Bert, Elmo, and Ernie with unstolen letters on the Sing the Alphabet album cover.
In the early 1990s, developments were underway on making a second Sesame Street theatrical film. After some meetings in 1993 for potential movie ideas, writers Tony Geiss and Judy Freudberg (who both co-wrote the first Sesame film, Follow That Bird) began developing their own idea. Between 1994 and 1995, they worked on treatments and full screenplays for a film titled The Alphabet Thieves, in which the Sesame Street gang must rescue the alphabet from a band of literary villains.
Some alternate titles for the project included Trouble in Storyland, Alphabet Soup, and Don't Eat the Alphabet (as a nod to the special Don't Eat the Pictures). Early treatments feature the title "The Tricycle Thief" (a play on the 1948 film The Bicycle Thief).
Ultimately, the film did not get further than the scripting stage and a new feature film concept, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, hit theaters in 1999 instead.
Story[]
While the different drafts have different character focuses and story beats, the essential plot and certain elements described below remain the same throughout all of them.
On what appears to be an ordinary day on Sesame Street, all the letters suddenly vanish from books, signs, mail, and more. On the TV news, the gang learns the same is happening across the globe (showing scenes of similar occurrences in places like China, France, and the Hollywood sign vanishing).
The broadcast is then disrupted by some storybook villains (namely Captain Hook, the Wicked Witch of the West, and the Big Bad Wolf), who declare that they have kidnapped all the letters of the alphabet. Their motives are driven by always being labeled as “bad guys” in their respective stories. By eliminating the alphabet once and for all (by turning it into an alphabet soup), they reason that there will no longer be words to read, thus no stories, and they can live their lives free of the stigmatization that comes with being a fictional ne'er-do-well.
The villains reside in the Land of Make Believe (no connection being made to the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood location), home to various characters from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and other popular works of fiction (by such authors as Lewis Carroll, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, Mark Twain, and L. Frank Baum). A faction of the Sesame Street gang uses a large magic mirror outside of Finders Keepers to get there. Characters present in all drafts for the adventure include Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster (intent on consuming the alphabet soup himself), Ernie and Bert (who plan on making a trade for the alphabet using Rubber Duckie and paper clips), the Count (to count the letters), and Oscar the Grouch in his Sloppy Jalopy, which causes the mirror to shatter and forces those left behind to pick up the pieces and repair it.
As the gang makes their way through the new and strange land to reach the Wicked Witch’s castle (where the letters are being kept), she sends a personal raincloud to deter them. They find somewhere to take shelter, when the witch follows up with a tornado; Elmo is accidentally sucked into it and separated from the group.
Meanwhile on Sesame Street, while much of the gang tries to piece the mirror back together, Telly recruits several characters to stand around parts of the block yelling out the names of places and businesses while their signs are no longer readable. Super Grover eventually joins the pursuit for the alphabet, smashing the newly-repaired mirror as he plummets through it. He has a brief run-in the sky with Peter Pan.
Elmo continues on his way, when he spots the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel. He starts to nibble and is captured by the witch, who throws him in a cage and feeds him spaghetti to fatten him up and eat him. He sings a melancholy song, when he’s rescued by Cookie Monster as he devours the joint.
After some detours, Ernie and Bert arrive at the castle, which is staffed by various, yellow-clad henchmen known as "Winkies." In front of the villains, they make a musical pitch to exchange the alphabet for their precious items. The baddies take their items, but instead of giving up the alphabet (in the process of being turned into soup that very moment), the Wicked Witch forces them be among the Winky slaves.
The rest of our heroes continue the long trek to the castle, where outside a large Jabberwock is keeping guard. Just as he moves in on the group, he's frightened away by the cacophony of noise coming from Oscar's car alarm as he whizzes past. They sneak inside, posing as statues to evade the Winky guards.
The villains gather for their alphabet soup banquet. Cookie Monster appears when the pot lid is opened, alerting everybody of the Sesame gang's presence. A fast-motion, slapstick chase ensues. Meanwhile, Ernie and Bert use the chaos to try and sneak the large pot of alphabet soup away. They're sent back in the other direction when the Jabberwock comes running in, with Oscar's car following.
The villains soon give up for now, but promise they'll enact the plan once again. Everyone instead tells them how valuable bad guys are to stories. A flattered Big Bad Wolf shows off his huffing and puffing, sending the soup pot barreling out of the castle and setting the letters free. They are shown returning to their rightful places in signs, books, and more all over the Earth.
The film would then end with the characters celebrating the newly-restored alphabet by reading the end credits, with Big Bird wondering aloud who "Caroll Spinney" is.
Revised elements and plot lines[]
Although the main story remains mostly the same throughout the different revisions of treatments and screenplays, several elements vastly differ from each other:
- In the earliest proposals, the film's opening sprawl of Sesame Street was shown from the viewpoint of Slimey, flying his worm-sized airplane with a trailing newspaper advertisement. In most of the subsequent treatments and scripts, the beginning is instead a riff on the opening of Forrest Gump, where one of Big Bird's yellow feathers flies through New York City before arriving at Sesame Street.
- Little Red Riding Hood, with the intention of being played by a live human child, was given a much more prominent role when the treatments became full screenplays. She emerges from the magic mirror early on in the film and accompanies our Muppet heroes on their journey through the Land of Make Believe.
- The expansion of Little Red's character also changes the motivation for the villains and heroes. In the earlier versions of the story, the villains are introduced when they hatch their scheme over the television. In later versions, Little Red's new Sesame Street friends help her use the mirror to warn her grandmother of the Big Bad Wolf ahead of time. Frustrated with the results, the Wolf convenes with the other villains and they air their grievances of being treated so poorly before deciding to put a plan into effect. As such, our Sesame Street heroes' motivation for their adventure is to right the wrong they inadvertently perpetrated.
- The cast venturing into the Land of Make Believe differs from the treatments to script. Early on, Big Bird, Elmo, Ruthie, Gordon, Maria, and a human child are the ones who venture off to retrieve the alphabet. The group was later changed to Big Bird, Elmo, Zoe, and Little Red, though Gordon, Maria, and Ruthie show up later when the magic mirror is repaired (for the second time). Oscar initially traveled into the land with Carlo, Gina, and Rosita riding with him. Gina was later replaced by a set of Grouchketeers, and later, Oscar merely took the trip solo.
- When separated from his friends, Elmo initially lands and meets Peter Rabbit, who takes him to the property of Farmer McGregor and the pair are chased away; he then encounters the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. In a later screenplay draft, he lands in Oscar's Sloppy Jalopy. The two ride down the yellow brick road for a bit before Elmo is inadvertently left behind.
- Early on, when the Sesame cast tries to find Elmo after the cyclone, they get a ride from Mr. Toad, driving them around the land like a madman. Eventually, he is taken away by a bobby officer and the gang receives support and shelter in the woods from Robin Hood and his band of outlaw compatriots.
- While Super Grover's role to save the alphabet is grounded in noble heroics in the screenplays, the treatments instead show him originally working at Charlie's Restaurant. Because the menu is textless, Mr. Johnson demands to know what his options are. Grover hurriedly goes back and forth from the kitchen with every available food item. Weary and frustrated, he makes a decided effort to restore the alphabet to make his job less taxing.
- Ernie and Bert were at first deterred along their journey by various storybook inconveniences, such as meeting Humpty Dumpty or Ernie getting tricked into painting Tom Sawyer's fence. This was later changed to the two spending much of their time under the musical sway of the Pied Piper, along with various other residents of the Land of Make Believe. Elmo and Oscar would also be temporarily caught under his musical spell as well.
- A scene cut from later drafts had one of the Wicked Witch's deterrents be a sleeping spell affecting Big Bird. Different iterations of Prince Charming arrive to try and wake him with a kiss, to no avail. A kiss from Maria instead breaks the spell.
- The roster of additional villains, apart from those mentioned, varies a little but mostly along the same lines, with the Evil Queen from Snow White in most drafts and either a single ogre or plural (referred to as the Brothers Grimm). Others include Rumpelstiltskin and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Songs[]
The Sesame Street sign a few letters short as a result of magic in Episode 3972.
The film was intended to be a musical. Across the drafts, few of the songs were written with full, finished lyrics, and primarily have temporary or suggested titles:
- An untitled "resentful song" by the villains after the Wolf's altercation with the woodsman, wondering why their constant punishment is considered a "happy ending" to their stories.
- "The Land of Make Believe": A set of musical directions on how to navigate the titular world, full of short phrases lifted from various works of fiction. In earlier drafts, the song was led by Ruthie, but it was later changed to an unseen chorus.
- "Please": Big Bird, Zoe, Elmo, and Little Red sing the song about the power of the "magic word," believing it will be enough to convince the villains to restore the alphabet.
- "Everything's Up in the Air Today": Sung by the cast in earlier drafts as the Ozian cyclone sucks up the Old Woman's shoe, as well as the residents back on Sesame Street and the villains in the castle. They sing about literally being up in the air (with some of the Sesame regulars and other fictional characters flying by the window), while also things being metaphorically up in the air with no alphabet in their lives. Eventually, the song would be replaced with an alternate musical number titled "What a Curious Thing to Be Up in a Shoe."
- "Smile": Sung to Elmo by the Cheshire Cat about how smiling can turn one's sad disposition into a happy one. Writer Tony Geiss is known to have brought the song to at least a recording demo stage.
- "When I Hear the Music": A song for Bert and company to perform while under the musical influence of the Pied Piper.
- "Never": While trapped in the gingerbread house, Elmo musically muses about all the things he'll never get to do in a world with no letters (such as going to school or learning to drive).
- "Once Upon a Time": A wistful song where characters muse about returning to a time before there was no longer an alphabet in their lives. The song was first intended for Snuffy to sing after Celina is unable to read him a bedtime story. It was later changed to be led by Elmo, with the rest of the cast joining in from the Land of Make Believe and Sesame Street.
- An untitled song in which the villains prepare the soup, with a line about each letter and a word that starts with it that pertains to their plan.
- "The Most Precious Things in the World": Ernie and Bert's musical pitch of the villains about why paper clips and Rubber Duckie would be valuable enough to trade the alphabet for.
- An untitled song where the cast sings to the villains about how important they are to their stories.
Celebrities[]
Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown on Sesame Street.
As with the Muppet movies prior and since, a number of celebrity cameos were suggested in the project's various stages:
- During the Forrest Gump parody opening, the feather would pass Tom Hanks on a bench reading The Wall Street Journal.
- The newscast first alerting the cast of the disappearing letters was suggested to have a number of different reporters, including Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, or Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown, as well as others from the FYI team (specifically Charles Kimbrough as Jim Dial, Joe Regalbuto as Frank Fontana, and Faith Ford as Corky Sherwood).
- Kermit the Frog, in his reporter apparel, would have a cameo appearance making an on-the-scene report about the worldwide crisis that naturally ends in disaster for him.
- Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Telephone Operator, working at the White House when Ruthie tries to call the President. Depending on the draft, she is either merely an operator or bestowed with the title of "special assistant to the undersecretary of liaison."
- For the scene where Big Bird must be woken from an enchanted sleep, the three different versions of Prince Charming were suggested to be Hugh Grant (as Cinderella's prince), Denzel Washington (as Snow White's prince), and Kevin Kline (as Sleeping Beauty's prince).
- Meg Ryan was intended to cameo as herself in a scene at Charlie's Restaurant, making a reference to the infamous When Harry Met Sally scene.
- James Galway was scripted to play the Pied Piper in one draft.
- John Cleese was mentioned to portray Captain Hook.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger would have a brief appearance as Tarzan, appearing in the treetops with Cookie Monster as they enact the often misquoted dialogue between Tarzan and Jane.
- A draft suggests either Carol Burnett or Andrea Martin as Cinderella's Fairy Godmother.
- Hand written notes suggest Robin Williams as the Mad Hatter and Michael Jeter as the White Rabbit, while another draft suggests Williams as Doctor Dolittle (spelled Doolittle in some sections).
- For the happy ending, Leslie Nielsen is suggested as the President of the United States.
- A brain storming hand written list of possible guest stars and cameos includes Dan Aykroyd, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Lansbury, Rosie Perez, Michael Richards, and Forest Whitaker. The name Laurence Fishburne is crossed out.
See also[]
- Sesame Street - The Movie
- Untitled Sesame Street school movie
- Incredible Shrinking Elmo
- Show 9: Aleph-Bet Telethon, featuring a similar plotline of a disappearing alphabet
Sources[]
External links[]
- Tough Pigs: My Week with The Alphabet Thieves - Part One, Part Two, Part Three