Counting Down The Best Sesame Street Sketches, Encore Edition
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Hi everyone. Welcome back to another encore episode. Today. It's episode 111, 10, nine, eight, a Sesame Street, top 10 countdown, and if last week's encore of episode 110 where we talked all about our love of Sesame Street and just how amazing it was, if that didn't just get you in all the feels, today's definitely will, because today is the episode where we crowdsourced our listeners and asked them which was your favorite Sesame Street skit. You know, the skits like rubber ducky
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and
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Ladybug picnic Grover screaming far,
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and he goes like this, you know, he runs when you started to say that it was
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like, fine. I missed that episode. No Grover goes like this, fine. Yeah, that's right. And then you hear
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me anyway. And as we like to do, we put them in a top 10 list. And one of our favorites is a skit that we just mentioned, I don't know, a month or so ago when we had our fun conversation about a lot of our social media posts that, weirdly, have just taken off. And that was the king of eight. And as of today, 20,000 likes, 9000 shares, because I think people are just craving this old content and this old comfort from their childhoods. And King of eight is so cute, and then just, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, we shared that amazing, the little conversation between Kermit and that little darling girl named Joey. They're trying to sing the ABCs, and Joey keeps saying Cookie Monster, and then they laugh and laugh and Kermit laughs And again, that just that skyrocketed. What is it? What is it right now? I think that it's something we're craving. It's stuff we've talked about ongoing throughout this podcast. Journey. It. It hits a part of us and makes us feel some comfort in a time when things are a little bit rocky, and it makes us,
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you know, connect, but there's younger selves as well as each other. Yes, right now, 100% Yeah. And we're also looking at a style of we talked last week about creativity and how Sesame Street may have been an inspiration for many people to go into creative fields. And so the king of eight in particular is like, it's live action, stop motion. It's very old school. And I think creativity for children, like the things that we put in front of children nowadays have, there's been this push to make it seem more and more realistic, until you can't figure out if it's real or if it's not, and we I liked it when it was very clear that it wasn't real, yes, well, and I think it's also the simplicity of and the repetitiveness of these songs. So I mean, think about like rubber ducky or Ladybug picnic. They're nostalgic for us, and in a time right now where it's very divisive, it those songs do connect us, and really, whether or not we want to be connected with others right now, I know speaking for me personally, and I think for you all as well, regardless if, if we want to be connected, there's comfort in knowing that we are, yeah. Does that make sense? It's grounding. It's very grounding. I also sometimes it makes me a little sad to know that those messages that I felt like we were all getting at the exact same time from Sesame Street just about kindness and understanding and empathy and diversity, all of those things, emotions, some of us maybe clung to those a little bit more than others. I don't know. It's hard to explain, but it's like we all watch that. And why aren't we all leaning into that? I know today that rocks my boat a little bit. Our job is to peel back those layers and remind everyone. You know, there was a time exactly,
Unknown Speaker 3:57
yes, exactly, that's the thing that I think is shaking you Carolyn, because there was a time when we all agreed that being kind and compassionate and understanding was good. It was in the good column.
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And it's weird when other people don't see it that way. You're like, I thought this was, this was universal. Like, right? Yeah,
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yeah, an Oscar the crouch could be kind Yes. Of course, everybody was kind to Oscar, like they got it that he maybe had a rough childhood. And, you know, knows, but they were empathetic to Oscar, yeah, exactly. They didn't like make fun of him or chastise you know, I think all of these skits are so needed today, and I think that, you know, just like we've, we've been talking a lot about the free to be you and me, isn't it just kind of,
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kind of depressing, but also really wonderful that these messages are still around and that we're and that we're ingesting them. That sounds weird, that we're absorbing them as adults. It.
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Doesn't end in childhood. We don't stop learning about being a good person and how to treat each other after you turn 10 right. Need reminders. And to your point, Michelle, these are these are bombs. And if you're having a tough day, I guarantee you that you will feel better. If you go to YouTube and you bring up some of these kids from Sesame Street, you will because those are in your heart and they're in your souls, and they're in your in your cells. Yeah.
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Chiang, show me a soda or just listen. Just listen today to the song core of episode 111 because not only are you going to get a heavy dose of all this, this balm and this wonderfulness. You're also going to get a little bit of a debate about Ernie nipples, and
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who doesn't want that? So enjoy Episode 111. 1098, a Sesame Street, top 10 countdown. Did you know that the pop culture Preservation Society is on Patreon? Patreon allows you to support our work by becoming dues paying members of our society. We are an independent women run endeavor with a commitment to delivering the highest quality listening experience to our community. And so we've taught ourselves how to record, edit and produce a podcast in midlife, a time when most of us are asking our kids how to re gram a Tiktok so that we can deliver episodes that truly speak to you. Support from PCPs patrons means that we can devote more of our time and resources to the content, sources, equipment, software, hosting and research that you've come to depend on, without worrying about how to pay the bills. So thank you. We appreciate you from the bottom of our bell bottom tarts.
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In my mind, I remember him having little nipples. Did he think he did? I think it's just, I think it's just brown felts
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come up pretty high on him. So, okay, so I'm imagining ernie's nipples. Then I was not thinking about like, like my Christian's first fantasy below the water. Yeah,
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hello world. Is a song that we're singing.
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Come on. Get
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happy. Bringing
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will make you happy.
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Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who all believe they'd die by quicksand. We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition, and today we are saving the best animations, videos and skits from our generation Sesame Street as determined by you and us in a countdown of our top 10 Sesame Street favorites. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists. You okay,
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you guys, I'm going to try something, listeners and Carolyn and Kristen, just see if you can join in with me, if all I sing is this manomena, do
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mana? Do
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the point of this is that all of us in this generation, and these past two weeks, we've been calling ourselves the Sesame Street generation. We are all bonded by these indelible skits, animations, videos and songs from the OG Sesame Street. They have all lived rent free in our heads for about 40 or 50 years. Wow. That's a long time still to this day, when I open it, Thanks, Carolyn,
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that's more than 30 years,
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still a great day when I when I open a cupboard, I might go abierto and Mike will Go Serato.
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Yes, 30 seconds, just 30 seconds that made a lifelong impact on two people who grew up in two completely different areas of the country,
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an
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orange guy trying to open a blue box. But also, I'd forgotten all about that one, and now, when you just said that, I knew I could picture it exactly in my head. We all know how to speak Spanish thanks to Sesame Street. We know what open and closes, but that's all. That's what I've got. It's all lived there, right? Yeah. Well, I can still see the still image of the Mad painter with his paint can and his brush. And I just know, if I just see a still image of it, I know what's about to happen. I know he's.
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About to go paint a number on something he's not supposed to, like a tablecloth or a sale or someone's sleeping face, right? Or if I see like, I love how he made fours. I don't know why I was so fascinated with that four. He made the numbers perfectly, like you could he made the number two perfectly on someone's sleeping face, like I can picture the man he was in a floating raft in the pool, I believe. And he would just like the painter, would just appear out of the water.
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Remember that he would just end the paintbrush. It made the paintbrush made the lines so perfectly. I guess you just said that, but I'm still I can't stop talking about it, because I love it. It was perfect. Or if I just see a still image of Kermit and he's dressed in his trench coat. I know there's something awry with a fairy tale, and he's reporting on it for the Sesame Street News, because those were some of my favorite skits that live have lived in my head. And do you guys remember the videos of things like how crayons were made, or how aluminum cans were recycled, or how they made chewing gum, or just you could just simply watch a video of them spray painting the numbers or the lines on the highway or a city street. I lived for those videos. So and there were our followers on Instagram. They were also head over heels for these little like slice of life videos. One of our followers on Instagram said she and her sister were desperately trying to track down the video about how sweaters are made and the one with all the sheep, but so far, no luck. Someone else loved the film they did with the mailman carrying mail by horse up to people in the mountains. But the one that people bonded over the most in the comments was the milk song in a video about how we get milk. I know you guys, that's how I was, too, but you have to go watch it, because you go.
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So I looked it up. Boom, who's gardood? It's so gentle and lovely with cows and farmers, and it's backed up by this trippy smooth jazz song called the milk song. And at the end, it shows a mom putting milk into her cart at the grocery store. She's a black woman with a very stylish late 60s hairdo, and I almost screamed yes when she came on the screen. I almost screamed. I knew that mom. I knew the shirt she was wearing, I knew the earrings she was wearing. I recognized the bottle of milk in her hands. It was all so familiar. But what people in the comments loved the most was the song and patina Reeth said, I used to be a cafeteria lady. When we would restock the little cartons of milk, we would sing, milk, milk, milk, because
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that's how the song goes.
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And she was not the only one. There were so many people who were trying to type how they sang that weird little milk song. I'm gonna go look it up. Maybe, maybe we should put it in the Weekly Reader. We'll see. We should definitely put it in the Weekly Reader. But that's what I loved about those videos. It would show you the whole process, and then at the end, you would see someone like put the piece of chewing gum in their mouth, or you would then see how it got to you. I thought it was like magic. Yeah. Well, there are countless videos and Muppet skits that played over and over again, and sometimes they're the exact same one, like the ladybug picnic or that pinball machine. But sometimes, like in the case of the Mad painter or the animated typewriter that he, you know, he wheels himself out and he takes his little like Hamburger Helper hands, and he like types
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one letter. He like types one letter. Like, maybe he types an a and then a big airplane zooms by or something.
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Or maybe it was like a recurring bit between Kermit and Grover, the ones that like frustrated Kermit to hell and back. But those ones, those ones sometimes change depending on the letter or the concept or the number that they were that was being taught that week, but we still recognized them. Yeah, right, we did. That's what made this show. I think so successful was the repetitiveness. Yeah, yeah. We did not mind seeing the milk song over and over and over again. We're like, when are they gonna play the milk song? It was sort of like watching MTV, like, when are they gonna play thriller? It totally was. And we all had as we're about to or as we're about this whole episode is about. We all had our favorites. So even as like, a four or five year old child, I had enough. I would sit there enough and be like, Ah, it's this one. You know, it's the type, sure, yeah. But if it's like, oh, here come the ladybugs, you know, and I could sing along with it, or we all had things that just spoke to us more than others, and it's been different for all of us, as evidenced by this list we're about to share with you. But that's what was just so fun. It was just such a show for us that lives like a variety show, kind of, right? Yeah, they were wizards. They were child wizards. Child wizards that I don't know what the hell that means. So when we posted on social media and asked our listeners to tell us which of these was their most memorable, the response was huge. So once again, I put on my visor and got out my adding machine. I don't know why you need to wear a visor when you do math, but you do it's kind of cool.
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You're clear, maybe clear green, yeah, it's clear. It's my advisor, yeah, and there's a band around my arm too, of course, yeah, it's for doing math. All of a sudden you're like, a dealer, yes, you know,
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does that involve math? I don't know. So I did lots and lots of math, and Carolyn and Michelle and I also contributed our most memorable bits. And things were weighted and given values, and I had to carry and borrow, which I don't even think is a thing anymore. Well, it should be. I think it's gone. I don't think our kids know how to carry and borrow. No, oh, that's another episode. Okay, anyway. And then voila, I've come up with the top 10 PCPs Sesame Street favorites, a one and a two and a chick up on my chick,
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and there were so many nominations, and all of your favorites deserve to be heard. And so if you stay tuned after the outro at the end of this episode, I will read a list of all the vote getters that didn't make it into the top 10, but still nonetheless deserve to be recognized. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. I like, I'll make a list. That's when I thought there were 25 comments. No, no, there was 25 comments in the first three minutes on that crowdsourcing. I'm like, oh shit. What am I doing?
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Okay, drum roll please. In the number 10 spot, we have the alligator King. I love the alligator. I had forgotten about all of these, basically, oh. So with just a handful, I had forgotten about these, until you see the animation and you go, Oh, I know that guy. So the song tells the story. This is from 1971 and it's about the number seven. The song tells the story of an alligator King who is feeling mighty down and offers his crown to whichever of his seven sons can cheer him up. Said the alligator King, to his seven sons, I'm feeling mighty down, whichever of you can cheer me up. We'll get to where my crown. The first six princes bring their father luxurious gifts that all seem to go awry in some way, like like seven oyster pearls that get stuck on his alligator claws and and seven rubies that he thinks are cherries, and he puts them in his mouth, and he breaks all his teeth. And then this was my favorite one, seven diamond rings that he puts on his foot claws, the memory of the foot claws, yeah, like it's just burned in my brain. Just you saying it like I haven't watched it. Just you saying it now I'm like, going, yes, yes, I know, right. You just totally forgot about it. It's like the most joyous feeling. So unfortunately, those diamond rings on his foot claws, they make him trip, and he falls down. And then the seventh son comes in. He's empty handed, but he sees that his father needs help. And this is where they insert into the song a little boy's voice being like, Hello, Father, it looks like you need some help. And he helps his dad up. And this is the son who wins the crown. It's like I said, it's the animation that is so familiar to me. This was produced by Bud lucky. The music was performed by a jazz musician named Turk Murphy, and then lucky played the banjo. So this is just so folksy. It's so 1970 I can hardly stand it. That was the alligator King. That's our number 10. Number 10, all right. Well, coming in at number nine, which I was kind of surprised it wasn't higher, but that's okay, at number nine, we have one of my favorites, rubber ducky, written in 1970 by Jeff Moss. It appeared in the very first season of Sesame Street, and it's Ernie signature song. It is a tribute to his beloved rubber ducky. It was actually released out into on the radio and stuff, and I didn't know that. Yes, it charted number 16 on billboards, 100 singles in 1970
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if like today, like a song from, like, I don't know, what are the the and, like, blue, I'm trying to think, yeah, it was on the Billboard top 100
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so sad that we have trouble naming a children's show. I mean, that just shows where we are in our lives. Yeah? And then they watch so many, like, streaming ones. They're not even ones we would have any exposure to whatsoever. I didn't know how to parent today. I would have no idea. Thank you for saying that. I would have known. But besides the song I remember, and this might sound a little odd, but you know, Ernie would be in his bathtub, and Ernie wouldn't have a shirt on. Ernie, what you're gonna say? I know what you're gonna
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it was just, I mean, I was amazing. I was wondering, I would wonder what was underneath bubbles too. Like, was this a naked puppet? Like, there was a little bit of, I don't know, some tantalizing aspect to it, and that it was not, kind of like, Wait, why is Ernie in the but.
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Funny thing is, it's so kind of kind of gross now to think what was under the bubbles, it was just some guy's hand
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stuck
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up. Ernie, a great point. I don't think I knew there was someone's hand under there, at least when I started watching it wasn't until later I have vague memories of watching it with my sister and trying to catch a hand coming up, like, could I ever see, like the human hand underneath one of the puppets? Like that would be a really sneaky thing. I think I was in denial. I was not looking for the hand. I certainly didn't know anything about the hand until I was probably over eight and, oh, sorry, yeah, I'm looking away. I'm not going to accept this. Yeah, I was gonna say I was probably spoiling it for my sister. I got a lot of joy out of being mean to my sister, so I'm sorry, Ronnie, thank you so much, though, for that memory. Because when you just said when Ernie was in the bathtub, 100% I relate to that. I relate to it wasn't like as much tantalizing to me, but it was like, what's under the bubbles, like what I would try to imagine, what his fur like, what his body like? Does he have a little orange butt? Does he, you know? And it reminds me of a funny story that's just like family lore. Sorry, everyone, you're gonna get one of those. Guess what my daughter said when she was little stories, but when my older daughter was little, like maybe two and a half, I was trying to potty train her, and she was sitting on the toilet, and she was just thoughtful, so thoughtful. And she looked at me, she's like, Mommy. I was like, yeah, she goes.
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When Elmo goes potty, does his fur get wet?
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It's just one of those that I was like, you wanted to laugh, but I was like, yes, Wow. I've never thought it well, he probably wipes it and, you know, gets it dry, just like but she was just sitting there on the toilet and just thinking so hard, thinking about Elmo when he goes potty. But that's how I would get about honey in the bathtub, because it was the only time you saw him without his shirt shirt, right? And I don't know if I'm making this up, but when you said he didn't have a shirt on, I immediately went nipples, because in my mind, I remember him having little nipples. Did he think he did? I think it's just, I think it's just brown felts
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come up pretty high on him. So, okay, so I'm imagining ernie's nipples. Then I was not thinking about, like, like my Christian's first fantasy below the water. Yeah,
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yeah. I was just, I thought it was a person, you know, I thought he was real. I thought, like, is, you know, that he's all the way on there, not in a tantalizing, weird way, just like he, oh, he's like, me. You guys think how cute Ernie little butt would be. It would be, be so cute. Little felt butt sitting on the bathtub, and his little leg sticking out
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straight. Rubber ducky, you're the one you make bath time. Lots of fun. Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you.
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In our number eight spot, we have Drum roll, please. The aliens discover the telephone. You guys, this was my number one, and I can't believe it's at number eight, because this is my number one. I love the aliens. So you have these two fuzzy aliens, right, who are terrified of things like clocks and books and telephones, and they're best known for their language. They go, yep,
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uh huh, uh huh, yep, nope, nope, nope. Oh, and when they get scared, they hide underneath their lower lip, which shoots up to cover their face. So their lip is up by their eyeballs on top of their head. So they have, they have a book that they will consult about these earthly things. They'll go, book, book, book, and they open, but the book doesn't help, because they can't they can't follow the line of thought. So like, they think they're consulting the book about a grandfather clock, and they think the grandfather clock is a person, because the book says that people are tall and they have faces and they have hands, and they're like, Gong. It's just so funny. So when the aliens come across a telephone, they're very curious, and they say hello to it, but the telephone doesn't do anything. So then they try moving at it, and then they meow, and their lips are really big, and they scoop out wide, and they go meow,
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looking at the telephone, waiting for it to respond. But nothing, nothing. But then the phone rings, and they get very excited, and they go bring
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they start imitating the telephone, and all is right with the world. Oh, my God,
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ah, oh. Well, coming in at number seven is a huge surprise to me that it's not higher on our list, but coming in at number seven.
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Is manomena. Did you know
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that manomena is actually the name of the purple Muppet with the wild orange hair and that furry green kind of beat neck looking tunic? Oh yeah, yeah, it's actually what they called him. He had some other names in the past, but for the most part, it's manomena. He was sometimes referred to as Harry, but an early version of this sketch first appeared on Sesame Street on November 27 1969 just 17 days after Sesame Street premiered. But it was an appearance of Jim Henson and his Muppets on The Ed Sullivan Show on November 30 that same year, doing manomena. That cemented the song's fame. It just went crazy. Everybody couldn't get enough of it. The first version, the one from the late 60s and early 70s. This is the one I'm most familiar with. It's the two little girl puppets, and they're just trying to sing the song. Okay, let's sing a song. Should we sing a song? Okay, doo. Doo. Doo, doo, doo. And then here he comes, dude. And they kind of look like they're surprised, but they're like, Okay, do, do, do, do? You know, he just kind of walks around, and then he, like, runs back and he runs forward, and
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actually interesting fact, but Manama comes in, and everyone just kind of sings together, and at the end, the girls just kind of wander off. Everyone's just kind of okay with it.
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The version that appeared on the very first episode of The Muppet Show in 1976 and this episode was the one with Juliet Prowse. The girls are replaced by these monsters called the snows, which is a combination of snout and mouth. It's this bright pink monster. And manomena, in this version by 1976 is a lot more crazed, and the snows are a lot more aggravated at him. And it's very funny to watch how aggravated they get, because he's just kind of losing his mind with a phenomenon, you know.
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So there's two versions that you should look up, and they're both, they're both pretty funny.
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That's fun
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fact,
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did you know that this song originally appeared in a steamy film about Swedish sexuality? Wait, the actual song? Yep, it was written by, I forgot. I didn't write it down, but it's, it was, it was an actual song, and it originally appeared in a racy Italian film called svezia Inferno I Paradiso. I don't know if I said that right. It means Sweden, Heaven and Hell. And there's a scene where a bunch of Swedish models crowd into a sauna, and they're just wearing bath towels. If you just search manomena, though, on the if you're on The Muppet with wiki fandom, it gives you all the different versions of manomena. And it gives you this, and in the background you hear it. It's going, doo, doo, doo, doo, but do. But Do, do, do. It's not the phenomena. It's just the it's like,
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wow.
Unknown Speaker 28:04
So you guys, I am definitely putting in a link to this fun article that I got this whole this was not on the Muppet Wiki, dot fandom, whatever it is. This was, I think it was me. Nominad turns 50. It was just this fun article I found online, and I'm gonna definitely put a link to that in this week's Weekly Reader, because there is a lot more fun facts about this song we just don't have time today. And really links to some really fun YouTube versions, including one from the UK version of the office, where the cat on the office they were singing it, and another really cute one with Sandra Bullock from a show called Muppets tonight in the 2000s where she's doing a version of it, so it'll never die. It'll never die because it's the funniest thing that's ever been produced. Let's just be honest, right? Well, and that's, you know, like we said at the very beginning, that's just one of those things for our age mates that you can just walk up and say to anyone, I challenge you to, you know, we always say, if you need an icebreaker at a cocktail party, say, like, what's your favorite Brady Bunch episode, or what was your first concert? How about the concert? How about this one? Just walk up to someone and
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go see what they do, or run away and then see if they go right away you do or that's your vetting process. Yeah, won't be friends. I have a little story that just came to me as you were singing it and when you talked about it being on The Muppet Show, because for some reason, there was always a part of me, and it makes sense now that kind of didn't really like that song. It gave me a weird feeling. And now I've just put two and two together. Four. Okay, here you go. It. The Muppet Show would be on on like, Saturday nights. Maybe it was syndicated, maybe, and it would come on at like, 630 and before, like, regular TV, and lots of times my parents would be going out, and we were having a babysitter come, and I didn't like babysitter. I didn't like when my parents went out. I just it was, I was one of those kids, and then, like, sleeping over places a lot of times, and I didn't.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
My parents weren't home, and so lots of times that song, you know, that show would be on, and that song would come on, and it would give me, I can just feel it now, like when you were saying when it would be on The Muppet Show, and I didn't like it because I remembered how I felt when I was watching it when I was a kid. Because oftentimes my parents were getting ready to go out and we were just waiting for the babysitter to come over. Oh, but it goes back Carolyn to just what we talked about last week, music. I mean, it's like science, the way it unlocks just so many different kinds of memories for us. Like, that's just deep, amazing. Yeah, number six, number six is going to warm your heart. In our number six spot, we have two little dolls, two, two little
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dolls, 122, little chairs, two little dolls, two
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little chairs, two little
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girls. And Annette said in our comment section, two little dolls was my favorite. It was the two little girls playing with the madam Alexander dolls in the house, and the two kittens come into the dollhouse and mess everything up. And it's like you can hear, if you could hear words typed on a screen, these would be like Joy bouncing off the walls, like she's so excited to be given the opportunity to talk about two little dolls. So this is also known as dollhouse in some instances, and it is a song about the number two. It's from 1970 it's a live action film by Jim Henson about two girls playing with their dollhouse. And people were really into the madam Alexander dolls. Do you guys remember these? They were a big deal. I mean, I bet I had 30. I mean, my mom got us one for every birthday, every Christmas, and my girls too. So I have all the old I still have all the old ones. And my girls got one for every birthday until they were probably, like, 16 or something. So we have tubs of them in their original boxes. Yeah, we weren't allowed to play with those. We couldn't play with their hair was, yeah, what was the point?
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Are you kidding? What? I just didn't, I just didn't like the idea of a doll I couldn't play with collectors. And they're beautiful, to be honest with you. They were way more for my mom than they were for us. Yes, that's right, yeah. I think, I think, how to Carolyn, you do really do not like animals who act like humans and do human things. My version of that is doll hair. I do not like doll hair. It freaks me out. Doll hair, yes. And my memory of Madame Alexander dolls is, like, the hair is all ready, and then I'd see the holes in the head, and wait, I didn't like, you're thinking of a different doll. I think the madam Alexander doll hair is, like, beautiful and, like, so styled almost with, like, a little intern. It's perfect. I mean, it probably ruined it. Yeah, I think that's what happened to me. I think I maybe got one like as a gift, and I immediately was like, gonna take it out of the box and do something with it? And my mom was like, No, that's not what you do. And then maybe I never got one after that.
Unknown Speaker 32:51
So in the video, two little dolls, and with their man of Alexander dolls that I apparently I'm afraid of, they show us all the tiny little dollhouse things like two little hats and two little plates and two little spoons and, oh my god, the little spoons are so fast, but the two little spoons and then eventually, two cats get into the dollhouse, and they knock everything over. And I love it when we learn things from our followers, when they just put things in the comments. I'm like, huh? Is that true? So H Faulk said that dollhouse was actually built by Jim Henson for his daughters. That's his daughter's dollhouse that he built for them. What? Oh, yeah. The entire film was shot inside his daughter's bedroom, Cheryl and Lisa. So that was Cheryl and Lisa's bedroom, and the cats were owned by the Henson family. Those were Jim Henson's cats let loose in the dollhouse. So Doris, she comments quite a bit on our on our page. She says, when those two naughty kitties barge into the house at the end, it's hilarious, and the two little girls being amused rather than upset with the invading cats is so cute. The little electric lights in the dollhouse also wowed me to pieces. And can we talk a minute? This is dore is talking, not me. Can we talk a minute about how progressive it was for that time for the two girls to be of different races, a Caucasian girl and an Asian girl. When I got older, I really learned to appreciate and admire that, and she's right. I think Sesame Street would have been the only place we would have seen that. Okay. Coming in at number five is something that was very, very high on my list. And number two, I believe, might have even been tight for number one, but that is Grover as the waiter. And specifically, the one that kept showing up again and again from our Instagram followers is the fly in my soup one. But really, I feel like it could be any of the ones where Grover is the waiter. This is the one that Kristen, you were even wondering last week about the blue headed round the round headed man with the mustache, and so that's Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Johnson is always the customer, and Grover is the waiter at Charlie's restaurant. Grover's always his waiter, and always, always messes.
Unknown Speaker 35:00
Things up. Usually the sketch is teaching a concept, like in the case of the fly on my soup skit, it's teaching in as opposed to near under on next to you guys, I would get so excited when I see Mr. Johnson sitting at that checkered tablecloth, and know the hilarity that was about to ensue for me, because I loved Grover, adorable furry Grover, your friend, adorable furry Grover. He was always so convinced he was right, and Mr. Johnson would get so increasingly aggravated, and he would usually always end up saying, Why do I always come to this restaurant? And as a kid, you're kind of like exactly, but that's the joy of it, right, that he does. And over the many, many years that this skit recurred, Grover would show up as a worker at Mr. Johnson's vet after a few years, or working at other places Mr. Johnson would go. So they kept this whole shtick going for years and years, because I think it was so successful, it was hilarious to me. Oh. Waiter, not now, sir.
Unknown Speaker 36:08
Yes, sir. Waiter, at your service, sir. Waiter, there's a fly in my soup. Could you do something about it? There is a fly in your soup in this establishment? Yeah, I should do something about it instantaneously, sir. Do you know my favorite part of Grover as the waiter, is, hmm, is, is the the cloth that is over his arm, the little white cloth he'd hold his arm out, yeah. And I don't even, I didn't understand what that was for at the time, but that signified that he was a waiter, yes, but it's I was probably watching the fly in my soup one last night, and it's so funny to watch him carry the soup because, you know, it has to probably be someone's hand under there. That's not but you guys, there's soup in the bowl. There's noodle soup in the bowl. They put it on the table, and you can see it moving around in the ball. Real kudos to them for the realist realism. Yeah, yeah, because sort of tied for this one. But in the same vein, is another one of my favorites was on my list. Is Grover, again, shock, but it's near and far, and a lot of people mentioned near and far with Grover, again, our adorable, furry little pal, Grover, and I'm just going to tell you the things I loved about this sketch, I'm sure are the things our listeners and our followers loved about this sketch has nothing to do with learning the concept of near and far, but it's everything about The clip clop of his shoes as he runs, and the way he just gets so increasingly out of breath, and it's like you
Unknown Speaker 37:30
won't see it one more time. Oh, sure, I'm not doing anything. Okay. This is me.
Unknown Speaker 37:41
This is far.
Unknown Speaker 37:44
It is classic, repetitive learning, right? But in true Sesame Street fashion, they made it so silly and so adorable that we learned it. You can't help but not understand what Mary far is at the end of that. And oh, can't you guys just hear the and here's what I do now. As an adult, I can imagine the person on the side doing the shoes, you know,
Unknown Speaker 38:04
as you know, so cute. I love it. Very cute. Well, coming in at number four was actually my number one, and it is the baker in the chef's hat falling down the stairs. Here,
Unknown Speaker 38:27
chocolate pies.
Unknown Speaker 38:32
I love it so much. Well, let me tell you, in my mind, it's a stand alone thing, but it's actually a part of a series of a longer segment called the numerosity films, which each film, if you remember, it opened with an animated sequence where kids are counting up to 10, and it's like a kaleidoscope of numbers that are coming like at us, and the kids are yelling Yes, and then we're not yelling at They're saying yes. Actually, that animation was like very new and cutting edge animation. It was like a Spirograph right on your exactly screen, yeah. So they count forward to 10 and then back to one, and then another animated sequence followed, and children would count to the specific number, and then there'd be other animated numbers, kind of zooming around the screen. So what would happen and be go, like, 123, or 56789, 10, you count backwards, and then you'd know what the number was going to be for this episode. So it'd be like one or two or whatever. And then there were different human characters, like jugglers, professors, and they would have objects somewhere in this film. So it might be like four bananas. And you they would count the bananas. And then finally, the baker that we'd call out, whatever number it was. So if it was again, like four before banana, green pie.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Yes, and he'd be holding them, and that was actually Jim Henson's voice that was saying that. And
Unknown Speaker 40:06
Alex Stevens was our Baker who would tumble down the stairs. Actually a professional stunt performer at one point, was actually the president of the East Coast stuntmans Association,
Unknown Speaker 40:21
and he was good at these pratfalls. Now, our founder of Sesame Street, or our Creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, did not like the Baker's sketch. Oh, she didn't. Oh, not at all. She said. She basically said, I don't like it
Unknown Speaker 40:40
very in a flat voice. She's like, I don't like it. Banana Peel humor. That's male, and it's from age four on. Younger children, two year olds, say they think he's hurt. And then why does the guy stay? And then she says, this show, meaning this EPI, this show of falling down the stairs, is definitely male oriented, and the films were eventually taken off the show for being deemed too violent. What? Okay, this is very interesting, because I don't disagree with her, and yet it's our favorite same I was gonna say that too, like as Carolyn's reading that I'm thinking, Oh, that makes kind of sense. But I was thinking I loved it. It made me laugh at Number What are we on? Number four,
Unknown Speaker 41:25
it's my number one. I i gotta say, I guess I can see it now, and I probably should do like to watch be more evolved, falling down. I do perhaps. Could it be that the baker falling down the steps was my initiation into enjoying people tripping and falling. And so that was the beginning. Yes, I'm just gonna say yes. Carolyn will sit in front of her iPad and watch YouTube videos of people falling down and laugh her ass off. Their favorite is on ice. Yes, when people fall on ice, that's horrible to say. That's male. I'm probably, as I've said many times, it's probably how I'm gonna perish from this earth. Is my fall somewhere. It's just or carrying trays of cakes and falling down the stairs. You know what's funny in the comments, a lot of people thought that the guy falling down the stairs was Mr. Bentley from the Jefferson totally can see that, yes, right, but that's and they're, but they're not. They're not completely wrong, because Mr. Bentley is on Sesame Street. He's the Mad painter. Oh, he is the Mad painter.
Unknown Speaker 42:30
Yes, he is Jefferson, yeah, Paul Benedict, I think is his name. We'll always just see him coming up out of the water. Yeah? So coming in at number three was my most memorable animation, and that's the ladybugs picnic. 1-234-567-8910,
Unknown Speaker 42:48
1112, the ladybugs came to the ladybugs picnic.
Unknown Speaker 42:52
But there's really not much to say other than this is the classic and well remembered animation with 12 little ladybugs gathering for a picnic. But I think it's the song that that is what makes this so memorable, and the singer's voice, and it was sung by a folk singer named Jim queskin, and it's not crescen, and I can't say my art, it's actually question.
Unknown Speaker 43:16
And I just loved it so much, and I still love it. You know, no matter what, tried to knock those little ladybugs down, they were falling on their faces out of their little bags a broken jump rope. They just made the best of it, didn't they just silly little guys making the best of it. And then at the end, they chatted about the high price of furniture and rugs, as as ladybugs do when they're around a bonfire, I would imagine so, so memorable to me. They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs and fire insurance for ladybugs. Ladybugs 12 at the ladybugs
Unknown Speaker 43:51
picnic, following closely on the heels of the ladybugs picnic is our number two spot, and that goes to 150, 456-789-1011,
Unknown Speaker 44:00
12. 12,
Unknown Speaker 44:03
the pinball number count,
Unknown Speaker 44:07
and I rated this one super high. It was probably in my number two spot too. I can't not sing it. I sing it all the time. I still sing it and on on Instagram. Chris 10, Sunshine 13, she said, when I was on the phone with my boss just a couple of days ago, and he was counting something, and he was doing it normally. I stopped him. I said, Hey, you have to do it right. And I started singing the pinball song. Oh, that's great.
Unknown Speaker 44:41
And here that's, this is just, here's another example of Wait, stop, and here's another example of our followers doing our research for us. This is put a nerd on it. I had to, like, break that down, because I was like, put Tanner didn't put a nerd on it. She says, fun fact, all of the pinball song versions were.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Performed by the Pointer Sisters. Oh, I didn't know that. I know that was the Pointer Sisters, she says, bonus Fun fact, for those who remember the animated numbered race cars, if you remember they pull up one by one, oh, to the starting line. Yes, that had a woman singing the numbers. She says, that was Grace Slick,
Unknown Speaker 45:22
no kidding. And I checked it out. She's right. Wow. Isn't that amazing? That is so amazing. It is the most 70s thing on Sesame Street. And I think that's one reason that I that I respond to it so hard, because the graphics are psychedelic. The song is very Funkadelic. It's it screams Kristen. I could sing in those I could count like that every single day. Apparently, there is a band called The Dead Henson's, and they covered a version of pinball number count, and they perform it in their concerts. And then there's a 2005
Unknown Speaker 45:58
episode of The Family Guy called the Father, the Son and the Holy Fonz, which is kind of cute, and it features its own remake of the pinball cartoon, with Stewie encased in inside a little plastic ball in place of the pinball, and Fox licensed the original audio so they could use it in the show. Oh, wow. So how much did that cost? No kidding. There you are. You would not believe the morning I've had
Unknown Speaker 46:35
Carolyn has the esteemed honor of revealing what the most memorable Sesame Street sketches amongst the pop culture Preservation Society.
Unknown Speaker 46:46
I'm honored to have this privilege of announcing the number one Sesame Street skit as voted on by our Instagram PCPs society. The number one Sesame Street skit is the A
Unknown Speaker 47:03
little girl going to the store.
Unknown Speaker 47:07
But that's
Unknown Speaker 47:08
not what it's called. Well called, it's actually called, I can remember that is the actual title of what we often refer to as little girl going to the store. I call it stick a butter, okay? Or we could call it stick a butter. And why do you call it that? Kristen, Can you recite for us? Oh, God, don't put me. Don't put me on the spot. Because I just remember. It's a container milk, a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, container milk.
Unknown Speaker 47:35
That's beautifully Yes. So in the kitchen with her, almost like she's a cold she almost, I love her. She does this, yeah. And what that the writers of that segment were trying to do were kind of show kids the importance of reciting something. If you recite something over and over again, you are more likely to remember it or to recall it. And as we know, that's all she says as she is going to the store to purchase.
Unknown Speaker 48:10
But guess what happens? She gets there, she remembers the container of milk, she remembers the loaf of bread, but for a moment she cannot remember the third thing. And she takes a minute, looks up in her brain, in her little thought bubble, stick of butter, it appears and she remembers,
Unknown Speaker 48:30
because she had said it so many times, so she recalls it. And it's that butter. I think it's that butter in the way she just Oh, to me, it's the animation. It's the way she walked.
Unknown Speaker 48:42
Her hands like, Yeah, her arms kind of flail a little bit like, can I say again? Here is a little kid go into the store
Unknown Speaker 48:54
and buy that stuff for her mom. Like, her mom trusts
Unknown Speaker 48:58
her
Unknown Speaker 48:59
that, yes. Well, interestingly, in my research for this episode, I came across a website called let grow okay. And the whole mission of this website, it's a current day website to promote the notion that our kids can do these things by themselves. They actually have stats about crime and how crime was actually higher in the 70s. When we're watching all of this, these things happen on Sesame Street. And they're saying this little girl, she's little, she's not even old enough to reach the counter at the store, but yet she's just proudly marching down the street. And they use that as an example of this is what let grow is all about. We want our kids to be able to do these things. And I just thought that was really interesting.
Unknown Speaker 49:51
Loaf of bread, a container milk and a stick of butter. Loaf of bread, a container milk and a stick of butter. I.
Unknown Speaker 50:00
That concludes our most Gen X countdown of all time, of the most memorable skits, songs and sketches from the most well known children's television show of all time, as voted by members of the Sesame Street generation. Today's episode was brought to you by the letter T and the number 10 for top 10. Get it. That was best I could do. So clever. And remember to stay tuned after the outro for a list of all the vote getters that didn't make it into the top 10. Get your pencils ready, because you will get who's good dude, and you will be running straight to YouTube. Thank you for listening today, and we will see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 50:35
And if you would like to actually see some of these skits and segments that we've been talking about, we will be sharing the top three in our Weekly Reader this week. If you are not already subscribed to our Weekly Reader, you can do that on our website, and you can also sign up on our link in bio on Instagram. It's a great read comes every Friday full of fun facts and things that we want you guys to know about.
Unknown Speaker 51:02
And did you know you can now see portions of our episodes on our YouTube channel? Yikes. But yes, you can just go to YouTube and search pop culture Preservation Society. And today's episode was funded by our supporters on Patreon. We like to thank our supporters by name, because everyone who joins our team over on Patreon gets a shout out on this podcast, because they are what makes all of this happen. It keeps us trucking, and we love them for it. And today, would like to give a big thank you to Kelly, Christy, Julie, Kristen, Megan, Linda and Melanie. And if you like what you hear, thank you so much for taking a moment to leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcast and rate on all platforms. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Threes Company, two good times, two Happy Days, Two Little House on the Prairie. Cheers. Cheers, everybody.
Unknown Speaker 52:03
Okay, here's our list of all of the vote getters from our Instagram followers. I'm excited. Pop culture, Preservation Society. They are our society. Here we go. The king of eight, who loved the number eight? The king of eight, something, eight, something. He had eight daughters. Eight is great.
Unknown Speaker 52:20
The llama at the dentist, when Grover sings with Madeline Kahn, that was really cute. The orange that rolls out of the fruit basket gets eyes and nose, mouth, eyelashes, hair and earrings from items on the counter, and proceeds to sing from Carmen. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 52:36
I know this person says, for most of us, and in typical Sesame Street form. It was probably our first exposure to opera. Yeah, that is probably true. The Count, the count, any time he would laugh and there would be lightning flashing. My brother and I would always go a Wandy dingy, two ringy dingy.
Unknown Speaker 52:56
Wanda the witch, lived somewhere west of Washington. Around her waist she wore a worm. I loved Wanda, the witch. Oh, God. When bird and Ernie go fishing, how do you remember how Ernie catches fish? No, no. He goes, here, Fishy, Fishy, Fishy. And
Unknown Speaker 53:12
they jump into the boat. There's a hole in the bucket. Dear Liza. Dear Liza, yes, bird and Ernie in the Egyptian pyramid. Bob singing the days of the week, the song letter B, sung by The Beatles, B, E, E, T, L, E, S,
Unknown Speaker 53:27
Lefty. The salesman sells Oh sells Ernie and eight. I think that's the one I was referring Oh yeah. Sing, sing a song with Bob, which, like we said, is a hit for the carpenters, Buffy Sainte Marie singing. I don't think I knew that was her, but I'm sure we enjoyed her Cookie Monster singing Wendy, by the associations, one of my earliest childhood memories, says this person who's walking down the streets of but you know
Unknown Speaker 53:54
what, I don't think it's Cookie Monster. I think it's just a blue monster. Oh, we'll see teeny, little super guy, monster piece theater with Alastair Cookie, the marmoset a skit called I'm a baby. And this person says, This sticks out on my mind because my cousins and I recreated the whole thing in our second floor hallway.
Unknown Speaker 54:15
Oh, Michelle, I think this is what you were talking about, these three different size little rubber balls making little sounds while rolling around and trying to roll into the correct sized hole. No, I don't think this. I'll show you, just so you guys can hear it really quick. I pulled it up, and I just wanted to show it to you real quick. Let's see. Whoops, it's
Unknown Speaker 54:40
Oh,
Unknown Speaker 54:42
it's like circus music. Oh, yeah, this is different.
Unknown Speaker 54:48
Oh, I think when I was, I think in the episode, I was thinking more about this one with the little holes. But this is cool.
Unknown Speaker 54:56
It's like a little roller coaster track, yes, and then it'll.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Go and hit all the different little numbers. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 55:04
Okay. Next we have Ernie and the Boogie Woogie Bugle sheep. I'd like to visit the moon, the little girl swimming like her frogs, the little Inuit girl showing how she gets dressed for the extreme cold. I did love that one. The daddy dear song for the letter D. I'm an Aardvark, and I'm proud anything with Don Music, I have to look that one up. When Ernie cuts Bert hair, Berts paper clip collection, when Ernie sketches Burt's face, and Ernie says, two ears, two eyes, two noses,
Unknown Speaker 55:36
the up and down. Sorry, but can you guys see that on the screen? He was and it was so cool. The like technology was so cool. He was drawing. He was tracing his face, and then when Burt moves his head, it was still there. That was unbelievable to me.
Unknown Speaker 55:49
The up and down song with Cookie Monster, mmm. Martha
Unknown Speaker 55:55
the Born to add Springsteen sketch, when step, when Snuffy was still invisible. Oscar the Grouch when he met slimy. Oh, James Taylor singing jelly man Kelly. Here's a song about jelly man Kelly. And then here's
Unknown Speaker 56:11
another one of those live action videos. Beat, beat sugar. Beat beat sugar. Beat, beat beat sugar. Beat, I don't know that one. It was about sugar beets. Oh, of course,
Unknown Speaker 56:22
the letter H and the steel foundry Ernie and the Tweedle bugs with their milk carton house and Matchbox car with the button wheels in his window box. That was super cute. 10 turtles, J Joe jeans and his jelly beans. Hey, let's sing a song about Jay Oscars. I love trash, one of these things, it's not like the other.
Unknown Speaker 56:43
The lowercase n, and we all live in a capital I. This person says those songs were my favorites. Those songs were really good. And it was true. 1970s pop music like these were not children's songs. These were, this was actual like pop music. No wonder we love these Kermit singing, it's not easy. Being green, this person says, it can still make me cry. Everyone eats. Is another one I loved above, below it all. Would that be Grover, I wonder. Kermit with a little girl saying the ABCs, and she keeps throwing in Cookie Monster, fat cat sat on the mat song, Burt doing the pigeon in his little saddle shoe dance. That's what he's hoping. No one was gonna be in there, because that's so you would see his actual feet and then, but you know, you would just see from his like, knees down. Of course, you couldn't see. It was so cute, so funny. Guy, full and Gonk cooperation skit. Grover is the waiter delivering cream of mosquito soup, Country Mouse, City Mouse. Ernie and Bert trying to go to the beach. And Bert has purple hands.
Unknown Speaker 57:45
Oh, the octopus garden. Sesame Street brought us a lot of popular music, like actual popular music. We talked about Wendy before they did up and away, the fifth dimension, right? And then octopus garden is the Beatles. Bruce Springsteen, we talked about that one. I also loved Guy Smiley in the sketch. All some and none. It resonates with me now, as I try to manage all of my tasks, co workers, family, etc, I did love Guy Smiley.
Unknown Speaker 58:12
Cowboy. Yeah, right. Well, Brian and I do it all the time. Hi,
Unknown Speaker 58:19
Guy Smiley
Unknown Speaker 58:21
because in front of his head, it was on a hinge in front of it. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 58:27
Also the cowboy in the saloon asking, I want to know why. And everyone wondering why, what, but he wanted to know how to draw the letter Y. Oh, good. I think there was also a cowboy X. I'm pretty sure there's cowboy X. Grover is a conductor on a train trying to get through a snowstorm, and then J, K, s, a says five people in my family. I loved that one, and personally held it against my baby sister for messing it up and making it six people in my family, she ruined it. Shauna has a lot of favorites. This is good. I'm just going to read this for you. My favorites that still crack me up are Cookie Monster at the library, he continued to ask for cookies, even though the librarian told him they don't have cookies, just books. They went round and around several times before cookie finally got it and asked for a book about cookies and a glass of milk, please. I remember that the
Unknown Speaker 59:17
information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we're always right, there's always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards nanny. Nanny, keep on trucking, and may the Force be with you. Something always happens. Whenever we together, we get
Unknown Speaker 59:45
a happy feeling.