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Special or movie?[]
Forgive me if this might have been brought up before or if this might be deemed a stupid question, but looking over some information on this special and it is much longer than an average Muppet and/or Sesame special (and for that matter, longer than an average Sesame Street episode). At just about 75 minutes, it's more the length of a TV-movie. So should this really be considered a special or a movie? --Philo & Gunge 22:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- I would call it a special, since the only Sesame Street movies CTW did were released theatrically. I'd have to check, but I think that NBC also advertised it as a special, not a TV-movie. -- Ken (talk) 06:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
- One thing to think about is the fact that the movie post and most video releases of Follow That Bird from three years later refer to it as "The first Sesame Street movie ever!" --Minor muppetz 16:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
- Despite the slightly longer length (and 90 minute specials have never been too uncommon), we qualify it as a special, the same as with any of the other longer Sesame specials. It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (both much longer than China) were slotted as movies, promoted as movies, and put on home video as movies, so we treat them as such, but otherwise we save the categorization for theatrical movies. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
- Well, I personally think 88 minutes to 75 isn't really too much of a difference (and if I'm correct, Big Bird in China is actually longer than The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland by a few minutes), I'll consider my question answered. Unless someone can unearth some NBC ads indicating advertising this thing, a special it is. --Philo & Gunge 22:19, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
- It's a bigger difference when commercials are added and given more commercials in recent years (resulting in two hour slots rather than 90 minute slots; and the home video versions of the Muppet TV movies are longer), though even then it's iffy, but if anything it would be a question of whether to reclassify those entries as specials (which has come up in passing, but we've generally found it easier to just accept the Disney/title/general consensus of those as TV movies), not reclassify China as a movie. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Assistant Puppeteers?[]
While I always think it's cool when articles can identify who did the assisting, I'm rather dubious in this case. Does anyone have a source other than IMDb for those assignations? Even if they're characters aren't used much, I'm not convinced that Jerry Nelson or Richard Hunt would have been right handing, especially on more than one character, and given three names which I found in the screen credits: Martin P. Robinson (who wasn't Telly yet), and especially Ed Christie and Cheryl Blaylock, given that almost invariably when Workshop folks puppeteered, it was as assistants or background characters. --Andrew, Aleal 21:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)