The Best of Sesame Street

There's some great discussion of Sesame Street at Crooked Timber and at In Medias Res. I've had two glasses of wine, so I'm just going to embed videos from YouTube.

It's the Muppet Show, but you have to check out Belafonte doing the Banana Boat song.

Loved these two (thanks to Kieran)
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Cereal Girl.

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Another great 80s song. Kids Just Love to Brush.
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I'm writing this post with Ian standing over my shoulder. He made me play this video three times.

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REM doing Furry Happy Monsters. Classic.

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Johnny Cash!!

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Comments

[Russell Arben Fox]

Awesome collection, Laura! I think Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat bit from The Muppet Show is one of the greatest musical numbers from the whole history of television. Fozzy just kills me with his efforts at keeping up with Harry. Good stuff. (And thanks for the link.)

[Wendy]

I spent last night with both kids looking at old commercials from the 1970s on Retrojunk.com, then we watched all the history Schoolhouse Rocks videos.

I had never seen the Paul Simon video, but I have heard the song about a million times because it's on Songs From the Street, the first disc of which I, um, obtained. I also like Madeleine Kahn and Grover singing "Sing After Me." It always makes me teary because it seems like she was such a neat person and gone too early.

[virgil xenophon]

Always LUVED "Pigs in Space" episodes in The
Muppet Show. Miss Piggy was a true feminist.
A "sister" that took no guff and wielded a mean handbag.

[Liz Ditz]

Laura, thanks for the waybackometer trip. I loved Johnny Cash & Miss Piggy.

The charm of the early SS was the adults entering into play with the young cast members.

[Ragtime]

The best part of this collection, for me, from a nostalgia point of view, was not any of the guest stars, or the "bits" or the muppets.

No, it was a very simple scene of a boy, sans helmet, riding his bicycle through a construction site. It just makes me smile deeply every time I see it.