Five People in My Family

Written by	Jeff Moss
Date	1969
Publisher	Festival Attractions, Inc.
First	Episode 0008

5peopleinmyfamily-BTS — Behind the scenes.

"Five People in My Family" is a song from the first season of Sesame Street, performed by a family of Anything Muppets.

A Fat Blue father teaches the number 5 by counting each member of his family, including himself, a Reddish Magenta sister, two Green and Purple brothers, and a Pumpkin mother.

The song has also been sung by Bob as "Five Fingers on My Left Hand" in several episodes (including Episode 0008, 0144, 0530 and 0539), and was later remade as "Five Monsters in My Family".

The song was later used as part of a "Number Medley" performed by Pentatonix in Season 44.

Notes[]

Jim Henson, Loretta Long, and Bob McGrath perform the father, mother and one of the brothers in both the televised and album versions of the song. Frank Oz and Caroll Spinney's roles as the other brother and the sister in the televised version are swapped for the album version.

This is the first song that Jeff Moss wrote for Sesame Street.^[1]

The family from this song were made as finger puppets, with a number 5 accessory, as part of the More Sesame Street Finger Puppets set.

A translated version of this song, with a different music score, was performed on the first soundtrack album for Sesamstraat, the Dutch co-production of Sesame Street. It was preceded by a short sketch in which the father and mother explain to their children what the word 'family' means. This piece of dialogue reveals some background information on their identity: the family is known as the Rijnwinkel Family. Other family members who are mentioned by name include Uncle Co and Aunt Rose - whose current residence is in Limburg, a Southern province in The Netherlands - and cousins Wouter, Hans, Marlies and Alinda.