A questionable couplet in Sesame Street Episode 4135.
Songwriting and poetry can be difficult tasks (as Don Music can attest). In comedy contexts, it often involves unusual word selections, near rhymes, or improvising a pronunciation to force it to rhyme. Such creative license (or flowery phrasing in general) does not always go unnoticed by the listening audience.
- In Tales of the Tinkerdee, minstrel Kermit ends a line with "I suppoose" to rhyme with "news". King Goshposh says "What was that last word?"
- Sesame Street pageants:
- In "Making a Face," Ernie sings a line about eyes, ending with "they look very nize," to which Prairie Dawn questions, "Nize?"
- In "Seasons," Ernie, representing summer, mentions fishing and swimming. His next line is "The beaches are open / For men and for wimming." Prairie Dawn questions, "Wimming?"
- In Episode 2839, Prairie herself proved not immune to this during her vegetable pageant. Following a line about the best they are "able," she gives a slow mispronunciation of "ve-ge-table!", followed by Elmo whispering "It's vegetable, Prairie Dawn."
- In Episode 3462, during her pageant about quiet and loud, Prairie follows a line about things that are "quiet", she follows, "And so, now.. of course, is why-it..." conceding to groans, "Okay, it's not one of my best rhymes."
- In the song "When I Was Little," Ernie sings about a time when he was afraid to take a bath in the tubby, being afraid of going down the drain with, among other things, "a glub-glub-glubby," to which Bert questions the use of the word "glubby" and Ernie points out that it rhymes with "tubby."
- In The Muppet Movie, during "Movin' Right Along," a series of lines ending with rhymes for "habit" ends with Fozzie saying, "We'll hitchhike, bus, or yellow cab-it," to which Kermit says, "Cab-it?"
- In episode 323 of The Muppet Show, Scooter (as Alan-a-Dale) ends a line with "living fast and looth" to rhyme with "in sooth." Fozzie questions, "Fast and looth?" Scooter replies, "Come on, give me a break. I'm usually the go-fer around here."
- In the Fraggle Rock episode "The Terrible Tunnel," during the song "The Ballad of Sir Blunderbrain," the Storyteller describes the Terrible Tunnel when Sir Blunderbrain enters as "The wind was low and lonesome and it wasn't any, uh, funnel."
- In The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss episode "The Mystery of Winna-Bango Falls," Thidwick rhymes "watta" (water) with "oughta," then apologizes to the camera.
- In Shalom Sesame: Chanukah, a verse in "The People in Your Neighborhood" from two olive oil pressers rhyme "Judah" with the line, "He really likes to eat fried food-ah." Jeremy Miller says glibly, "Nice rhyme, girls."
- In Episode 4135 of Sesame Street, the Bookaneers map reads "If No L's Be Upon The Sign / Then Take Eight More Steps And Try Agine." The First Mate calls the rhyme a stretch, to which the Salty Dog pirate responds, "I just reads them. I don't writes them."
Notes[]
- In the 2021 web video of "Movin' Right Along," Kermit remarks that Rhode Island does in fact rhyme with "pie in the sky land."
See also[]
- "The Rhyming Song," a song where each line is expected to rhyme with the line before it, but fails to do so.