Long Sought-after Sesame Street clips

These were two of my favourite Sesame Street bits when I was a kid. It's not necessarily because they were the best, or the funniest, but because I only ever got to see them two or three times when I was little. In fact, I'm sure that part of the reason I watched Sesame Street as long as I did was because of the hope of seeing these again. Of course, now with YouTube, you can see just about anything you'd ever want to see from your childhood, but in case you haven't thought to look these up yet, here they are! Do you remember them? Does this make you as excited as it does me?

Extended Pinball Routine

The pinball routine was one of my favourite bits of Sesame Street. It's got a great little song, and when I was really little, I had no idea what pinball was, only just that there were some pretty funny bits on Sesame Street with a shiny ball. And while the pinball segments were great, I always kept watching for this one. Normally, the first three bits were always the same, and there was one distinct segment for the number of the day, with a zoo theme, or American landmarks, or whatever. But sometimes you'd get the extended play, when it would just keep going. Rather than rolling off into the distance as the blimp sailed by at the bottom of the screen, the pinball would drop into another distinctive segment. This was nothing short of awesome! I know that as a kid, I remembered that the witch's cave featured in this one, but I couldn't quite figure why the action didn't continue every time the ball went into the witches cave.

Jazzy Spies #8

The first time I saw this, I was blown away! Ernie and Bert had been watching the same thing I was! Years later, I never remembered that it was the I 8 the sandbox routine that followed up on this, so every time the 'Jazzy Spies' came on, I'd sit up excitedly, hoping to catch Bert and Ernie watching at the end. Technically, the name for these segments are 'Jazz 8' (or 9 or 10 or whatever) but they're popularly known as 'Jazzy Spies' because of the secret-agent guys at the end. And yes, that is Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick singing!