The Muppets YouTube channel, 2022.
YouTube is a video sharing website which allows users to upload and share videos. Created in February 2005, YouTube is now owned and operated as a subsidiary of Google. The site hosts a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media companies including The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop and The Muppets Studio have uploaded materials to the website.
YouTube's Movies and TV storefront features a rotating selection of films and television shows (including several Henson productions) that can be purchased or watched free with ads.
Appearances[]
- Youtube Rewind's Video of 2013 features cameos from various Sesame Street Muppets. Cookie Monster appears following a "Harlem Shake" scene, devouring the YouTube Rewind logo. Grover and a camel appear during a short scene with Macklemore, filmed during his time on the Sesame Street set. The Two-Headed Monster also appear during the credits, referred to as "Horn and Hardart."
- The 2014 Rewind video featured Big Bird on the set of The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.
- Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Elmo appeared at YouTube's annual Brandcast presentation in New York City on May 5, 2016. Big Bird appeared alongside event host Lilly Singh to promote the Sesame Studios channel, and the three Muppets later participated in a performance of Silentó's "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)."[1]
The Muppets[]
The Muppets YouTube channel, 2012.
The Muppets YouTube channel, 2019.
The Muppets Studio started posting a series of original web videos online in 2008 (many exclusive to the site). The first sets of videos were posted on YouTube accounts created for individual characters, including Sam the Eagle, Gonzo, Beaker, the Swedish Chef, Statler and Waldorf, Fozzie Bear, Rizzo the Rat and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. In 2009, the videos were posted under a central Muppets Studio account on YouTube. Additional promotional videos have been posted to the channel as well.
In 2015, the Muppets partnered with a number of popular channels at YouTube Space LA.
- YouTube channels
- The Muppets (MuppetsStudio)
- Sam Eagle (patrioticeagle)
- Beaker (meepmeepmeepow)
- The Great Gonzo (weirdowhatever)
- The Swedish Chef (deumnborkborkbork)
- Statler & Waldorf (heckleu247)
- Fozzie Bear (wockawockabear)
- Rizzo the Rat (rizzratz)
- Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (themuppetlabs)
Sesame Street[]
Elmo appeared in the logo on September 24, 2010.
Sesame Street's YouTube channel, 2019.
YouTube channel layout, 2012.
Sesame Workshop maintains their own YouTube channel featuring various clips from Sesame Street. In July 2008, Sesame Workshop launched the channel under the user name SesameStreet (which was registered in 2006).[2]
From its launch, the channel's video uploads have included segments or excerpts from Sesame Street episodes, home videos and other related productions. Since 2010, original videos have been produced expressly for the channel, including the interactive "Ask Elmo" sessions, as well as parody sketches and songs such as "Smell Like A Monster" and "Share It Maybe." Videos from select Sesame Workshop initiatives have been uploaded to the channel, including the "Put Down the Pacifier" and Autism initiatives.
Kevin Clash commented on creating content for YouTube in 2011: "We're having so much fun with that. This is where it's positive to use YouTube and all those things and get that out there. Because you know the children that you want to see that, it gets right to them. Jim always wanted the adult audience to connect with whatever was going on, whatever year it was. We were looking at commercials, looking at whatever sitcom was happening, and incorporating that into Sesame Street."[3]
On September 24, 2010, an image of Elmo graced the official YouTube logo site-wide.
On October 16, 2011, the channel was hacked, with all its videos replaced with pornography. Due to the incident, the channel (and its videos) were unavailable for several hours.
In February 2013, the channel started a campaign to become the first non-profit organization and the first US children's company to receive one-billion total video views on YouTube. The goal was reached on March 6, 2013; to celebrate, the channel released the music video "Counting the "You"s in YouTube" starring the Count.
In June 2013, a new paid subscription channel debuted, featuring select episodes from Sesame Street (seasons 35 to 38), The Electric Company (2009 revival) and Plaza Sésamo.
- YouTube channel
- Full episodes uploaded on Sesame Street's official YouTube channel
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Other YouTube channels[]
The Sesame Workshop channel's "Sesame Street Classics"
In June 2012, select episodes of Sesame Street (from Season 40 to 42) were made available to purchase. Additionally, a Sesame Street Classics channel (now defunct) featured purchasable episodes from their Volume 2 package.
Sesame Workshop's Sesame Street in Communities program launched a YouTube channel in May 2013, hosting video clips pertaining to their outreach projects. By 2023, the channel was rebranded to a generic "Sesame Workshop" channel.
An official "Sesame Street Fan" channel mainly featuring classic clips was launched in September 2023. The channel's backlog of preexisting videos (uploaded from 2016 to 2020) were originally hosted on Sesame Street's main YouTube channel.
- YouTube channels
- Sesame Workshop (@SesameWorkshop) (formerly Sesame Street in Communities)
- Sesame Street Fan (@OfficialSesameStreetFan)
International[]
Sesame Workshop also hosts a channel for international versions of the show. Plaza Sésamo's (while the account has been registered since September 2006) officially uploaded videos in July 2011. A channel for Sesamstrasse debuted in January 2013.
- YouTube channels
YouTube ads[]
In September 2012, Sesame Street released a series of YouTube ads that would play before various third-party sponsored videos on the site. The videos promoted the Sesame Street YouTube channel and featured Bert, Grover and Cookie Monster. Short variants of the ads were posted in 2018 used to promote the said channel on monetized videos.
The Jim Henson Company[]
Time Piece featured on the YouTube home page in the Spotlight section on August 2, 2011.
The Jim Henson Company also has a channel that showcases special videos and clips from their various productions. Exclusive full-episode previews of The Simian Undercover Detective Squad and Alt/Reality were first posted to the company's YouTube channel. Video episodes of the Henson.com podcast have also been released on the channel.
Henson briefly hosted a paid channel under the name Jim Henson Family TV, now defunct.
- YouTube channels
References[]
- In a 2009 promotional video for Sesamestreet.org, Makeda mentions the site's breakthrough features, which, despite Grover's insistence, does not feature kitty cat sitting on the potty. Grover hypes how many hits it gets on YouTube.
- The viral video "Beaker's Ballad", lampoons the site's video annotations.
- In the viral video "American Woman", Sam the Eagle prepares a pie chart to show the current content of YouTube: videos of ninjas, sleeping puppies and pirated music videos.
- In an insert for Season 41 of Sesame Street, Elmo appears in a video in "U Tube" doing "The Elmo Slide."
- In Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet, an allusion is made to "YouTood", a spoof of YouTube.
- Episode 4305 of Sesame Street features a spoof of the website, "Me Tube."
- In a 2014 Toyota Super Bowl spot featuring the Muppets, Gonzo says that he learned how to fix the car’s radio via a Russian YouTube video.
- When Telly Monster guest-starred on the webshow 5Facts in April 2014, he is shocked to learn that he's going to be on YouTube, blurting out, "Do you know the kind of stuff they have on YouTube? Ahhhhhhhh!"
- In The Muppets episode "Too Hot to Handler", Scooter says he shot a YouTube video on how to make a Spartan helmet out of a cereal box.
- In The Muppets episode "Swine Song", Pache says he wants to replace Fozzie with a YouTube kid.
Sources[]
- ↑ Mashable Lilly Singh, Big Bird help YouTube Brandcast shine May 6, 2016
- ↑ Hulu, YouTube, iTunes take a walk on Sesame Street
- ↑ Kevin Williamson and Jim Slotek, "The Muppets take Hollywood", Toronto Sun, February 5, 2011.
See also[]
- Muppet viral videos
- Ask Elmo
- Sesame Studios, a channel that the Sesame Street Muppets have promoted
The Muppets have appeared in original segments (scripted, improv, or interview, but not coverage of news events) on the following YouTube channels:
- The Archive of American Television, AwesomenessTV, Bare Feet with Mickela Mallozzi, BuzzFeed, Country Music Association, Garmin, Inside the Magic, Moviefone Unscripted, The Nerdist, Nerdy Nummies, New York Daily News, Noir, 1D Day, Pentatonix, The Showbiz 411, Tough Pigs, Vanity Fair
Notes[]
- Muppet Wiki does not maintain articles about fan videos posted to YouTube.
