Sesame Street turns 40 – part 2: All about the music

Welcome to part two of my four-part retrospective of Sesame Street on the occasion of it hitting the big 4-0. If you missed it, be sure to also check out part one.

I think, and you may disagree with me on this, that the absolute best part of Sesame Street are the songs. Yeah, the muppets are cute and the in-jokes are funny, but if you had to ask me (or, say, anyone) what they remember most about Sesame Street, what their favorite part of it was when they were little, they’ll probably cite a song. That’s certainly what happened when I e-mailed around to the CliqueClack staff. They all had favorite characters (the big winners being mostly Guy Smiley and Placido Flamingo, and a universal dislike of Elmo. Why is it toddlers like him so much? Wise up, toddlers), but overwhelmingly what people cited as vital to include were the songs.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the songs are what put Sesame Street on that map, that its real moment where it became a part of our culture was when Ernie sang about his bathing BFF Rubber Duckie and rubber ducks, which before had simply been novelty items, skyrocketed in sales. (Sesame Street‘s Blow the Hatch moment, if you will? I don’t know enough about the early show to say one way or the other.)

But I digress. To me the magic of Sesame Street is how it really, really sticks with you. Not just as a fond childhood memory, but as something you find yourself spouting off at utterly inopportune moments. If I had money for how many times I broke into “Mahna Mahna,” I’d be really rich, is all I’m saying.

I’m pretty sure it was Bob Degon who admitted to still using this song when he counted to himself.  (There is no shame, Bob, only loving acceptance.) When I told my sister, in the course of writing this, that I had absolutely zero recollection of this song, which caused her to walk out of the room, shake her head, and declare that one of the greater crimes of humanity. I’m sorry, everyone. I really, really wish I, personally, remembered this song and was not just told by a bazillion people that I’d better include this in my list of memorable song moments or else. But I don’t. And I wish I did, because when Mount Rushmore eats the pinball, that’s just freaking sweet.

Oh, but Batty Bat, on the other hand, I remember quite fondly, especially the little sparkly bats dancing. That part was (and still is, who are we kidding) my favorite. The whole thing sort of reminds me of how I wish the Phantom of the Opera musical had gone. Of course, Christian would sing broodingly and in his creepy-sexy manner about the music of the night, but then why don’t they break into the Batty Bat? Why? I mean how effing awesome would that be?

I’m alone here, aren’t I?

If I did not include “C is for Cookie” in a post about classic Sesame Street song moments, you would all have permission to beat me up. In fact, I might have even beat myself up.

While this was one of my absolute favorite songs when I was little, it used to make me so unbearably sad. I had this thing for Bert and Ernie. They weren’t my favorite characters — Grover had a pretty solid monopoly on that position — but I just loved them together. Any time Bert would get mad at Ernie or groan or they would be apart it would just upset me so much. They couldn’t be apart! They should never be apart! They were best friends! They were meant to be together forever!

I think probably the most tragically moved I ever was by television when I was little was this one episode arc where Oscar’s pet Slimy decides he wants to go into space. So he goes off to WASA (the Worm Aeronautical and Space Association, naturally) and gets through all the tests and goes into space, just like he dreamed. Meanwhile, Oscar is being even more grouchy than usual and he misses Slimy, and Slimy misses him, and just at the height of their lonely anguish, a version of this song comes on (I’m not sure if it was this one or the one where Ernie sang with Aaron Neville, which I never liked as much because Aaron Neville’s ugly earring bothered me, especially paired with his cowboy hat), and as a child this just destroyed me. The idea of not only being separated from a beloved pet, but from your soulmate because you were on the moon! How awful! How highly indicative of how I would grow up to be, as a person!

Sadly, by the way, despite extensive YouTube searching, I could find absolutely no clips of the WASA episodes, though Wikipedia has confirmed that they did, in fact, exist. But the fact that I still remember every detail seventeen years later is… well, let’s just go with “awesome” as a descriptor. I mean, it does inspire some form of awe in people, I’m sure.

Kermit is my favorite muppet of all time, and it took me about twenty years before I realized that was because he kind of looks like my dad. You know, if my dad were a frog.  Now this isn’t even on my list of favorite Kermit moments (in fact, I don’t even like it that much, which makes me some sort of social pariah, I’m sure), but if I didn’t include it, again, I’d probably be forced to beat myself up.

Okay technically — technically! — this is the version from The Muppet Show, not Sesame Street. They did make a different version for Sesame Street originally, but I think everyone realized pretty quickly that this one was infinitely superior, because I only remember seeing the version with the fuzzy pink things. And it was awesome.

Also, I have discovered in the course of writing this article, this song is the ultimate earworm, trumping every single other earworm-y song on this list, and will be stuck in your head until the end of all time.

You’re welcome.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Jun 08, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT