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. In a 1999 episode, in which the Dingers plan on having a ding-a-long, the cast sang a variation called "One of These Dings".

A similar game was played to two different songs written by Joe Raposo and Jeff Moss in 1970 and called "Three of These Things Belong Together", with variations such as "Two of These Things", "Here Are Some Things", and "Three of These Kids Belong Together". (The last version involved a four-way split screen with three children performing one activity, plus a fourth child "doing his own thing". Sometimes it was called "One of These Kids".) In some instances of the game, kids were encouraged to find more than one different answer, depending on how the things could be categorized.

This 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, and some of the games from "This is the Game Today" include this song.

Versions

Picture	Singer	Earliest Known Appearance	Subjects	Variations
	Susan	Episode 0001	W and three Twos	One of These Things
	Susan and Oscar the Grouch	Episode 0013	Ice cream cone sizes	One of These Things
	Susan	Episode 0043	Shoe sizes
	Susan	Episode 0054	Shapes
	Susan	Episode 0083	Silverware and a clock
	Susan	Episode 0123	Capital and lower-case R's.
	Susan, Bob and Grover	Episode 0131	Circles	One of These Things
	Oscar the Grouch	Episode 0135	Rancid sneaker, tattered glove, messed up sock, and nice hat.	Three of These Things
		Episode 0136	Hot dog, mustard, bun, and flower.	Three of These Things
	Bob	Episode 0158	Fruit	Some of These Fruit
	Bob	Episode 0158	Knick-Knacks	Some of This Stuff
	Cookie Monster	Episode 0174	Number of cookies on each plate	One of These Things
	Mr. Hooper	Episode 0179	Groups of candy	Three of These Groups
	Ernie	Episode 0267	Plates full of cookies	One of These Things Belongs with the Others
	Kermit the Frog and Susan	Episode 0276	Hammer, shoe, pliers, and a saw	Three of These Things
	Kermit the Frog and Susan	Episode 0276	Three birds and a frog
	Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus	Episode 0298	Three cut-out drawings of Snuffleupaguses and a cup
	Grover and Susan	Episode 0406	Car and three animals
	Luis	Episode 0408	Three Policemen, one fireman. (all Kids)	Three of These Kids
	Luis	Episode 0413	Upside-down kids, right side up kids	Three of These Kids
	Luis	Episode 0418	Basketball and Baseball	Three of These Kids
	Luis	Episode 0463	Three kids wearing winter clothes, and one kid not in winter clothes	Three of These Kids
	David	Episode 0536	Three starfish and one crab
	Bob	Episode 0536	Football and Baseball	Three of These Kids
	Bob and Maria	Episode 0592	Three triangles and 23	One of These Things
	Bob and the kids	Episode 0597	Shovels	Three of These Things
	Bob, Luis and David	Episode 0598	A scarf, hat, glove and book	One of These Things
	The kids	Episode 0825	Three kids riding one seat bicycle, and two kids riding two seat bicycle	Three of These Things
	Linda	Episode 0901	Fruit and a shoe	Three of These Things
	The adults, Gladys the Cow, and the kids	Episode 1056	People and a cow	One of Us Here
	David	Episode 1733	Three kids are jumping rope, but the fourth one is sitting down and reading a book.	Three of These Kids
	Luis	Episode 2238	Three kids holding umbrellas, and one kid not holding an umbrella	Three of These Kids
	Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin)	Episode 2459	Boots and Pumps	Three of These Things
	Snuffy and Alice	Episode 2477	Brussels Sprouts and Balls	One of These Things
	The Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Pigs, and Kermit the Frog - Sesame Street News Flash	Episode 2567	Three pigs and one frog	Three of These Things
	Uncle Wally, horses	Episode 2578	Uncle Wally and a singing group of horses.	One of Us Here is Not Like The Others
	Maria, Gina, and Telly Monster	Episode 2746	When Oscar shows up while Maria, Gina, and Telly are making Oscar's favorite dish - a hat with ice cream and a fish inside - they play an impromptu game of this, featuring a hat, fish, ice cream, and apple.	Three of These Things
	Big Bird and the adults	Episode 2747	Big Bird, Susan, Luis, and Linda.	Three of These Things
	Big Bird, Bob, Luis, Maria, and Gabriella	Episode 2747	Three adults and a child	Three of These Things
	Big Bird and the adults	Episode 2747	One bird and six adults	Six of These Things
	Sidney	Episode 2755	Three cans, one cup	One of These Things
	Telly, Savion, and Kids	Episode 2953	A toy rocket ship, a pair of tap-shoes, a toy airplane, and a toy helicopter.	Three of These Things
	A penguin	Episode 3145	Four penguins - one of which has a clown nose on its beak, and one of which is Wolfgang in disguise.	One of These Things
	Ruthie, Telly Monster, Merry Monster, and The Kids	Episode 3164	A roller skate, towel, soap, and a Rubber Duckie.	Three of These Things
	Gina, Kids, Elmo and Baby Bear	Episode 3410	A blue ball, a yellow ball, a blue pull-duck, and a blue block.	One of These Things
	Big Bird and Gordon	Episode 3540	The Squirrelles and a rabbit.	One of These Things
	Gina, Zoe, Alice, and kids	Episode 3757	A squirrel, a teddy bear, a penguin, and a drum.	Three of These Things
	Elmo and Zoe	Episode 3872	A number 1 and three socks.	One of These Things
	Cookie Monster and Ernie	Episode 3943	A hamburger, a cookie, pizza and a fajita	Three of These Things
	Elmo and viewer	Episode 3967	A soccer ball, a jump rope, jacks and Stinky the Stinkweed	Three of These Things Belong Here
	Big Bird and Cookie Monster	Episode 3981	A cookie, a hat, a t-shirt, and a shoe	Three of These Things
	Big Bird and Snuffy	Episode 3992	Oscar, a hat, a mat, and a cat (Little Murray Sparkles)	Three of These Things
	Maria and Kids	Episode 3993	A kangaroo, a rabbit, a fish and a grasshopper	Three of These Things
	Big Bird, Elmo, Zoe, Luis, Maria, H-Man	Episode 4115	A helicopter, a hippopotamus, a ball and a hexagon	Three of These Things
	Oscar the Grouch and Alan	Episode 4118	Food scraps and a button	Three of These Things
	Jay Leno and Big Bird		Three triangles and one circle
	Bob (pretending to be John-John) and John-John (pretending to be Bob)[1]

Versions (animated)

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 - Two Feet Walk
(First: Episode 0504)

#3
(EKA: Episode 0573)

#4 - Big Foot
(First: Episode 0509)

#5
(First: Episode 0487)

#6
(First: Episode 0518)

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Releases

Audio

• The Sesame Street Book & Record (1970)
• One of These Things/Up and Down (single, 1970)
• Susan Sings Songs from Sesame Street (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)

Sources

1. ↑ Sesame Street Unpaved

External links

• Lyrics