Sesame Street Old School – A review…and a rant!
These retrospectives of early Sesame Street episodes have encountered intense media interest. At some point it was reported – incorrectly – that the DVDs carry an “adults only” rating. Unfortunately, this claim has been indiscriminately repeated and has predictably given rise to much hand-wringing over “political correctness gone mad”.
For the record, the truth is that these episodes commence with a cartoon character giving a mildly tongue-in-cheek advisory that they are intended for an adult audience and may not suit the needs of contemporary preschoolers. You need only watch these episodes for a few minutes to see the truth in this statement. The pace of the early episodes is comparatively slow, and the animation is primitive by today’s standards. Furthermore, there is the small matter that the cast of human and Muppet characters is significantly different today, with at least two human actors and three Muppeteers having sadly passed on – a fact that would likely confuse small children. Finally, there is the undeniable reality that societal values change, and that scenes featuring a binge-eating Cookie Monster, a head-banging Don Music, or an anti-social Count, are unlikely to be looked upon favourably these days.
In all likelihood, this advisory was included purely as a commercial move to try and prevent parents from picking this set up along with the latest Elmo title and then complaining about its dated content.
Okay. With that squared away, let’s proceed to the review. I won’t evaluate the program content itself, as if you are interested in this set it will no doubt be because of your memories of the series. Rather, I will indicate what is included in the packages and describe the technical quality. At present, two volumes are available – Volume 1 covering the years 1969-1973, and Volume 2 covering 1974-1979. Each volume is a three-DVD set containing five full episodes as well as miscellaneous clips and other bonus material.
Volume One contains the all-important episode #1, originally broadcast on 10th November 1969, as well as #131 (1970), #276 (1971), #406 (1972), and #536 (1973). It also features an entertaining sales pitch, hosted by Kermit and Rowlf, aimed at promoting the program to television stations.
Volume Two contains episode #666 (hosted by the Count – eep!) from 1974, #796 from 1975, #926 from 1976, #1056 from 1977, and #1186 from 1978. Also included is an exceptionally primitive “pilot episode” that was shown in certain areas in mid 1969, in order to gauge audience reaction to the concept before the commencement of the series proper. I believe that there were as many as five of these episodes, so perhaps the remainder will appear on future volumes.
Available on Muppet Wiki is a detailed breakdown of the individual sketches in each episode:
From a technical standpoint, these episodes have made a remarkably successful transition to DVD. The street scenes in particular are pin-sharp, with excellent colour definition (of course, the sets were intentionally made to look drab to simulate the inner-city environment). Drop-outs are rare, and encoding artifacts unnoticeable. There is one issue that quite literally rears its head – as you may know, when filming Muppet scenes, conventional CRT televisions were used as monitors to ensure that the Muppeteer did not enter the shot. Depending on your TV, you may occasionally notice a stray shirtsleeve – or as in the rightmost example directly below, Frank Oz’s glasses and nose!
Gripes? Yes, I have a couple. Firstly, the DVDs commence with a preview of the Electric Company box set which cannot be skipped – an annoying trend in sell-through DVDs which should be nipped in the bud. Secondly, the incorporation of full episodes as the prime focus of the collection has resulted in a considerable volume of what I would regard as unessential material. Furthermore, there is some repetition of clips between episodes, and even within episodes. Some purists may prefer it that way, but I believe it would have been better to have included just one full episode in each volume, and to have filled the remainder with carefully selected miscellaneous clips or excerpts. I would also have liked to have seen some “behind the scenes” footage – perhaps this will be included in Volume 3.
All in all, though, an absolute must for anyone with fond memories of the program’s early days. Just don’t buy it for the kids…
