Battle of the Bands!

Quick and funny blog entry this week.  What's the best musical group in the history of Sesame Street?

First up we have Little Chrissy.

This guy was quite the maniac.  Good voice, though.  Great at playing the piano.  Look at how into it he gets.

Click to view... You're Alive.

Conversely, there's Little Jerry and the Monotones.

(Why is everybody "Little?")  Little Jerry succeeds in connecting with the audience through his voice, he doesn't actively play an instrument.  Find me one person that doesn't love the Telephone Rock song.

Click to view... The Telephone Rock.

and then of course there's the "Beetles."

We all know what they were meant to be based on.  Very clever.  How could you NOT get into this:

Click to view... Letter B.

("hour of darkness?"  really?)

This music was great and I do not understand why it did not transcend beyond educational television.  All of these songs are better than most of the things you hear on the radio, including jazz.

*AMAZING BONUS* Click to view... Fat Cat Sat Hat song.

Biff and Sully and the Puppet Working Class

a lot of the Sesame Street puppets have always been of vague age.  Big Bird is really child-like, whereas Kermit the Frog has maturity.  Ernie and Bert are a funny case.  They often behave like children, but have their own apartment.  Conversely, Grover and Mr. Snuffleupagus are known to live with their "mommies."

Biff and Sully, known for being the hardest working guys on the Street, have also pretty much been confirmed to be adults.  Biff, specifically, is known to have a wife and kids.  Biff and Sully like to go bowling together.  They're good guys that serve as honest, blue-collar adult role models.

Click to view... Beautiful music together.

But how old is Oscar the Grouch?  Tough to say since he doesn't work, and his living situation is about as off the wall as you can get.  I'm fairly certain Guy Smiley is meant to be a grown man.  So is the Amazing Mumford (he has male pattern baldness).
 

Roosevelt Franklin is a school teacher, but he is also oddly short.  He LOOKS like a little kid.

Click to view... Roosevelt Franklin's ups and downs.

Sherlock Hemlock's job is sort of ridiculous, but you can tell he's older because he has a mustache.  That's a nice clue.  Don Music is a professional composer, and Herbert Birdsfoot is about as grown-up looking as a puppet can be.

Grover is kind of a funny case.  He still lives "at home" but is also a member of the work force.  I guess that's understandable.  Waiters don't get paid a lot.  They have to rely on tips, and there's no way the guy with the big blue head was tipping 15%.

Click to view... Milking it.

Gordon

This guy has been the rock of the show since Day 1.

Click to view... Creepy faceless puppets.

Problem was, in the early years of the show, they couldn't keep an actor in place.  Three different actors played Gordon, but it was always Gordon.  It was never Susan explaining "my old husband Gordon died, but here is my new husband.  His name is Joe."  It was NECESSARY to have the presence of a strong African-American parental figure and role model on the show.  and his name had to be Gordon.

The first Gordon, seen above (on the right), was good.  He believed in speaking to children on their own level.  He was intelligent (Gordon, in every incarnation, is a school teacher), a happily married man, and a respected member of the community.  I can see why they refused to completely scrap the character when the original actor stepped down.

Gordon #2 was pretty weak though, in my opinion.

Aside from being black, he just didn't look the part.  I've never been able to accept him as Gordon.  He's like the "Un-Gordon."

I believe that Gordon is the only Sesame Street character of note to be played by more than one actor (not including puppets).  The original was outright REPLACED, that doesn't usually happen.  There was no "Mr. Hooper 2." Not even "Oh this is Mr. Hooper's brother from Indiana.  His name is ALSO Mr. Hooper.  He's going to take over the store for him now."  I don't really think of the characters as actors.  Bob is just "Bob."  Maria is Maria, Luis is Luis.  and Gordon was Gordon.  Except for awhile he wasn't.  and then to FURTHER complicate things, along came Gordon #3.

Gordon #3, who still reigns as Gordon to this day, was even more Gordon-like than original Gordon.  So I guess Gordon #2 ultimately was just "bad rebound Gordon."

The bald head was a good idea.  It made it easy to forget those other guys.  Oscar liked to call him "Curly."  I don't think he had menacing nicknames for the other Gordons.  Good thing, they weren't quite as friendly.

Click to view... Happy and healthy.

The Martians

The formula is simple yet brilliant.  Two aliens arrive on Earth for the sole purpose of interplanetary exploration.  What they find is routinely confusing to them, so they brainstorm together to try to make sense of things, usually with the aid of an all-encompassing "Earth book."

Click to view... Greetings.

The puppets themselves are as bizarre as any that I've ever seen.  I'm sure a lot of us have become "used to" them by now, they were introduced before a lot of us were born, but try to imagine the mindset of the puppeteer who originally conceived this idea.

What does a "Martian" look like?  Since there ARE no actual Martians (sorry, to those of you who believe in that) it's up to every individual's imagination.  Years ago the consensus seemed to be that Martians were little green men.  Then there were some purported alien abductions/sightings and the stereotype became that scrawny creature with the skinny neck and big head with dark eyes.  Couldn't really be more different than the Sesame Street version.

I speculate that they were designed to be EXTRA strange-looking because some of the other puppets on the show were pretty alien-looking to begin with.  If you didn't already know Cookie Monster to be a resident Earth monster, couldn't he pass for a creature from outer space?  and who looks more like a Martian than Kermit the Frog?  You only think of him as a frog because they always say he is.  Frogs don't look like that.

The behavior is what really makes the Martians a masterful act, though.  The way they always agree.  They both either say "yip" or "nope."  No arguments.  They share a common goal, they are in search of the TRUTH.  It's great teamwork, no room for individual ego.  I suppose the lesson to be learned is that you shouldn't give up when a situation is difficult or confusing at first.  You've got friends and Earth books to help you.

Click to view... Martian music.