User talk:Aleal

Let's sing a song of teeth!
Hey, Andrew! I saw Scott working on "My 2 Front Teeth", and I had totally forgotten that The Count had sung it on the 1975 Christmas album! So now we have 2 Spike Jones songs! I know that that's still not much, but I was kind of excited about it.

I picked up some movies at B&N after church (Amazing Grace [2007] and With a Song in My Heart [1952], just in case you were wondering), and I saw the Preston Sturges boxed set of Paramount stuff that's now on Universal (I hate when stuff like that happens!). Anyway, I really wanted it, but I've already got orders out for stuff like Happy Days and Newhart, so I'd better take it easy for a while. I guess you're following cartoon news, but they're already talking about the next set of Popeye, so I guess that means Volume 1 did well. And if you hear anything about the original Chipmunks coming out, let me know! (That shouldn't cost too much; it's only one year!) -- Ken (talk ) 01:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, today's Mickey Mouse's 79th birthday! -- Ken (talk ) 05:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, one has to prioritize. One item I've really been wanting is that complete Get Smart, but right now it's on mail-order from Time Life for 200 bucks, so I'm waiting for it to hit retail in individual seasons (which they planned to do). And Mickey's had too many face lifts for age to show (I still prefer the old pie-eyed version who fought Nazis in comics when he wasn't attempting suicide, having his tail snipped off, or dressing like Minnie Mouse to drive her nuts). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 05:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, those complete series are a little too big for me. If I got The Complete I Love Lucy, I'd have to go through something like 50 discs just to find the episode where she steals John Wayne's footprints from the Chinese Theater.


 * I'll take your word about Mickey doing that stuff, but I wasn't sure if you meant the shorts or comic books or comic strips. If those were in shorts, I sure don't remember seeing those on the Disney hour! -- Ken  (talk ) 05:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The comic strip, though some of the early black and white shorts had a more mischievous Mickey, who after all abused animals extensively in Steamboat Willie. You can find the infamous suicide strip series (a subplot in a larger storyline, suggested by Walt Disney personally, who thought they could get some "funny stuff" out of the idea) here. It's actually fairly light-hearted, most of the strips built on an ironic twist (Mickey tries to gas himself, but when a squirrel comes in and tries to inflate a balloon which pops, Mickey shouts that he's been shot; Mickey tries to jump into a river, but when a policeman catches him and threatens to toss him in, Mickey pleads with him because he can't swim, etc.) Still, just the connection of Mickey and suicide tends to be shocking (he's brought to it when he fears he's lost Minnie's affections; it's hard to imagine the current Mickey, especially in some TV cartoon, displaying such violent emotion). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 05:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the detailed answer! I don't know a whole lot about the strips, and I've got a million questions, but it's too late for that, so I'll have to save what I wanted to say for a future phone call.  Talk to you later! -- Ken  (talk ) 06:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you tell me how to get to The Twilight Zone?
Hey, Andrew! I remembered what I was going to ask you the other night. Do you have a copy of The Twilight Zone episode "The Bard", where a TV writer meets Shakespeare? It's a 4th season (1 hour) show, and I didn't know if you had it on the box you bought. Anyway, in the first part of the show, in the first scene, and under Rod's opening narration, there's a musical cue that I swear that I heard years ago on one of the letter cartoons on Sesame Street! When I first saw "The Bard" around 1985, I almost fell off my chair, because I've had that cue in my head my whole life, and I had no idea 1) that it was on TZ first, and 2) how/why SS borrowed stock music from TZ of all places! Anyway, I figured you'd be the perfect person who could help me with this, because I've been dying to figure it out for the last 22 years! -- Ken (talk ) 05:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It just so happens that I do have that episode! I'm listening to the cue now. I'm not sure exactly which Sesame Street cartoon you heard it in, but it does sound familiar. I notice that for this episode, the music is credited to Fred Steiner, who had done the music for The Bullwinkle Show, Gerald McBoing-Boing Show (I think some of the stuff in "The Bard," at least, was re-purposed from Gerald's "Dusty of the Circus" series, but I'd have to check), and more. So what probably happened was that whoever animated the segment you're thinking of paid Steiner to use some of his stock cues to score the segment (in a similar way, Gumby, the early Yogi Bear episodes, TV's Dennis the Menace, and others all tended to sound alike because they used the same stock music from Philip Green at Capitol Records). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 20:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait a minute! You mean that composers on TZ could use music from pre-existing material?!  I can't believe it!  I mean, I know that most of them used stock music from the CBS music library (and the music credit in the Companion says "stock"), and then ones that had original music were used for others later on.  But I've never heard of an episode that had music credited to a certain composer, which turned out to be written by that composer, but for something else!  TZ music has always sounded so unique, that I've never heard of this happening before!  But now it all makes sense, since it does sound kind of cartoony, and I guess Rod wanted that kind of sound for this, and that's what Fred had been doing.  And I guess you're right that since this wouldn't have been TZ-owned music, that SS paid him to use it again.  I also swear this was an exact same recording, not a re-recording for SS, which made the hearing of this on TZ years later all the weirder.  Anyway, I'm thinking it was one of the 30 second speech balloon ones, and maybe someday you or I will run across it again, now that we now what it sounds like.  Thank you so much!  You made my day, and at least now I know I'm not crazy! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it could possibly be the other way around, it was composed for TZ and then reused, but in this case, especially since the music was mostly just used as "cues" to punctuate a gag, I think the other is a likely theory (and there may have been some original music mixed in, but composers for TV and cartoons have been known to recycle their own cues and themes, just usually within the same show or series; I didn't listen beyond that opening scene). Also, from my research, I think at least some of the speech balloon spots were done by Ken Snyder Enterprises, the people behind Roger Ramjet, who thus would have been familiar with Steiner's work (several artists had also worked with UPA and Jay Ward). A quick check with the ASCAP lists very few themes or songs (the notable exception being Perry Mason: "Dah dah, dah DaH! Dah dah, dah DAAAAH") but an endless aray of cues, including as I'd guessed, "Dusty of the Circus." Nothing for Sesame Street, but if it was just recycled and already registered for another show, it wouldn't be. I'll pull out my Dusty tape one of these days, but I'm increasingly thinking that may in fact be the original source. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, to me it seems like the people who were doing the cartoons would have been familiar with other cartoon music, and probably didn't even know that it had been used for TZ. (That's not the first place I would think of to get music for a Sesame cartoon!)  Thanks!  You've already given me more to mess around with than I ever thought possible! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

New milestone
Hey, you think we'll get to 16,000 articles before the birthday of the wiki? I'm going to be adding some new song pages from records I just got. How are you doing on stuff like celebrities? I forgot how many we had at last count. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We'll probably make it either by the deadline or just around or after Christmas, depending, with 400 articles to go now. I've been slowed down myself the last two days because the lights aren't working in my office (it's a ceiling fan/light, and the pull-cord to the latter is jammed), and it's putting a terrible strain on my eyes to do much of anything in here (Dad promised to get it fixed in the morning). We've about peaked on celebrities for now, but there's still a few, especially in the Creature Shop department or ones who aren't as high-profile (I still want to create a page for a couple of the New York Ballet dancers who've been on Sesame in recent seasons), and the new Elmo Christmas special will spawn some more pages. Plus I still have a lot of MirrorMask to mine, and plenty of Muppet Babies references to create new pages for (as well as augmenting existing ones). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a long hard climb, but I'm gonna get there!
Well, with some cleanup on a French 45 (in English, no less) of the disco versions of "Doin' the Pigeon" and "C is for Cookie", I have officially hit 3,000 edits! Just when I think I've run out of things to work on, something else opens up. Have you seen the new international charts that Paul (Pino) has been working on? I love looking at the pictures, even though I don't speak any of those languages!

Well, only about 475 more edits to go, and I'll make the top 10 list! And if I get rid of dial-up next year, I'll be able to edit even faster! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hooray for Captain Spaulding, err, you! Yeah, dial-up is a chore. And the international album pages are great. I still have some Plaza Sesamo video stuff to input (including one with the Spanish version of "I Want a Monster to Be My Friend," long after the bit was pulled from the US version.) -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, that reminds me. Since it looks like you and I are the only Muppet Wiki people who live in the Southwest, we should pool our resources on the Spanish stuff.  I can't believe that all we have is one Plaza Sesamo LP from 20 years ago, when we get the show not only on one of the main Spanish stations out here (and the shows are dated 2005-2006), but it's also on our PBS station every morning before the US show is! I can't believe there's no other Spanish CD's out here, but I've never really looked.  I love watching Plaza Sesamo, since they show way more classic clips than our show does.  What's hilarious for me is hearing how they cast the performers to sound like the original.  I saw the one where Grover tries to sell a wig to Mr. Johnson a while ago, and I was on the floor, because it sounded like Frank Oz talking Spanish!  (And of course I love seeing the translations of pre-1990 Ernie and Bert stuff!) -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I've been getting some of the older videos through inter-library loan (scanned several of the covers but haven't input them yet; I burned two to DVD for Wikifying, but can't find the others right now) and have most of the recent DVDs. I try to tape the show when I can (like you, I also get it on PBS and Spanish TV), but I keep either missing it or taping over stuff. I'm especially trying to gradually gather info on the current human characters and actors (La Abuela's the only one where I've been able to get a firm handle on both the character, from presskit descriptions, and the performers, since they did some rapid-fire recasts in the late 1990s and beyond; they kept the *characters* mostly, but changed the actors periodically). I get a big kick out of the tapes with the older soundtrack, and especially the presence of Jorge Arvizu, the Mel Blanc of Mexico (who I was able to hear, in a theater, in the Spanish version of Ratatouille, which Disney has decided to keep off the regular DVD release and has to be bought seperately). And yeah, in several cases, especially Elmo and Grover, they made a stronger effort to at least somewhat resemble the US sound than they have in other countries (though the Dutch Grover is also pretty great). I don't know about albums, but there was certainly more merchandise (for a time, in the 1990s, Applause had put out stuffed Abelardo and Pancho and so on, available with regular Sesame Street dolls in the US). I need to see if Tony has the Sesame Street Cinco de Mayo episode with Abelardo, since I'd love to have a full rundown of that. And yeah, as you've noted, they use more of the older stuff, and run Kermit bits much more often (always with a credit to Disney for the use of "La Rana Rene"). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I saw 3 Ratatouilles on Amazon: Regular, Blu-Ray, and Spanish, and I thought it was kind of weird, because I thought a Spanish (and usually French) audio track were always on Disney cartoons. So I wonder if the Blu-Ray one has Spanish, since the Spanish one looks like a regular version.


 * I keep forgetting you're way closer to Mexico than we are. I've never seen Plaza Sesamo stuff in stores.  I'd love to find Pancho and Lola puppets!


 * Do you watch a lot of features dubbed in Spanish? Our stations here are finally getting around to showing recent American films and cartoons, dubbed in Spanish, so it's not quite the endless stream of low-budget Mexican movies that I've never heard of.  One time we caught part of an "A-Team" rerun, and it was a hoot watching Mr. T talk Spanish.  I can never keep up when I'm watching an American movie dubbed in Spanish, because they talk too fast.  I like watching movies with subtitles (either ours to theirs, or theirs to ours), because my eyes are reading, and my ears are listening, and it's fun to try to put the two together.  I took like 6 years of Spanish between junior high, high school and college, and I always got A's, but I still can't think fast enough.  I still feel like I'm in tourist mode.  We have churches out here that do simultaneous translation during services, and it always blows me away. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well I did run across this Abelardo PVC figure awhile back, but the seller didn't even recognize the character, let alone list the maker, so it is sheer luck that I found it -- would that have been part of the Applause line? And I just added a couple more DVDs.  Andrew would you check my spanish translations?  I speak spanish competently (in theory), but bookishly, and "Lola aventuras" confuses me; shouldn't it be "aventuras de Lola"?? Is this some sort of idiomatic usage?  -- <font color="Blue">Wendy  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Applause did make PVCs for a time, but the items I'd seen were plush. I'll have to do some digging on that score. As for the DVD title, you got it right, but I don't think it's meant to be idiomatic, at least not in the popular sense as an established grammatical variation. The DVD is titled after a recurring segment on the series (and compiles several), and I don't think it's meant to be not "The Adventures of Lola" but "Lola Adventures," sort of like "Global Grover" or something like "Elmo Party." -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Animated openings?
Hi, Andrew! I figured you might know something about this. Now that I'm seeing one show per year on Old School, I was wondering about the different animated openings. Do we know who did those, and when they were used, and when they were dropped? I've seen one on YouTube with 2 guys arguing with sign gestures with no dialogue, Old School has some with the woodpecker, and of course #1 has the Claymation animals. Do we have anything on this? The page for the SS theme song just talks about the theme song/live action kids playing. Any help would be great! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We know they were used for the first few seasons, but I don't think we know when they were dropped, and definitely not which studio did them. Though as a trivia note, some of the same openings were recycled for Sesamstrasse, with numbers and title changed, in the 1970s. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks! I was messing with the idea of making some kind of a timeline for the cartoon openings, but I only have what's on Old School.  Maybe Guillermo and Ingeborg would have some more leads.


 * By the way, I found a nice copy of What Time Is It on Sesame Street? yesterday in a bin of donated records at the library, and it was only 50 cents! I thought of your mom finding the 10th anniversary album.  It was a great way to celebrate Sesame Street's birthday! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Gerardo
Hey dude. I can't see anything at Image:Gerardo.jpg. Is it just me? —Scott ( talk ) 05:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * No, image uploading has gone wonky, not for the first time. I'll try again -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It looks like it's just upoading new versions of images right now. Can you upload it under a different filename for now? I'll shoot an email off to John. —Scott ( talk ) 05:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It should already be fixed. At least, it looks fine to me. Did you refresh? -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I'm seeing it now. It just took a few minutes to purge on the server side. I hate it when the images go wonky. —Scott ( talk ) 05:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah. And it's always in the exact same way. I wish they could find a long-term fix for it. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


 * We're very slowly getting there. I have a very long list of tech problems that I'm currently following. —Scott ( talk ) 05:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Public domain?
Hey, Andrew! I saw your note about Muppet Babies footage on Scott's page and it reminded me of something. How can any Looney Tunes be public domain already? I thought that 1923 was the cutoff for being public domain. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There's no real cut-off date for public domain. With films, it depends basically on renewal. See It's a Wonderful Life, for example, which was allowed to lapse (thus why it aired everywhere for awhile) but later reclaimed. Pay attention to the dollar DVDs some time. Shorts like Private Daffy Duck and so on have been in the public domain for ages, because they lapsed (in most cases, some time in the 1960s or 1970s, before the advent of home video and a new source for profits), while earlier shorts like I Haven't Got a Hat haven't because they were carefully renewed (WB was more careful about their characters' debut shorts). A lot of wartime shorts lapsed, and almost all of Famous Studios output until the 1950s (Little Audrey, Baby Huey, the early Herman shorts) also lapsed. Some studios reclaimed stuff since, others didn't, especially when dealing with shorts. And copyright law has changed since then, so it doesn't happen anymore, but originally, "Works published with notice of copyright or registered in unpublished form prior to January 1, 1964, had to be renewed during the 28th year of their first term of copyright to maintain copyright for a full 95-year term." Like I said, a lot of items were overlooked or ignored by studios, and Paramount was especially sloppy, so that's why the later Famous Studios Popeyes are everywhere, but for years most of the Fleischer cartoons were unavailable due to legal wrangles. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC) <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I didn't know it was that complicated.  I refused to buy the "junk" Popeye all those years, because I knew they weren't made from studio materials, and they usually look awful.  I'm glad they've finally worked everything out and made the "real" set!  I guess stuff like records has been different, because they're always out there for years and years to buy, and the only difference is that they invent new formats.  But I've never heard of a recording from the 1940's or 1950's suddenly not get renewed.  I guess since they have publishing rights involved as well, which sometimes involves totally different entities, more people are paying attention.


 * One thing that always bugged me was having Andy Griffith be on junk tapes years ago, even though beautiful copies were on TV from Viacom, so I knew they really owned them. I could never figure out why they didn't try to stop those releases.  I'm glad we finally have "real" DVD's of the entire series now! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's the same issue. Somehow, a limited number of episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Dick Van Dyke Show, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and others slipped into public domain, so Viacom couldn't really put a stop to them, just put out superior product. *But* somehow the loophole *only* applied to the episode content, and not the familiar theme songs which were protected seperately and still subject to royalty, which is why you'd get odd Andy Griffith and Bonanza tapes with weird banjo or inappropriate semi-disco music (the North Carolina based company UAV, who also put out a lot of PD stuff at the time, for several years managed to legally license Andy Griffith for VHS, and put out some pretty decent uncut tapes with nice trivia notes, usually themed to characters); these versions also for some reason seemed to crop up in such venues as a PBS station in NC or Christian stations which needed non-religious, family friendly filler without having to pay for it. So the stuff is definitely junk, but legal (elsewhere, though, some companies try to slip in stuff which is definitely not PD, amid the usual suspects, hoping nobody will notice, and often they don't.) -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm glad that Paul Henning's estate got involved and now we're seeing authorized versions of Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. I think the only thing left of old TV that needs to get cleaned up is Amos 'n' Andy, and black and white Dragnet.  I know that Amos 'n' Andy will probably never come out again legitimately, but I know that Universal owns the radio and TV Dragnets, and they've done one color set, and a lot of radio sets, but I wish they'd start doing black and white sets.  I got a dollar DVD of 4 old Dragnets at Target once, just because it was a dollar, and it wasn't that bad.  They even had the cigarette commercials, which I love, and the disc included the Christmas show where somebody steals a baby Jesus statue.  Unfortunately, that one was B/W (even though it was filmed in color, and the episode even says it's in color in the end credits!), but it was fun to see the TV version of that episode, since I knew the radio version. -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ron White awards?
Hey Andrew -- if you have a moment, can you look at Talk:Ron White?? You wrote the original article; Nick is asking about the source for the Gemini nomination for Ace Hart. -- <font color="Blue">Wendy (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Where's Spike?
Hey, Andrew, I figured you'd be the one I should ask about this. How come we have a page for Stan Freberg, but not for Spike Jones? Since Sam & Friends acted out the "Poison to Poison" sketch, I think he should at least have a small page citing his influence. What do you think? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Ken! I'd love to have a Spike Jones page, and we probably will eventually, but I'm not sure we have enough material right now. With Freberg, we know of three recordings (including both his vocals and re-writing) which were used on Sam and Friends, we have the telegram, a song he co-wrote was used on The Muppet Show, so all in all, it's an in-depth page. With Jones, though Jim probably used more than one recording on Sam and Friends, all we have is "Poison to Poison," which isn't the Jonesiest piece. We know it came from Spike Jones in Stereo, so presumably Jones himself approved it and *proabbly* had some involvement, but I don't know precisely what. The page currently claims he wrote it but in fact I'm no longer sure on that score (He wrote much of the group's material, but so did some of the performers [Doodles Weaver always scripted his own routines], and gag writers were occasionally used; I haven't been able to find anything which nails down who wrote that sketch); he provides no vocals (the whole thing is instead a showcase for Paul Frees, who does have a page accordingly), and the band's involvement (again, assuming he used his group, which is a fairly safe assumption), is minimal. So there's not a lot to say about it that isn't already noted on the Poison to Poison page. If we could dig up a few solid quotes (I know The Works cites Jones in passing as an influence on Henson, but it would be nice to be more concrete there), it could work, but right now, there isn't much to say. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Poison to Poison, could you take a look at its talk page? I discovered a spelling difference on the record.  On top of that, the track on the LP is credited to (Brandt-Jones), so I'm trying to figure out if that's Carl Brandt or Eddie Brandt.  I figured you might have something in case I didn't.  Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Definitely Eddie Brandt, who collaborated with Jones many times. I'm glad you were able to check on that. I'm still not sure it's enough just yet for an interesting Jones page, but concrete information is always a good start. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess if we only have the one record, that's about it. Oh well.  Thank you, (fellow) music lover! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Whattsamatta U.?
Thanks for Jay Ward! I love having you here! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I was hoping that would make some people happy. P.S.: It's "Wossamotta U," that institution of learning whose history books still claim that McKinley is President. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean he's not? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Andrew!
I love your picture! Who is it? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know it was William Demarest. I thought it was him, but I wasn't sure.


 * By the way, I sent you a birthday gift and message on your profile page. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 02:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Educational Materials
Hey Andrew. I have a vague memory of somebody talking about educational materials at some point, but I can't find it; was it you? Or do you have any advice on where to put such a thing? I've discovered that a company called "General Learning Corporation", who did teacher training, provided educational kits and promoted technology in the classroom, made a couple series of "phonograph viewer" sets in 1970; One for letters, one for numbers. They're like Show 'n Tell things only minus the brand name. From the one picture I've found as well as a listing in worldcat it looks like they used some of the early animation sequences ("Countdown for the Rocket", "Boy fishing for letters"). Anyhow I'd like to make a page but am unsure if we ever did make a spot for educational stuff or if we should start one... -- <font color="Blue">Wendy (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Wendy! We don't have a category right now, but I'd think "Educational Materials" is a good name. Though I'd also think the category would definitely need a definition (since a lot of Sesame stuff could be considered "educational"), or maybe create an article on General Learning Corporation. Beyond this stuff, what else have you found, in terms of on-Sesame Workshop kits and materials, stuff which other companies and curriculums have put out using Sesame characters oe films? If nothing else yet, I'd say create the company page. Stick in Category:Sesame Street Misc. Merchandise for now, but maybe it would be worthwhile to collect these things *and* the kits officially put out by CTW/Sesame Workshop (though my own inclination would be to keep them seperate, but maybe cross-linked). That's a larger question worth asking on Current Events. -- 20:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Needle nardle noo, to name but a few!
Yay! I was hoping that someday we'd find a way to get Harry Secombe on the wiki. I can't believe you found him! That's fantastic. Ying tong iddle i po. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I was hoping you'd spot it. Not as good as a direct guest appearance, but still pretty wonderful. I've come to think of that as the best part of Muppet Babies, the often completely random use of outside film footage (I've tracked down two episodes so far with Lon Chaney Sr. as the Phantom of the Opera). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

animation buff
Heya! I thought you might like this, but also may be able to identify the vintage cartoon footage used with the monkeys and giraffes. It looks familiar to me, but I'm not sure what it is. Also some sweet references to Popeye and Bugs Bunny. —Scott ( talk ) 05:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ooooh. Great find. It references Rocky the Flying Squirrel too (which, combined with George of the Jungle, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watching an Aesop and Son, as well as some nice artist connections, should justify a Jay Ward page). I'm off to bed soon, but I'll create a Popeye page in the morning (there's another visual reference in another Muppet Babies episode, and a verbal one in a Sesame episode). As far as the vintage cartoon footage, I'll have to research further and maybe consult with some people. All the cartoon footage seems to be public domain, not surprisingly (there's a recognizable snippet of an Ub Iwerks' Flip the Frog cartoon near the end), so my own guess would put it as possibly an early Van Beuren, Iwerks, or Terrytoon (clearly *not* Fleischer), but so many early cartoons used jungle settings and musical moments that it would take some extra work to pin it down. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Image:Officerfuzzy.jpg
Hey dude. Can you try uploading this again? It looks like leftovers from the issues this morning prevented this one from saving properly. —Scott ( talk ) 19:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, the joys of Wikia bugs. It looked fine the first time, I checked, but something must have happened inbetween. I added it again (the Australian Dog City DVD came in the mail today, and it plays fine on PowerDVD, with no region code adjustment required even). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good now. And hooray for multi-region DVDs! —Scott ( talk ) 21:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Internat'l stuff
I don't know if you have Power Point installed on your computer, but I stumbled across this which I thought you might find interesting. —Scott ( talk ) 23:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Neat! It helps put some dates to things, pinpoints how early the Northern Ireland project has been under consideration, and gave me a lead on the unrealized Sesame Neighborhood project, which I need to make a page for. Thanks for sharing! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

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