Talk:Numerosity

What's the Citation Needed?
In the section onf "Ten Song (Song of Ten)", a citation needed tag is put after the note about the "ten indians" sequence being replaced by "ten bells". Originally this note said that it was replaced a few years after it was made, but I just changed the wording to "sometime". Is this what the citation was about? Because I've read that the original version was shown on Noggin, and I've heard that this version has been available on You Tube (I don't know if it still is). If the citation needed is about the "ten indians" being repalced, the alternate version does appear in The Street We Live On, and a still of the "ten bells" sequence is posted here. --Minor muppetz 03:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The citation is for the existence of the "ten indians." Is that viewable anywhere? —Scott ( talk ) 03:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The citation is about the "ten indians" claim. The Street We Live only had the ten bells. So the ten indians needs citing; it *probably* happened, but we need something concrete, not just that you've read that it was on Noggin or heard that it was on YouTube, given how many rumors have circulated about Sesame Street censorship and so on. Someone with access to an actual copy of that version needs to confirm and, if possible, provide an eka. -- Andrew Leal (talk )


 * I have a copy viewable on my Sesame Street fan-club blog; will that do? As for EKA citations, the first Season 1 appearance must've had the ten Indians; two Season 1 episodes in my collection (#54 and #83) show that part.  -- Ingeborg 04:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, that'll do. —Scott ( talk ) 05:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Song of One again

 * I just got an e-mail from a friend on YouTube; he quoted someone who apparently has access to the old tapes. He wrote:


 * ...I just talked to Karen King from National Broadcasting Service archives and she got some information about baker number One that I emailed you regarding what the items were.There was only one that was incorrect.It was not one elephant but rather one cow.I remember the man opening up the door with a question mark and the cow making a moo sound. Anyway this is a start....Richard Banville


 * As soon as Mr. Banville passes on Ms. King's list, would that be an acceptable source for this article? Please let me know!  -- Ingeborg 00:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This just in: Mr. Banville passed on a forwarded message from Ms. King, with the items cited in the Song of One.  It turns out she knows someone VERY close to the original material; she wrote--


 * I emailed Karen Falk, the archivist at the Jim Henson Company.  Her response was that she can't give out the footage, but she did give me the script information:


 * Item 1: one penny
 * Item 2: one Eye
 * Item 3: one wind up toy
 * Item 4: one elephant
 * Item 5: one belly button
 * Item 6: one wedding cake


 * Other than the elephant/cow confusion, I'd say the list confirms a lot of fan memories; but how do I cite this e-mail as a source? It did get passed down through two other people...  -- Ingeborg 00:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Karen Falk wouldn't normally have access to footage laying around to check for a YouTube user. That sounds fishy to me. Unless she's got notes from Jim's original shoot of the short, which still wouldn't be the final aired version anyway. It's vague at best what all parties are going on, and passing on. I would ask Karen myself, but this pretty superficial as far as calling in the big guns goes. I really think we should wait until we have first-hand access to the video to confirm. There's just too much muddy history on this one. —Scott ( talk ) 19:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ingeborg, can you clarify whether or not Karen King from the National Public Broadcasting Archives is going by script of video footage information? The NPBA appears to be located at the same library as the CTW Archives in Maryland, so I'm guessing it's a script. If we can get a box number, it would be easy to verify this information the next time someone makes a trip down there. This would be more conclusive than going through three or more parties and passing the information along.


 * So to recap: Karen King at NPBA and Karen Falk at Henson seem to have scripts for Song of One, but one of them says elephant and the other says cow. It's possible that one source is the original intended script and the other is a transcript. Of course, a mistake could have been made on the transcript as well. I feel like we're getting closer to solving this mystery, but it's still muddled. A video source would be ideal here. —Scott ( talk ) 03:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll write to Ms. King myself and ask whether she was using a script, a video clip, or both. As soon as I get an answer, I'll post it here...  -- Ingeborg 04:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * If it's from a script, all the library stuff is in boxes that are marked with catalogue numbers. If you could get that, it would be a great help. —Scott ( talk ) 04:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible Baker Lead
I'm parking this info here, since right now it's our very first lead on the possible performer of the baker, but it's not a very reliable one either. The ever-fallible IMDb, in their "other works" entry for Alex Stevens, claims he was "Counting cake baker who falls downstairs on Sesame Street 1971-?" On the one hand, as with all IMDB info, there's no way of knowing where it came from, I can't find confirmation elsewhere, and the date is completely wrong. On the other hand, it's actually somewhat plausible, since Alex Stevens is a professional stuntman, and when Sesame Street debuted, he was based in New York, as a semi-regular on Dark Shadows (playing the werewolf), and a few other Dark Shadows folks (costume designers, etc.) also worked on the early Sesame Street shows. So it's a *slight* possibility, but only that. Still, I'm parking it here, since now with a possible name, it gives us something to search for and increases the possibility of some day finding such confirmation, if it exists (nothing shows up online, but there's still print sources, or the possibility of checking with any of our Henson/Sesame contacts, now that there's an actual name to query). Also, he played a few bit parts in films; I'll try to get around to renting the least painful options/most likely to feature his face visibly, and then a visual comparison might be possible (as has worked in the past). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 21:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Song of One
The description for "Song of One" has been on the page since it was created by Michael. Has this been included on any commercial releases? I'm curious as to who's actually seen the film -- it appears to be the most rare in fan circles (YouTube, MC chatter, etc.) and only appears three times in our SS episode pages: Episode 0086, Episode 0121 and Episode 0116. —Scott ( talk ) 22:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's never been aired commercially, and that's all I know about it besides the information on the page. It appears that the info just comes from the fans' memories, or from the brief description from the Sesame Street Magazine parent's guide. -- MuppetDude 13:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What's this parent's guide? —Scott ( talk ) 14:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Danny used it when the Sesame Street episode guide was first being put together. The first edit made to Episode 0196 makes reference to it here. -- MuppetDude 15:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see what that has to do with the "baker films." At this point I'm a little suspect of the description for Song of One. The only source we're going on right now is fan memory. —Scott ( talk ) 15:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Baker actor
The baker's voice was Jim Henson, but who was the actual baker? 24.39.183.178 02:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think anybody knows, except for people at Henson and Sesame Workshop. Oddly enough, the booklet that came with Old School Volume 1 pointed out that Henson provided the voice but another actor played the baker, but it doesn't say what the actors name was. --Minor muppetz 21:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Episode Guide Format
I think the time might be right now to format this the way we have been doing with sketch listings on various Sesame Street episode pages, as well as sketch guide pages, with images from the sketches. I have seen stills from all of these sketches (except for the ones about the numbers one, four, and eight) elsewhere on Muppet Wiki. As far as I know all of these sketches except for the one about the number one are available at You Tube, though I am not sure whether it's possible to make stills from You Tube clips. I have a feeling that none of us has access to a copy of the One segment, but even then, maybe somebody could make a still of the number 1 from the opening sequence untill somebody can get a still from the segment. --Minor muppetz 23:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

10 cut from DVD
It says here that the 10 segment was cut from the DVD release of The Street We Live On. Is this true? This is the only time that I've read this kind of info. The page for The Street We Live On doesn't mention this kind of editing, and I haven't read anything about this being cut at the Muppet Central message board. I would have expected to have heard about this edit somewhere else, just like I have with the other edits from that DVD. --Minor muppetz 03:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Guillermo added that, but it appears on the DVD I have. Unless for some reason there was a seperate later printing of it with the skit removed, which seems very odd. Unless Guillermo's talking about the VHS version, which might conceiavbly be different. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 03:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's on my DVD, too. I removed the line. — Scott ( talk ) 20:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

article title
Why do we call these "The Baker Films"? — Scott (talk ) 20:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe that, like "Jazzy Spies," it was an online fan name which sorta caught on, and for lack of an offical title. And the Baker being the most memorable part of the films. As we know by now, it's listed as "Henson #3" on the first disc of Old School: Volume 1. --Dave Splurge 19:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I propose changing the article name to Henson Number Series, or something to that effect. — Scott (talk ) 19:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In the page for the ten film in "Sesame Street Unpaved", ther eis a note about this series of skits being created by Jim Henson. This part refers to them as "The Baker" films, with "The Baker" in quotes and capital first letters, while "films" is not in quotes, and the first letter is lower case. However, in Jim Hensons bio page in the same book, it refers to this as "The "Let's Sing a Song of One (and two, and three, etc)" films". Maybe "Let's Sing a Song of (counting films)" would be a better title? --Minor muppetz 04:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, some of the titles listed in the scene selection menus and classic cuts clips sound just as official as the fan-made titles listed in the various sketch guides. In the scene selections menu for Episode 0131, Doll House is listed as "Henson Dollhouse", so maybe the DVD producers wanted Hensons name in the titles of his non-Muppet films (then again, King of 8 isn't listed as "Henson King of 8", unlike in Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music). Also, I have seen variosu titles from official sources for these individual segments. I can't remember how the three segment listed in the credits for A&E Biography: Sesame Street, or in Sesame Street Unpaved when the three segment is shown. The five segment has been released on various albums under the titles "Number Five" and "Five Song" (since the baker isn't included in the album version then it wouldn't really make sense to have the baker included in the title). I believe that I have seen teh two segment referred to as "Song of Two" somewhere, but I can't remember where (I think it was in a Sesame Street songbook). --Minor muppetz 04:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, it hadn't even occured to me to check the credits for A&E's Biography (that's how I debunked the Jazz # series). They list is as "Three Song (Song of Three)" and ASCAP backs it up to close the deal. So, being that there are ten variations of the title, we need to disambiguate it. The most logical would be Number Songs, but that might be too vague. Number Song Series might suit our needs best. — Scott (talk ) 04:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Morrow's Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television uses the phrase "the baker segments. Morrow had access to the University of Maryland CTW archives (in fact, since Danny's heading up there, I might check the finding aide, see if there's a way for him to check it), but the lack of capitals certainly doesn't imply an official title. He *does* note that the slapstick of the baker was a source of criticism (when I get some time, I'm planning to hunt down some of the cited reviews for juicy quotes). With the article change, I think it's worth emphasizing the role of the baker in the opening paragraph, since it seems to be the focus of critical attention as well as popular memory. All that said, I'm in full agreement on renaming. It's worth noting that The Sesame Street Book and Record uses "Number 5" and Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music'' uses "Five Song," so Number Song Series does seem to be the best melding. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 04:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Kids imitating it?
I heard a rumor that these skits had to be dropped in 1988 because kids were imitating it by falling down stairs on purpose! Is this true? --Wile e2005 12:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason, but I've never seen any official statements from Sesame Workshop that mentioned this being the reason. Do you remember where you heard the rumor from? --Minor muppetz 13:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Someone who uploaded a Baker film on YouTube said it. --Wile e2005 14:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)