Sesame Street Pilot Episodes

Before Sesame Street began regular production, five test pilots were produced and shown to children. In the test pilots, The Muppets appear only in inserts, and never on the street interracting with humans. Ernie and Bert were the only Muppets who appeared in these pilots. Ernie and Bert Sketches from these pilots include a sketch in which Ernie talks about what parts of the body he has two of, Batman appearing on their TV set, telling them to take turns watching TV, and the original version of the song "Rubber Duckie".

One recurring series of sketches that appears in these pilots is The Man from Alphabet. However, these segments were never seen on the show itself.

James Earl Jones also appeared in a few segments in these pilots.

Eventually, these pilots failed because kids were more interested in the Muppet and animated segments than in the street segments. Because of this, it was decided to have the Muppets appear on the street along with the human cast.