environmental Song Skit: Big Jeffy is a Muppet musician who appeared in many Muppet bands, including Little Jerry and the Monotones and Little Chrissy and the Alphabeats.[14] Not much is known about the skit about the environment including the musical performance of Big Jeffy.
â Away"We Equal Threeâ Song: âWe Equal Threeâ is a song sung by three Muppet children in a winter scene. Not much is known about this skit, and no information is available online about it.
Assorted Existence Unconfirmed Skits
Due to the vague nature of some of the descriptions provided by interested users or lack of available documentation online, many of the requested segments from this series have remained unidentified, been marked âExistence Unconfirmed,â and are listed below. If anyone knows more about these segments, feel free to comment below or write a new section for them.
- Three Monsters Demonstrate Big, Bigger, Biggest
- A Muppet coach teaches her baseball team to play string quartet
- A little girl teaches a monster marching band do play in a parade
- Two Muppet kids on a ship
- Starship Surprise (not to be confused with Spaceship Surprise[15])
- Muppets and monsters count to ten (1969)
- Muppets cooperate to build a clubhouse
- "Surprise" (English version with Susan and Oscar's cutaway)
- Ernie meets a Pumpkin Seed Candy Salesman
- Grover and Little Bird at the Zoo
- Ernie makes a friend (1969)
- G is for Grover (1969)
- Anything Muppets sing "Up, UpAway."
- Kermit shows "Between" by placing three objects on a table and then ducks underneath it when BDM comes along and devours the table to bits
- "People in Your Neighbourhood": Dentist and Bus Driver (1969)
- AB Song is sung by the barbershop quartet
- A monster barbershop quartet singing about the number 4
- Post office song - a hip song about the post office and mail delivery featuring the line '...to the post office where it will stay, for just one day...' (live-action)
- Figure skater - a clip featuring a figure skater skating to the tune of "Don't You Know You're Beautiful?" (live-action)
- Horses pulling heavy loads - Horses participate in a contest where they keep trying to pull heavier and heavier loads until they can't do it anymore. (live-action)
- Circles on film - a circle 'wraps itself' around several live-action objects, an 'OK' sign being one of them. (live-action)
- Riding on the Train - a song about train rides, with one of the lines going '...the A Train, B Train, Double C, takes you where to want to be...' (live-action)
- Cracks aka 'Crack Master' (found Sesame Street short; 1975) Spanish Version
âRare Sesame Street Muppet Clipsâ Original Listing
This is a replication of the original Article Requests section for clips from this series. I request that this section of the article remains unedited for the sake of completeness:
This is a section devoted to rare clips from Sesame Street, added for no reason whatsoever.
- "Come Join Us!" (a Muppet band teaches the viewers to "Join Us!" It can be seen on YouTube, but dubbed in Castilian Spanish only.)
- All sketches of "Leslie Mostly" (rare sketches featuring host Leslie Mostly who interviewed a Sesame Street character in his/her home. Guests included Kermit, Guy Smiley, Cookie Monster, Grover, The Count, and Mumford.)
- All Deena and Pearl sketches Here's one! -R
- All Professor Hastings sketches
- Three monsters demonstrate big, bigger, and biggest
- Sherlock Hemlock's Twiddle-Bug Mystery
- A Muppet coach teaches her baseball team to play string quartet (rare; last seen in Castilian Spanish on Barrio Sesamo)
- News Flash: Dr Nobel Price's Slush-a-Boots (Galoshes)
- A little girl teaches a monster marching band do play in a parade.
- A Guy Smiley game show with Grover, Biff, and Prairie Dawn.
- "We Coulda" (sung by Biff to Sully)
- "I'm Square" (sung by Bert with Ernie)
- "The Sound of the Letter A" (sung by Big Bird)
- A Miami Mice episode with the Count
- Starship Surprise (not to be confused with Spaceship Surprise)
- Two Muppet kids on a ship
- Muppets cooperate to make lemonade
- Muppets cooperate to build a clubhouse
- Muppets and Monsters count to 10 (1969)
- Muppets and Monsters (plus Bert and Oscar) demonstrate none, some, and all (1969)
- "Surprise" (English version with Susan and Oscar's cutaway)
- "The Countess Counts" (sung by the Countess with Muppet patrons)
- A B song sung by the barbershop quartet
- A monster barbershop quartet singing about the number 4
- "The Garden"-style environmental song with Big Jeffy and two female backup singers with cameos from Grover and Cookie
- "We Equal Three" (sung by three Muppet kids in a winter scenario)
- The Spanish version of the "Small V" cartoon ("Ve menuscula. Ve-ve-ve-VA-VA-VA-VOOOOOM!")
- 1. Gymnast - a gymnast (blonde hair, black leotard) was featured in six different clips. One of them - 'between' - has been posted. The other five, yet to be posted, are 'around,' 'beginning/end,' 'close to/away from,' 'over/under,' and 'slow.'
- 2. 'Beginning/end' - five stop-motion clips featuring 'beginning' and 'end.' They are a barber giving a customer a haircut, a man eating a hot dog, a man painting a picture, a woman making a sandwich, and kids waiting in line.
- 3. Scuba diver - a clip featuring a scuba diver who finds five shells underwater, counts them on the shore and is surprised by a crab.
- 4. Post office song - a hip song about the post office and mail delivery featuring the line '...to the post office where it will stay, for just one day...'
- 5. Danger - a man walks down the street while reading a newspaper and barely avoids running into dangerous things. He then gets nailed by something (revolving door?) in the end.
- 6. Figure skater - a clip featuring a figure skater skating to the tune of "Don't You Know You're Beautiful?"
- 7. Horses pulling heavy loads - Horses participate in a contest where they keep trying to pull heavier and heavier loads until they can't do it anymore.
- 8. David and Maria - David and Maria are supposed to meet each other in a park but have trouble finding each other due to miscommunication. The words demonstrated are 'above' and 'below' and the music score is electronic-like.
- 9. Circles on film - a circle 'wraps itself' around several live-action objects, an 'OK' sign being one of them.
- 10. Riding on the Train - a song about train rides, with one of the lines going '...the A Train, B Train, Double C, takes you where to want to be...'
- 11. Batman and Robin catch Penguin and his gang with dirty windows and demonstrate 'clean' and 'dirty' while doing so.
- 12. Kermit tries to demonstrate the word 'through' by having Cookie Monster run through a frame lined with tissue paper. Everything then backfires as Cookie Monster stops short of the frame, wonders what to do, and when Kermit tells Cookie thus, Cookie decides to demonstrate 'through' in another way - by smashing the frame over Kermit's head, saying 'This is THROUGH!'
- Of the above, the first ten are live-action, the eleventh one is animated, and the last is obviously a Muppet clip.
- Crack Master (Spanish Version)
Other Noteworthy Sesame Street Clips
The following is a brief list of Sesame Street clips for which there are separate articles on this wiki:
Episodes:
- Sesame Street: Episode 847 (Lost "Wicked Witch of the West" Episode; 1976)
- Sesame Street "Snuffy's Parents Get a Divorce" (lost episode; 1992)
Sketches:
- Cracks aka 'Crack Master' (found Sesame Street short; 1975)
- The Count Orders a Hot Dog (Rare 1972 Sesame Street Sketch)
- Handful of Crumbs (Lost Sesame Street short; 1982)
- Batman: Clean and Dirty (Lost Sesame Street Segment; 1970)
Specials:
- Sesame Street Jam: A Musical Celebration
- Out to Lunch (Lost Sesame Street/Electric Company Crossover Special; 1974)
- The Sesame Street Experiment (incomplete/partially found 1989 documentary)
- Sesame Street At Night? (Lost Sesame Street Special; 1977)
- The Grover Monster - Jean Marsh Cartoon Special (Lost TV Special; 1975)
References
- â Wikipedia article. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki, with its massive size of over 30,000 pages, is one of the best places to research Sesame Street episodes, skits, and related content. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Deena and Pearl. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on the Gymnast segments. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on âCome Join Us!â Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki excerpt about the Slushabouts skit. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Miami Mice. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Episode 0256, the first known appearance of the Twiddlebug Mystery skit. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â YouTube German dub of Sherlock Hemlockâs Twiddlebug Mystery Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on the Sherlock Hemlock Twiddlebug Mystery book. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Episode 0677, the first episode to show the David and Maria miscommunication skit. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on the âThroughâ Cookie Monster and Kermit skit. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Episode 0334, the first episode appearance of the âThroughâ skit. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Big Jeffy. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.
- â MuppetWiki entry on Spaceship Surprise. Retrieved 16 Sept â16.