SesameTube

Writer’s note: Instead of providing my customary Muppet Wiki links to characters and skits, I encourage you to go to the new Sesame Workshop video site and search for the key words yourself. Trust me, you’ll thank me tomorrow.

The future is now!

Well, the definition of future states that it’s not really now. It’s like, a week from next Thursday, but you get the idea.

Sesame Workshop has decided to give us an early Christmas present and provide us with hundreds of classic Sesame Street clips on their new video website. My first reaction to this news was “Hubba wha? HOOHAH! Shabadooyeah!” Ok, so it may not be the most coherent thing I’ve ever said, but it definitely expresses my sentiment of the moment accurately.

The second thing I did was to try and think of what clips to search for. Unfortunately, this is where I drew a blank. That’s like trying to choose just one of any 31 flavors of ice cream. Rome was not YouTube’d in a day, you know. Thankfully, the site is equipped with a handy toolbar at the top for indecisive chaps like me. I watched the Incredible Shrinking Cookie Monster, I saw Ernie write an Ode to Bert, and I watched Grover embarrass himself. Repeatedly.

A quick tally of some of the more popular characters resulted in 134 Grover videos, 105 Cookie Monster videos, 97 with Ernie and Bert (144 with at least Ernie, 109 with at least Bert), 66 Elmo videos, 56 with The Count (56 glorious videos! Ah ah ah!), 47 for Telly, 40 Prairie Dawn videos, 38 with Kermit, 37 for Zoe, 33 Big Bird videos, and 14 Guy Smiley videos.

That, in case you weren’t counting, is a whole lotta videos.

I also did some tallying of characters who I expected to find, yet didn’t come up with many results. Gordon came up with 10 videos, but all of them were Trash Gordon. Not that I’m complaining, but I would have liked to see more Sesame humans in these videos. The Two-Headed Monster has 6 videos, which makes 3 for each head. Snuffy appears in 5 videos, although “Snuffleupagus” doesn’t warrant any results. “Lefty” doesn’t have any results, but a search for “Salesman” shows 5 of his appearances. Forgetful Jones clocked in with 4 videos, I think. I don’t recall. See what I did there? John-John only has two videos, though one of them is where he counts a penny with Grover, so I can’t fault them for that. And there aren’t any results for more obscure characters like S.A.M. the Robot, Don Music, Roosevelt Franklin, or Captain Vegetable.

Speaking of a few of those that haven’t yet been immortalized in video form on this site yet, I wonder if Sesame Workshop is deliberately avoiding characters that have been discontinued because of imitatable behavior or negative images. I would say it depends on whether or not their intention for this site is to show nostalgic videos for adults or to have a new outlet for educating the preschoolers of the digital age. If it’s the former, then they should definitely include these missing clips, if only for historical purposes. If it’s the latter, then maybe they’ll avoid posting the now infamous Not-Appropriate-For-Kids disclaimer everyone’s been in such a huff over.

One other thing I’d like to see is more search options. What if someone wants to see celebrity appearances? Or Muppet and Kid Moments? Or how about TV and film parodies? They’re hard to find unless you know exactly what you’re looking for or if you stumble across it. For example, I just stumbled across the Pearl Jam parody, “Don’t Waste The Water” by Fur Jam. It has no known characters and doesn’t have any unique search terms, which makes it nigh impossible to find.

Another thing that amazes me is the quality of the videos. They’re crystal clear, almost DVD quality. And if you’re on a slower connection, the quality goes down slightly so you can still view the video without any hiccups. I don’t know how they do that, but I’m not one to look Buster the Horse in the mouth. (This is where I do a search for Buster, and see two videos with him! Thank you, Internets!)

Of course, any gripes I may have will (hopefully) be fixed soon. The website is still in beta, so anything is possible. I’m also holding out hope for thousands of Street scenes, Hey Cow I See You Now, and the original 1975 clip of Fur.

I’m still amazed that something like this exists. Sesame Workshop is doing a great job at catering toward their older fanbase, which is great because that’s me. Um, and you. But mostly me. I can’t wait to see what this site will look like after it’s out of beta testing. Though even if it’s the same as it is now, it’s exactly what I would have asked Santa to bring me this Christmas.

In case you missed the link at the top of the page, you can view the videos at http://video.sesameworkshop.org.

Click here to watch this article in Living Color on the ToughPigs forum!