Sunday, July 17, 2011

Sunday Night Tomfoolery (9)



Originally composed by Joe Raposo, Can You Tell Me How To Get To Sesame Street has been the theme song for Sesame Street since this start. The lyrics of the song were composed by Raposo along with John Stone and Bruce Hart. Stone felt that the song was a "a musical masterpiece and a lyrical embarrassment".

The above version was used from 1969 to 1991 - and this is the one I grew up with (being a Sesame Street viewer in the early to mid seventies).  After that the melody has been rerecorded, using different beats with slightly different feels. Here is the opening theme used from 2003 - 2006.



Music has been a very important part of Sesame Street. A lot of the educational "lessons" were taught through song. The following clip teaches us about All, Some and None. It was composed again by Raposo and sung by Bip Bippadotta (who will feature later on, in one of my all time favorite Sesame Street songs).



In 1972 The Pointer Sisters recorder the following song to teach kids how to count to 12, with it debuting on Sesame Street in 1977.



And another classic counting to 10 song



Now to a slightly more recent piece (well something beyond the mid seventies). In doing some research for tonight's blog< I found this piece, called Put Down the Duckie, first aired in 1989 and featuring Ernie and Hoots the Owl, but with a cameo list a mile long, including Paul Simon, Madeline Kahn, John Candy, Danny De Vito and about 2 dozen other well known actors and musicians. Beware, as though you will be humming Put Down the Duckie for the next week or so!

I mentioned to my wife that I was blogging about Sesame Street songs and she mentioned the next one, In My Room. I must admit I don't recall this one myself. Maybe she remembered this from when our kids were watching Sesame Street:



I do remember this one. Ernie seems to feature in a lot of songs on Sesame Street. Here is probably his most famous one, Rubber Duckie:



Back to the seventies again, and here is a semi regular segment where Bob McGrath sings about People in Your Neighbourhood. The following features a life guard and carpenter:



Now Cookie Monster assists in singing one of the "One of These Things Doesn't Belong" educational songs:



At the end of each episode of Sesame Street there were closing credits music. Often they were quite short



But every now and then you would get the long credits, going for a couple of minutes. Here are the long credits for your enjoyment:



This final one is my all time favourite, orginally composed by Piero Umiliani for an Italian film, Sweden: Heaven and Hell, Mah Na Mah Na was recorded by Bip Bippadotta and used regularly on both Sesame Street and The Mupper Show. This will lead on to next week's final topic on Sesame Street, my favorite segments.

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