One of These Things

Music by	Joe Raposo
Lyrics by	Raposo, Jon Stone, Bruce Hart
Date	1969

"One of These Things" was a song regularly used on Sesame Street for sketches where viewers would be shown a group of four items, one of which was different from the other three, and they would have to identify the item which didn't belong. A similar song that asks the inverse question is "Three of These Things".

The game has been used in segments starring William Wegman's dogs, and in animated form, melody only, with footprints. It was also the basis for a game in one "Journey to Ernie" segment. A line of the song is included in the theme for the "This is the Game Today" segments from Season 37, and some of the games from "This is the Game Today" include this song.

Versions

Picture	Singer	First Appearance	Subjects
	Susan	Test Show 2	First round: Three and three Ws Second round (sung as "One of These Shapes"): Three triangles and a circle According to research documents, the children complained when the camera zoomed in on one item at a time.
	Susan	Episode 0001	W and three Twos
	Susan and the kids	Episode 0011	Clothing items and a fish
	Susan and Oscar the Grouch	Episode 0013	Ice cream cone sizes
	Bob	Episode 0030	Three small and one large O, three big and one small hand, three long and one short pencil, and three fat wedges and one thin wedge of cake.
	Susan	Episode 0043	Shoe sizes
	Susan	Episode 0078	Letters and a tree
	Bob	Episode 0094	Abstract shapes
	Susan	Episode 0123	Capital and lower-case R's.
	Susan, Bob and Grover	Episode 0131	Circles
	Susan	Episode 0133	Letter combinations
	Susan	Episode 0138	Abstract shapes
	Susan	Episode 0152	Circle patterns
	Cookie Monster	Episode 0174	Number of cookies on each plate
	Bob and the kids	Episode 0207	Ds
	Susan	Episode 0260	First round:Three small capital A's and one big capital A. Second round: Three identical large elephants and a small one.
	Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus	Episode 0298	Three cut-out drawings of Snuffleupaguses and a cup
	Bob	Episode 0309	Images of blob-like shapes
	Jay and the kids	Episode 0319	Sidewalk chalk shapes
	Luis	Episode 0337	Raggedy Ann dolls
	Maria	Episode 0352	Cookies
	Gordon and the kids	Episode 0378	Carrots
	Brynne	Episode 0378	Chairs
	Susan	Episode 0382	Books
	Bob and the kids	Episode 0393	Gloves
	Gordon	Episode 0394	Upper and lowercase E
	Maria	Episode 0400	Pavas (Puerto Rican hats)
	Rafael	Episode 0400	Roosters (in Spanish)
	David	Episode 0415	Trash cans
	Gordon	Episode 0437	Beds
	Susan, Shola and John-John	Episode 0441	Numbers of circles
	Maria	Episode 0475	Three rubber balls and one alphabet block
	Susan	Episode 0514	Happy and sad faces
	David	Episode 0536	Three starfish and one crab
	Bert	Episode 0559	Pigeons
	Big Bird	Episode 0573	Big and small bowls of birdseed
	Bob and Maria	Episode 0592	Three triangles and 23
	Bob	Episode 0657	Three regular lightbulbs and one flame-shaped lightbulb
	Maria	Episode 0658	Pictures of a saw, scissors, a knife, and a baseball bat.
	Biff and Maria	Episode 0660	Dump trucks
	Bob and Count Von Count	Episode 0711	Three small birds and Big Bird
	Luis and Biff	Episode 0735	Three square items and a round orange
	Maria, Luis, and Count von Count	Episode 0751	Jars
	Maria, David, Luis and the kids	Episode 0797	Campaign buttons
	Bert	Episode 0827	Pigeons
	Bob	Episode 0828	B's and a D
	Count von Count	Episode 0831	Icicles
	The Amazing Mumford and Susan	Episode 0845	Fire helmets and Mumford's magic hat
	Herry Monster	Episode 0846	Different sized weights
	Bob and the kids	Episode 0931	Three rubber duckies and a toy boat
	The adults, Gladys the Cow, and the kids	Episode 1056	People and a cow
	Bob, David, Gordon, Slimey	Episode 1904	Four dancers
	Bob, Susan, and the kids	Episode 2132	Three lemons and one fish
	Forgetful Jones	Episode 2180	Three Birdketeers and Forgetful (a cowboy)
	Simon Soundman, Susan, and the kids	Episode 2306	Three Honkers and a bird
	Olivia	Episode 2323	Three birds and a fish
	Grundgetta and The Grouchketeers	Episode 2430	Numbers of flowers
	Snuffy and Alice	Episode 2477	Brussels sprouts and balls
	Uncle Wally, horses	Episode 2578	Uncle Wally and a singing group of horses.
	Bob and the Great Blechini	Episode 2730	Dogs and a rabbit
	Big Bird and the adults	Episode 2747	One bird and six adults
	Sidney	Episode 2755	Three cans, one cup
	Telly Monster	Episode 2889	Three big plates and one small bowl
	A penguin	Episode 3145	Four penguins - one of which has a clown nose on its beak, and one of which is Wolfgang in disguise.
	Joey and Davey Monkey	Episode 3293	Three pineapples and a lamb
	Gina, the kids, Elmo and Baby Bear	Episode 3410	A blue ball, a yellow ball, a blue pull-duck, and a blue block.
	Carlo, the kids, Elmo and Telly	Episode 3432	Three number 15s and one letter O
	Big Bird and Gordon	Episode 3540	The Squirrelles and a rabbit.
	Humphrey	Episode 3662	A picture of himself and his three siblings
	Elmo and Zoe	Episode 3872	A number 1 and three socks.
	Louie	Episode 4809	Vegetables and meat
	Oscar the Grouch, Rosita and Herry Monster	A Swingin' Sesame Street Celebration	Instruments and Grouch instruments
	Susan and Bob	Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration	Three number 50s and an L Incidentally, L is the Roman numeral for 50.
	Bob (pretending to be John-John) and John-John (pretending to be Bob)

Feet animations

A series of animated segments from season 4 featured an instrumental of the song over visuals of footprints or shoes in a graph.

#1 - One Foot
(First: Episode 0490)

#2- Big Foot
(First: Episode 0509)

#3
(First: Episode 0487)

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Releases

Audio

• The Sesame Street Book & Record (1970)
• One of These Things/Up and Down (single, 1970)
• Somebody Come and Play (1974)
• 60 Favorite Songs from Sesame Street (1975)
• 25 Greatest Hits (1975)
• Susan and Bob Sing: One of These Things/What Are Kids Called (single, 1976)
• 10th Anniversary Album (1978)
• Platinum Too (1997)

Video

• Play-Along Games and Songs (Cookie Monster version)
• Old School: Volume 1 (in episodes 0001, 0131, 0276, 0406, and 0536)
• Old School: Volume 2 (in episode 1056)
• Let's Play Games (kids with umbrellas version) (on bonus CD-ROM)
• 40 Years of Sunny Days (Cookie Monster version)

Publications

• Sesame Street Songbook Vol. 1
• The Sesame Street Songbook (1971, 1992 and 2007 editions)

Online

• YouTube (Cookie Monster version) (YouTube)

Mentions

• This song was included in a 2004 Subway commercial, where it was called "One of These Subs".
• Dave Grohl, from the Foo Fighters, admits that he was influenced by "One of These Things" while writing the song "The Pretender". (YouTube)
• The Mindless Self-Indulgence song "Unsociable" has the line: "One of these shapes is not like the other holes", which is very similar to this song.
• In the tour Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, Peanut comments on Jose Jalapeno calling Jeff "Senor Heff" and then "Senor Cheff". Jeff Dunham says it's the same thing and Peanut replies "No it's not! Didn't you watch Sesame Street?" Then he sings a short clip of "One of These Things" singing "One of these things just doesn't belong here". Then he parodies the end of the show by saying that "this show was sponsored by the sound CH."
• Taylor Swift's song "ME!" references the song in the lyrics. (YouTube)
• On an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation entitled, "99 Problems, Pt. 1," while discussing the scarcity paradigm, Riley says, "Look, there's Jess T, Jess M, Jess B, and then there's Fiona," to which Drew replies, "Wow! One of these things is not like the others."
• After prematurely declaring an election win, Donald Trump received the Sesame Street treatment with a parody of the song, in the November 4, 2020 cold open of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. (YouTube)

External links

• Lyrics