Street Knowledge (Chapter 2)

 

Chapter 2: A Street Is Born

“TV’s gift to children” is what Time Magazine called Sesame Street in 1970. And that was just one of the many remarks of praise that this show was given after it aired. There was so much praise, Sesame Street won a pretty decent amount of awards. (Which included three Emmys, a George Foster Peabody, a Prix Jeunesse, and even a Grammy for their first ever album.) It was pretty obvious that what Joan, Lloyd, Jim, and the rest of the crew set out to do worked, and people wanted more.

So, pretty soon, a second season was beginning production. Our now favorite neighbors were back, but they were getting slight updates to become even better than they were.

For example, Big Bird was given more feathers, and a certain change in personality. You see, in the first season Big Bird was described as a goofy creature, who wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. And the crew figured that if they wanted Big Bird to resonate with the kids watching, he’d have to be more endearing, so it was decided that Big Bird was now officially 6 years old, making him the stand-in for the kids at home.

Oscar, however, was still hanging on to his grumpy persona, where he changed the most was in appearance. Apparently, he went to a place called Swamp Mushy Muddy, and got covered with sludge/slime, which turned his fur green, and since grouches don’t like to take regular clean baths, he’s remained green to this day.

Now, remember those two undefined muppet monsters I mentioned in the last chapter? Well, they appeared in the second season, and their definedness shined through.

The blue monster with googly eyes, got a much more sturdy structure, and still loved to eat pretty much everything, but now had a namesake after a treat he was particularly fond of: Cookies.

And the green monster with a big nose, acquired cobalt blue fur, a pink nose and a rounder lower jaw, and would from then on be known as our cute, furry, lovable old pal, Grover.

Along with the old muppet characters, new muppet characters were added, including the super strong Herry Monster, the smart-for-her-age Prairie Dawn, Oscar’s beloved pet worm, Slimey, and the world’s so-called greatest detective Sherlock Hemlock.

But there was one character, who WOULDN’T be present for this season, and it was the frog.

Yes, apparently Kermit was deemed too commercial for Sesame Street, so he wasn’t present in any new footage, and was replaced by a guy named Herbert Birdsfoot, but as you might’ve already guessed, Kermit came back the very next season, so I think it’s safe to say Birdsfoot didn’t work out.

As for the humans, they didn’t change whatsoever… Except for Buddy and Jim, who were replaced by another duo named Larry and Phylis.

Who would then be replaced by ANOTHER duo named Wally and Ralph, in the very next season.

Who would then… actually stick around for a few more seasons… but I digress.

To add to that, more well-known celebrities were making street appearances, and the animated cartoons and songs were getting more catchy and visually pleasing, especially this little number about the number 8.

One last change I wanna go over, and it’s about the street itself, in season 1, it just went in a straight line, but in this season, starting at the left of 123, the street curves giving people a good view of the arbor and Hooper’s Store. Now some people might say this doesn’t make it look like a real New York street, but I say, does that matter? It’s home to a giant yellow canary, I doubt a real New York street would have something like that.

But again, I digress, so let’s move onto season 3, and boy did that season ever have new stuff.

One of the most notable aspects is that the human cast got a massive quantity upgrade. In other words, more human cast members were added.

And some of them, like Maria (Sonia Manzano), Luis (Emilio Delgado), David (Northern Calloway) and Linda (Linda Bove) would stick around and become crucial members of the street.

While others, like Molly (Charlotte Rae), Rafael (Raul Julia), and Tom (Larry Block), wouldn’t appear again after this season. TV can be a cruel mistress sometimes.

Meanwhile on the muppet side of things, Grover really stepped it up here. Not only did he show off his multi-talented personality by tackling numerous jobs, but he was also the star of his own book.

In 1971, The Monster At The End Of This Book was published. It was written by Jon Stone, illustrated by Mike Smollin and starred lovable, furry old Grover. There wasn’t really much of a story here, it was just about Grover freaking out when he finds out there’s a monster at the end of the book, and doing all that he can to stop the reader from going to said end, only to find that monster was him, all along. Now, I could go on and on about how it doesn’t really make sense that Grover is scared of a monster, despite the fact that he IS a monster himself, but I won’t, one, to save time, and two, even with that, the story is still funny as heck. Grover’s over-the-top reactions whenever a page is turned is what really sells it for me.

Going back to the show itself, there were other muppets that were introduced in season 3. Some highlights include the mystical, yet goofy magician, The Amazing Mumford, googly-eyed practical joker, Harvey Kneeslapper, martians from outer space, and Mr. Johnson, a man that frequently goes to a restaurant that Grover works at called Charlie’s, and one way or another, always seems to get screwed over by him.

But there was one muppet introduced in this season that topped all of the ones I just mentioned, in both size and importance. He wasn’t an elephant, and he wasn’t a woolly mammoth, he was… a snuffleupagus. Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus to be exact, though everyone just likes to call him Snuffy.

One day, Big Bird was watering flowers, minding his business, when he wished he had a watering can, so it would be much easier. He then felt a large brown tube coming from behind him, he turned around, and BOOM! There he was! A real live snuffleupagus, in the flesh! Or rather, fur. So Big Bird asks this creature if he could help water his flowers. Snuffy says yes, and gives the flowers a nice drenching. And after that, Big Bird could tell, he and this snuffleupagus were gonna be good friends.

But alas, this moment doesn’t have a very satisfying ending. For Big Bird goes to get all of the grown-ups to come see the new friend he just made, but just as they come into his nest area, Snuffy’s gone. And this causes the grown-ups to come to the conclusion that Mr. Snuffleupagus must be imaginary, and tell Big Bird so. And so begins the start of the unintentional gas-lighting Big Bird will hear about his new friend for a long LONG time.

To be fair, though, if Snuffy was today the way he was in his debut, I would’ve wanted him to be imaginary. I mean, have you seen this guy?!

He looks like someone who would sneak up on you, while you were sleeping and say boo. Tell me that wouldn’t be creepy.

But anyway, I’d also like to point out that Sesame Street was also beginning to shine musically around this time, now having released more than a handful of songs that anyone, young or old would love to listen to. Be it TV or record player. Some of the highlights include Rubber Duckie (Sung by Ernie), ABC-DEF-GHI (sung by Big Bird), I Love Trash (Sung by Oscar), C Is For Cookie (Sung by Cookie Monster), Bein’ Green (sung by Kermit), and Sing (sung by pretty much anyone and everyone.)

Yep, things were definitely looking up for the street this season. Which leads us right into season 4.

I’ll start by saying this season is where Sesame Street really hit its pique with its animation, producing several catchy jingles and memorable animations, including:

12 ladybugs attending a picnic.

A depressed royal alligator and his seven offspring.

And a little girl, who engraves the most memorable grocery list ever into our heads.

Moving onto the muppet aspect, this was about the time, a fairly recent puppeteer named Jerry Nelson was really getting his moment to shine, as he got to perform two new characters introduced this season.

One of these was a robot called SAM, (That stands for Super Automatic Machine) a robot who believed that machines were perfect and could never make mistakes, not realizing his flawed way of thinking the first time he came to Sesame Street and thought he was on Mulberry Street. Come on, SAM! If you were on Mulberry Street, you would be in a book, not a TV show!

Yeah, even though SAM was entertaining, he wasn’t around for that long. And as for Nelson’s other character, well, I’m pretty sure he’d love to count how many years he’s been on the street.

Jerry Nelson also performed Count Von Count, a muppet version of the popular vampire Count Dracula, with an added twist. Instead of sucking blood and consuming souls, this guy just really loved counting stuff. (Get it? He’s called Count, and he loves to count.) A little too much. Especially back in the day.

For example, in his first ever episode, he decided to mess with Ernie’s block tower, just so he could count all the blocks that were made out of it, when Bert tried to stop him, The Count responded by stunning him.

And in another segment, he paid a visit to Charlie’s and hypnotized Grover into bringing him lots of hot dogs, so he could count them.

But not to worry, after those two instances, The Count cooled it with the hypnosis, and became much more endearing and enjoyable.

Meanwhile, the human cast, while not being as big as it was last season, was still relatively the same. Well, except for Gordon, who got himself a new actor named Hal Miller.

Now, Mr. Miller is in the same category as Mr. Saunders, which I have dubbed “Gordons who aren’t really Gordon”, you know, they lack the sort of Gordon-like feel that actors like Matt Robinson and… another actor who we’ll talk about when we get to season 6, have.

But anyway, speaking of Matt Robinson, just because he wasn’t doing Gordon, didn’t mean he was done with the show yet, on the contrary, his involvement was just getting started with the growing popularity of his created muppet character, Roosevelt Franklin, who he also provided the voice for, by the way.

Season 4 introduced a new segment centered on Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School, starring, who else, Roosevelt Franklin. In every sketch, RF would apparently sneak into classrooms when the teachers weren’t around, and basically do their jobs for them. The classmates were a rowdy bunch of smart alecks, who were voiced by the human cast. Smart Tina was voiced by Maria, Baby Breeze was voiced by David, Suzetta Something was voiced by Susan, and Hardhead Henry Harris… well, I don’t know who he was voiced by, but if I had to guess, I think it would be one of the Gordons, or probably Luis.

And while we’re on the subject of new segments, Kermit got himself a job as a reporter for Sesame Street news, where he would interview different characters from fairy tales. Yeah, popular fairy tale characters such as the Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood, and Prince Charming all made their appearances this season and cemented themselves as Sesame Street regulars, some more than others, but we’ll get to that later.

Also, this was about the time where the Children’s Television Workshop thought:

“Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t just be trying to educate and entertain kids in America, we should try to educate and entertain kids from all around the world!”

So starting with Vila Sesamo in Brazil, the CTW started branching out to make different versions of Sesame Street for each country, including Mexico, (Plaza Sesamo) Germany, (Sesamstrasse) and France (Rue Sesame).

And once the last episode of Season 4 aired, it was time for season 5. Now not a lot happened this season, so I’ll be as brief as I can. I’ll start with the biggest thing, which is that cute and lovable Grover got his own secret superhero identity. (But don’t tell him I’m telling you this.)

Alongside Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, Super Grover took his rightful place as one of the greatest superheroes of all time.

Twiddlebugs were little muppet creatures created in the last season, but here we got to see a family of them that lived right outside the window box of Ernie and Bert’s apartment, and every day, they’d try to do something that would be relatively easy for us big people.

Speaking of Bert, in this season he got to sing a song and do a dance about the bird he loves most of all.

The other noteworthy new characters were Biff and Sully, two construction workers who would always be seen working on some sort of construction project. Biff was purple and talked a lot, Sully was orange and didn’t say anything.

Now not much may have happened during season 5, but quite a bit happened during season 6. The biggest thing being that Gordon changed actors for the last time. Season 6 introduced us to the Gordon I, and many others grew up with: Roscoe Orman. And we didn’t care that he was bald. For all we knew, that’s how he always was.

Along with a new Gordon, as usual there were new muppets. Namely, writer’s block prone song-writer, Don Music, crafty bird, Poco Loco, barely understandable growling monster, Frazzle, and the rock ‘n’ roll sensations, Little Jerry and the Monotones.

And this is the season where Grover would perform his most famous demonstration of near and far. And work himself to complete exhaustion in the process.

This season also introduced a new animated character, and I’ll give you a hint on who it is: Noony noony noony noo.

That’s right, season 6 featured an animated typewriter on wheels, in his segments he would type a letter, then a word that begins with the letter he typed, and then miraculously, the word he typed magically appeared next to him. A little hard to follow, but you’ll get it.

It was also this season that introduced a new song that everybody loved, but no one new the name to. Uh, it was called, La Dee Da, uh… you know what, I’ll just show you the song and see if you can figure it out.

Still nothing? Dang it.

But anyway, in other news, Sesame Street was now airing on 250 American television stations, and in 41 different countries on Earth. It was becoming more and more popular by the minute, so it was time to take the next step.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was first started in 1924, and gradually got more and more popular since then, but this year it was about to get a lot sunnier and a lot furrier.

The CTW made a float for the Sesame Street cast and muppets to all fit on. The cast would be on the outside waving to all of the people on the sidelines, while the muppets would be stuck out of the windows and other areas you wouldn’t be able to see the puppeteers. (Now this is where I’m gonna skip ahead for a little bit.) Then, starting in 1979, the float would be given brief updates after every bunch of years, until finally in 2004, the version we see nowadays (And hopefully this year) was made.

So now the street was part of a yearly parade. What could possibly be next? A road trip, apparently.

Yep, starting with episode 810 in season 7, Luis, Maria, Gordon, Bob, Big Bird and Oscar took a trip in a truck to New Mexico to visit Luis’ grandparents in a 6 episode arc. We got to see the characters find out more about the country they were in, interact with the people there, and keep in contact with their friends at home.

Of course that wasn’t the only thing that happened this season. The human cast got a new edition: Her name was Buffy Saint-Marie, and she was an Indian folk-singer who moved to Sesame Street in episode 802, and quickly made friends with the rest of the cast, and Big Bird, and Oscar. Also, she later joined the gang on their NM trip for a brief period of time.

Oh, and also there was an episode where the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz stops by and messes with the street residents, but nothing really came of that.

2, 4, 6, 8, this eighth season’s really great! And possibly the biggest reason for that, it decided to put more focus on the girls/women of Earth, and how they mattered just as much as the boys did.

For example, not only did they bring back Linda Bove (who just made frequent guest appearances in the previous seasons) and make her a fully-fledged cast member, they also added Olivia, Gordon’s younger sister played by Alaina Reed. She’s a photographer, and a real dang good singer. You should totally check out some of her songs.

Another example is that they got the Pointer Sisters to sing a song for an animation that brought a classic arcade game back to the forefront of people’s minds: Pinball.

Yep. I dare you to say after hearing that that you don’t wanna play pinball, or don’t know how to count to 12.

A third example is that Buffy’s family moves in with her this season. Her husband Sheldon and her baby son, Cody joined the cast, and the first time Big Bird met Cody, he was… more than a little jealous. But luckily Buffy reassured him that everyone still loved him just the same, and he did warm up to the little tike.

Mr. Hooper was also moving up in the world in this season. Not only did his store reach 25 years of service, but he also graduated from the G.E.D. program he was taking. Good job, Mr. H!

And also, Sesame Street aired its 1000th episode this season! Wow! That’s amazing! I mean, 100 episodes is nice, but 1000 episodes?! That’s unfathomable!

So what happens in this episode you might ask?

• Does Big Bird suddenly get the ability to fly?
• Do Bert and Ernie move into a new apartment?
• Does Cookie Monster manage to consume every cookie on Earth?
• Do the grown-ups finally get to meet Mr. Snuffleupagus? (FORESHADOWING)

No, actually none of those things happened. What happened in episode 1000 of Sesame Street is… Bob found a puppy.

...Well. …That was anticlimactic.

But now we get into season 9, where Buffy, Sheldon and Cody have moved all the way to Hawaii, and in another multi-episode story arc (This time 7 episodes) Maria, Olivia, Bob, Mr. Hooper, Big Bird, Oscar, and even Snuffy (I’d like to note that this was when Snuffy looked like he does now.) take a trip there to visit them. There, Mr. Hooper proves that he can still surf as good as young dudes, Big Bird and Snuffy find Mount Snuffleupagus, and everyone gets together to celebrate Cody’s birthday.

But, there was also a lot going on on the street this season, too. For new muppets, we got the bovine diva, Gladys the Cow, and the monster that would be known for having two heads.

Meanwhile, Cookie Monster put on his big boy bathrobe as he became Alistair Cookie, the host of Monsterpiece Theatre. A clear cut spoof of PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre, that showcases tons of parodies of classic movies. And it was amazing.

Meanwhile, the celebrity appearances really got more memorable in this season. The most memorable being Ernie, Bert, and Grover singing songs with Ray Charles and Madeline Kahn, respectively.

And last, but not least there were a batch of animated segments.

• Super cool detectives, Billy Joe Jive and Smart Susie Sunset.
• Normal girl Marcia Middlewell, secretly known as Thelma Thumb.
• A boy, girl and animal, named He, She and It, who explain how certain things work.
• And a guy who reads signs.

Yep, 9 years and 9 seasons is pretty good for any show, but just as you might have suspected, they were about to hit double digits.

Chapter 1: https://thomperfan.blogspot.com/2020/10/street-knowledge-chapter-1.html

Chapter 3: https://thomperfan.blogspot.com/2020/10/street-knowledge-chapter-3.html