User talk:Aleal

Direct Letter Connection
Hey Andrew. What are you thoughts on connections via a producer? I know that for people like Walter Matthau or Woody Allen who have no direct connection to the muppets, we don't list them in the connections sections on pages. But what if someone was a producer? I think its a direct connection, but wanted your opinion. Basically I'm referring to David Letterman, who produced Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times. -- ''Nate (talk ) 21:15, December 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * And now that I think about it, should we stick him in the celebrities category too? -- ''Nate (talk ) 22:14, December 10, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, Nate! Take a look at Category talk:Celebrities, but you're right. Any direct connection (and that includes behind the scenes work or stuff like the celebs who sent in recipes for Miss Piggy's cookbook) counts. So yeah, he'd now be a celebrity and a producer and he can be listed in any connections list (and Matthau will never count but Allen actually does as an Our Place guest star! But wait on that, since I need to dig up the rough details, no real specifics, but I've confirmed that Rowlf introduced and at least briefly interacted with every guest on that series; with some of those other guests it would be better to wait until we can check on details, but since we already have an Allen page and content, a slim direct connection just means we can now change categories). -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 03:00, December 11, 2009 (UTC)

RTE
Hey, thanks for catching the mess that the Rich Text Editor made of Katie (Student). I've restored it for now so the techs can get to it easily. Danny and I have a list of bugs we've been reporting throughout the day. —Scott ( talk ) 23:31, December 9, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I saw the current events note after I deleted it, so I'll just note any more examples there. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 23:38, December 9, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! —Scott ( talk ) 00:18, December 10, 2009 (UTC)

Special recap
So how was the special? When did the Muppet stuff happen? Do any celebrities that were in the special get pages, or only the ones who were actually with them? Sorry for all the questions. I haven't seen it yet. I hope we get a rerun soon! -- Ken (talk ) 05:33, November 29, 2009 (UTC)

Also, a music question. I ran across a song by Derek Webb, who's a contemporary Christian artist, and he sampled Bert talking in one of his songs. Would that still go in Minor Music Mentions? I wasn't sure if that covered sampling of actual voice tracks. -- Ken (talk ) 04:39, November 30, 2009 (UTC)


 * Belated hello! Actual sampling does go in Minor Music Mentions (it's basically the aural equivalent of when Muppet clips appear in a fictional movie) but I think that's been answered by now. As for the special, it's set to be rerun, here at least, this weekend, Sunday I think, so keep an eye out! It was pleasant, what I saw of it, a nice mixture of Christmas hymns, carols, White Christmas, etc. (I could have done without the mocap Christmas Carol segment, but that's me). The Muppets were fun but just one segment so they only interacted with Bocelli and Foster. Miss Piggy popped up during the pledge drive bit, though! I'll probably add screengrabs later if someone doesn't beat me to it. Annoyingly, there were no credits for the Muppets apart from a "Special Thanks: Muppets Studio" bit (compared to full credits for Mary Blige who was performing remotely, more or less) so that seemed a bit unfair, but then it always has been a bit inconsistent as to when the Mupps get credits when they appear in specials or just a "Special Guests The Muppets" kind of thing and nothing else. -- Andrew Leal (talk ) 04:33, December 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! So it has pledge breaks?  Are they selling it already?  I'll have to decide if it's worth paying a high price to get it now, or wait until next year for a regular price. -- Ken  (talk ) 05:37, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Charlie McCarthy reference
Hi Andrew: I'm putting the citation back because when I did it originally, I was following Danny's lead for the Spike Jones page. Also, the reference appears in the text and in the figure caption; this is by design, in case more references to McCarthy are found and added. Many images have no captions, let alone citations, and discerning their origin often requires a careful reading of the article.— Tom ( talk ) 19:37, November 28, 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Sesame
Why do we have the Spanish episodes of Sesame Street. I think maybe there should be a spanish muppet wiki for them. - Purplemonkey8899

Roleplay
Okay sorry I kinda got all up in his face. But you mean I can do stuff like that on my page? If you would like would you be a character? -

Media:Episode 3470 -- Readers Of The Open Range Visit. 3/1/96
Hello! I was wondering if anyone can upload a bluelink file, with descriptions, picture segments, e.k.a. and a new file to this redlink, under season talk (1995-1996) that has never been written, by annonomous contributers. -- User:Muppetartsfan1


 * Hi again. See the message I left on your talk page. That shouldn't have been a redlink to begin with. It doesn't call for a template so I deleted that. Tell me what you'd like to do, outside of requesting someone to create a full episode guide for that show, and I'll try to help you. If it's just the request, you should use your user page for that. Basically, if anyone actually does have the episode *and* has the capabilities to convert it to a DVD or other format *and* to make screengrabs *and* the time and energy to do so for each segment and describe the plot (as you can see, that's a lot of work and depends on a lot of factors), it will happen when it happens. That's just the way it is with Muppet Wiki. When/if it does show up, I'll leave a message on your talk page. Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:58, November 26, 2009 (UTC)

Bats
Hi Andrew, I don't know what "Sesamestreet.org for Number 5 Day (May 15, 2009)" means. Does this mean the Count's Number of the Day segment for May 15, 2009 featured the number 5, and in that segment he called one of his bats "Louis"? I looked at sesamestreet.org before I added the citation tag, and the only "Count's Number of the Day: 5" clip that I found made no mention of Louis. I tried looking through other segments, but their search engine is so random that it doesn't return the segments in numerical order, etc. So what exactly is the reference?— Tom ( talk ) 22:02, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right, I just reworded slightly, but the sentence itself was the citation. Any reference to "[Blank] Day" on Sesamestreet.og refers to the main page intro video where a Muppet pops up and talks about the theme for the day, reflected in playlists, games, etc. So that's the source, but I added the date since these things don't last long and are never archived anywhere (sometimes the "Day" will last for much of a week, sometimes less, but it's always temporary, and in this case there's no way to check how long it lasted so I went with the date that it was added by Steve per the history, since I can confirm it was live then but not how long it lasted). You can see another example on Koko the Penguin, but Scott, who's good about these things, added the full date range. That would be a good thing to bring up on Current Events as a reminder, to always add dates when referring to a web clip or message that changes regularly and is not archived (or add to Muppet Wiki:Style Guide, since it's not something that needs consensus or can be disputed, it's just something some users forget to do). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:08, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Andrew: Thanks for the explanation. I just fixed a minor typo on the page.— Tom ( talk ) 22:16, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Hi!
This might be a Current Events question, but I wanted to run it by the English major first. Should we italicize the names of toys on their pages? How about board games? I'm seeing it done differently all over the wiki. Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:42, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a mistake, yeah, toys should never be italicized (it would be like italicizing Oreos, Swiffer, or McDonalds, or any other product which has a brand name). Video games always, since they're treated the same way as film titles, and there are established rules on that. Board games? There's definitely no rule that says they should be italicized, and of course the only issue ever arrives with those owned as copyrighted titles (not with chess, parcheesi, etc.) In ad copy and websites, the companies themselves usually leave it alone or include the (c) or (TM).
 * Wikipedia sometimes italicizes but there's no rule that they should (and they're inconsistent too; a glance shows they italicized Clue and Monopoly but not Scrabble). My own gut feeling is this: Don't italicize on merchandise pages (for, say, some game called Ernie's Twiddlebugwinks).
 * When discussing something like Monopoly or Clue, if discussing the game franchise as a whole in a phrase, you might italicize it if it's needed for clarity (or basically, when it's in the same way we discuss "the Star Wars franchise"), and that's just a maybe, if it's felt by others that it's needed. Definitely not if they ever come out with a Muppet Show Cluedo (Sam the Eagle *is* Col. Mustard!) anymore than we would for the other games not based on something famous. Go ahead and bring it up on events if you like, though, or just ask Danny to see if we need to. You've looked at the pages and I haven't, but can you tell who's italicizing and who isn't? It sounds to me like it could just be a matter of adding the extra marks when coding the heading or the same people forgetting what they did earlier, rather than any intentional style conflict, and thus may be less a matter for discussion than just a reminder. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:59, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I haven't looked inside any pages yet, since I wanted to ask what the "rules" were before I started changing things. I saw Danny adding a lot of stuff, and it just seemed to me that something like The Fraggle Rock Game looked funny not being italicized. But I'll look around some more.  Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:15, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, really, it shouldn't be italicized, by proper rules, though sometimes these things walk the line between being product name or titles, but there's no grammar style guideline that they should. Anyone that does does so for reasons of their own aesthetic or stylistic preference, which isn't always a bad thing (way back, we decided how to handle TV shows, TV episodes, and films, for example, using a mixture of established guidelines and what was practical for our purposes) so you can suggest it if you like. But the lack of it for board games (as I said, video games or, say, an interactive book or something with a game element would be different) isn't an act of omission, so to speak (boy I'm pompous tonight). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:23, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll make that one of my ongoing projects. I got sidetracked tonight, because I found out that the Muppet Christmas special from last year made a soundtrack, but it's download only.  So I had to figure out how to write that up, and now it's done (and I have a feeling we're going to see more download-only albums in the future).  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that I love that we both had the same reaction to Jim Henson's Clorox Commercial!  The first thing I thought of was Fibber McGee and Molly! -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:34, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * "There's no rubbing or buffing when you use Johnson's Wax!" Ah, the halcyon days of Harlow Wilcox and Don Wilson. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:35, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * "It's so tasty, too!" (Whoops, that's Lucy!) -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:54, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks, Andrew, for pointing out that I can edit the file or talk pages of images to leave details that most people don't need to know. I feel better knowing that the information is there is someone wants it!— Tom ( talk ) 03:10, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Dog City
Heya. It looks like Amazon has the complete Dog City now. As I recall, I think you were still missing an episode or two. —Scott ( talk ) 00:24, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * I actually filled that in awhile back (I thought of mentioning it to you but I recalled you didn't like working with their viewing software). I still need to fully mine them episode by episode, though I did add a lot of characters and fully overhauled my favorite episodes (and the environmental episode was very forced or "Yogi's Gang"/Captain Planet-ish, i.e. gangster dogs littering and Artie going overboard forcing everyone to recycle, compared to the better handling of the same issues on Dinosaurs). If you ever do feel like tackling it, I think you'd get the biggest kick out of "Who Watches the Watch Dog?" I'd also recommend " Ya Gotta Have Hart," which really has fun with the Duck Amuck premise and fate of a fictional character (and I have a ton of screengrabs I need to add from it, including an involved superhero comic with Ace Hart as "Wonder Dog," plus an uncredited Jerry Nelson as a French film director!) I may get to those in the next few weeks (hope to see if I can get some examiner writing done or something that will lead to even a few cents; the frustration and despair and lack of any prospects is getting overwhelming again, though Wiki work is a pleasant escape). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:32, November 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm just not comfortable paying for something that can only be played on proprietary software. If they ever release them through iTunes, that would be the way to go. —Scott ( talk ) 03:19, November 25, 2009 (UTC)

Shakespeare edits
Hi Andrew: I agree with putting back in the Statler and Waldorf bit, but I'll also add something about many other references to Shakespeare. Regarding the "References" the last iteration of the "concensus" about headings was that "References to" was to be used when both References and Muppet mentions sections exist or where the article is longer than one page at a typical screen resolution (Danny Horn's suggestion). My screen is 17" viewable and I'm using a resolution of 1280 x 1024, and the article is longer than one screen length and only likely to get longer. What do you think?— Tom ( talk ) 21:01, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * There are no Muppet mentions, it's redundant and patently obvious with a short leader head, and take a look at the text I added before your last edit: "In addition to the named plays above, which have been referenced many times, there have been assorted references to Shakespeare himself, his work as a whole, or one-shot references to other works." That covers Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and everything else that has its own page, so nothing else is needed. I'm afraid I just fail to see how you think anyone could possibly be confused on this page and need additional text in the heading to clarify, even moreso when I'd just added text *below* the heading which makes it even more clear. I don't see how you think a consensus guideline applies here when we'd decided to take it on a case by case basis (Danny just included a few possibles) and I don't see how the article getting any longer makes it more confusing, especially when there are the neat subheadings. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:10, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree in part, but I was also following the guidelines, as set forth in the "Current Events" discussion. The discussion has been silent for some days, so I thought it was settled. Obviously I don't want to argue with you and would rather that you take up this topic again on "Current Events" if you are still unhappy. By the way, I made a mistake. My monitor is 21" viewable on the diagonal :)— Tom ( talk ) 21:20, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * I just brought it up again. Silence doesn't always mean consensus, especially late in November and with a ton of other Wiki issues to occupy admins and others. Again, Danny said "proposed guidelines," a suggestion, not a firm rule, and one which I also think you misinterpreted, but I re-opened it so Danny and Scott can weigh in (and preferably others, but nobody else seems to care or notice; I may ask Wendy, who tends to pay a lot of attention to stylistic matters, to take a gander). -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:25, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * Right, Andrew. Sorry. I seem to have jumped the gun.— Tom ( talk ) 21:29, November 23, 2009 (UTC)

Happy 20,000 pages!
Hope you're well. Did you hear that Edward Woodward passed away today? I saw it on Yahoo, and I was surprised that somebody didn't get to his page before I did. (Usually you and Nate are first with the obituaries.) Anyway, it's always great to see you working on all kinds of things, and I just wanted to say thanks for all of your help, and thanks for helping us get to 20,000 pages! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 07:16, November 17, 2009 (UTC)

Disco D - source
Hello: I am the source. The name is Dwight R.B. Cook. I am the lead singer on the Disco D clip. The contractor for the voice over was Howard Roberts who was one of the musical directors of Voices Inc. that was a touring musical theatre troup out of NY in the 70's. Grenoldo Frazier was one of the perfomer/pianist at that time and I was an actor/singer with the group. The three of us did the vocal session and I was fortunate enough to be tapped to do the lead vocals. -- User:Trikatrod 00:18, November 15, 2009


 * Thanks for the details! Sorry for the reversions, which probably seem knee-jerk. We've just gradually established careful guidelines for sourcing (which, combined with registration, saves us from a lot of the guesses or nonsense that pop up on Wikipedia, say), though we've also used a lot of firsthand info from performers or crew who've registered, it's just not always apparent from a user name. Plus we do a lot of "voice chasing" by ear and another user thought the lead sounded like Muppeteer Richard Hunt (I checked the clip on YouTube, and your voice is in a similar range but not identical). I fixed it, and if you have any more details you'd like to add (there or on any other segments you may have worked on), feel free! Apologies again! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:32, November 15, 2009 (UTC)

Speelling
It amuses me no end that I moved a page for spelling, and did the same thing myself when I created the page. -- ''<font color="Purple">Nate (<font color="Purple" size="1">talk ) 22:52, November 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * Even a man who is pure in heart may make a spelling error, regardless of the phases of the moon, though possibly influenced by the migration of geese. -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:00, November 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * "My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places." -- ''<font color="Purple">Nate (<font color="Purple" size="1">talk ) 23:18, November 12, 2009 (UTC)


 * "Owl, wise though he was in many ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTERED TOAST." -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 23:26, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Betsy Loredo
Hi! That Betsy Loredo page looks great! Thanks for taking it and running with it! Max riverbottom 19:21, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

Happy Anniversary!
To the show, that is. Two things:

1) I finally started a Krazy Kat page.  I didn't know if you'd seen it.  Anything you can add would be great!

2) The Newshour with Jim Lehrer did a piece on Sesame's 40th tonight.  They also said they're going to have some additional content on their website.  I want to make a page working all of that together, so would that be TV Appearances and Online Content? -- <font color="Blue">Ken  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:28, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

Never mind on #2; Scott just did it! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:08, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

Hi again!
So I don't clutter Current Events, can I just start putting record redirects in the delete category? That way, whoever sees them first can delete them. -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:14, November 4, 2009 (UTC)


 * Perfect! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 03:15, November 4, 2009 (UTC)

Hi!
I thought you might be able to help Nate out over at Talk: Jesus Christ. Happy All Saints' Day! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 06:19, November 2, 2009 (UTC)

Category system
Hey, I saw your note on David Alan Grier about the confusing new category system. I don't like it either, but did you know you could turn it off in your preferences? Just thought I'd let ya know in case you wanted to use the old school method. —Scott ( talk ) 01:17, October 26, 2009 (UTC)


 * I did not know that. Thanks! That would make it a lot easier on me. In this case, I had to just delete the existing categories and re-add them manually, whereas in the old method I could just shuffle. So hooray! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:20, October 26, 2009 (UTC)

See you in the funny papers!
Awesome new job in the El Paso paper! How did that happen? -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:36, October 17, 2009 (UTC)

Talk talk talk
It looks like moving the "Current Discussions" box into My Home has helped to perk up the active talk pages a lot -- all five of the Hot Spots are for talk pages right now! I'm really glad you brought that up a couple weeks ago; I think the combo of Hot Spots and the Discussions box is keeping us more focused on the talk pages than ever. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:19, October 17, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's really lovely. It helps a lot that you can see at a glance how many people have responded to a talk page, and I know I've personally found it a lot easier to keep track of these things (and I think Scott and the others have too). I'm glad Scott came up with that, it really is the perfect solution. And apart from the housekeeping standpoint, it's just more fun when people discuss these things rather than they're getting ignored and dying, and when we get input from more folks than just you, me, Scott and/or Brad. A variety of different folks have been weighing in lately and that's always a good thing. So yay us! -- <font color="Blue">Andrew Leal (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:25, October 17, 2009 (UTC)

Hi!
I love Flapsole Sneakers! I wish Stan could have written for the Muppets! I think he would have been perfect! Anyway, can you take a look at my question there? Thanks! -- <font color="Blue">Ken (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 04:19, October 7, 2009 (UTC)

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