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I have always wondered why there had never been a British version of Sesame Street considering that most countries in the world have their own version of the children's programme; just because two countries speak the same language, it doesn't mean that they are the same country - they should have served "us", with a small U and a small S. How is a British four-year-old supposed to tell the difference, and how are you supposed to tell them at that young age? How were they supposed to tell me when I was that age? Only one term in mainstream Infant education by the end of 1983 had arrived, and I was already confused. Then again, when it came to British to American differences, even Bob Monkhouse had a point; he thought that Family Feud sounded too aggressive for a British audience and thought that Family Fortunes was better - families winning money and prizes and not families arguing and falling out, which shouldn't be the case, so in that case, what had happened to the £6,400 Question [sic] (cannot find the dollar sign on my keyboard, I'm afraid), a programme in which Monkhouse had kept the American title intact? "Never mess with successful catchphrases", he said. I often get frustrated that the spelling on this forum for example is in United States English by default, and one has to manually save every day words like "colour" and "flavour" and words that have already been in English dictionaries for centuries. In the UK, "US" is not "us", and pants are not trousers; one actually wears them under one's trousers.
I could never claim to be fluent in more than one language by the age of five, but according to my speech therapist at the time, I must have been so thanks to Sesame Street; being axed to recite my alphabet during a Friday afternoon Child Development session where I went to the local City Hospital at the same time for at least six weeks circa the summer of 1984, and as these sessions were on Friday afternoons, it meant that my weekend away from school had started a few hours earlier than my the rest of my class at school at the time. So, I quoted the alphabet, A, B, C, and so on, and as a result I was doing so well up to the letter Y. And then I pronounced the final letter "zee". "No, that's wrong; zee is the American spelling", I was told. It was probably the reason why Midlands television viewers didn't see Sesame Street again from around April 1984 to November 1987 when it had resurfaced on Channel 4, and as 4 1/2 years was half a lifetime to a nine year old back then, I might have been a bit too old for it by then, but I watched an episode, now on at 1.00 pm instead of a post-TV-am 9.25 am scheduling, and not much had changed. The four digit episode count at the beginning had reached two-thousand-and-something, and still ethnically themed - the BBC's You and Me was the closest to a British Sesame Street clone, with "down and out" Shepherd's Bush Market being the location for Cosmo and Dibbs, and occasionally, Gary Wilmot or Harry Towb.
Many ITV stations transmitted it at around 9.25 am on weekday mornings when the schools programmes were off from 1983 to 1986, but others did not. Central TV had washed their hands of it by Easter 1984 and replaced it with more cartoons, and ironically enough, American imports in its place; perhaps various speech therapists and consultants had complained to the powers that be in order to get it banned? The irony in all this was that Central Independent Television was previously Associated TeleVision, pre-1982 restructure, and ATV for short, had brought the Muppet show from the States exclusively for British screening - which starred Kermit the Frog who was the only one of Jim Henson's characters to appear in both the Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Kermit was seen more on ATV than on Central - that is a fact. Lots of American series are shown in the UK, but many of them are plain old entertainment series and very few of them focus directly on education and dialogue, such as letters of the alphabet like Sesame Street does. One tends to feel that such a programme feels misleading to a young British audience, especially the "trashcan" factor, and the "zed/zee" confusion - after all, the Elizabeth Taylor film was called "X, Y and Zee" so that the British audience would pronounce it correctly. (Another reason to pick up Belmont transmitter Yorkshire TV via the signal booster). But it did look friendly enough because of the puppets used - even Oscar the Grouch (who reminds me of Lou Kelly out of Prisoner: Cell Block H). In fact, Mr Johnson - not Boris, but the equally conservative (with a small C in this case), blue-headed man with a moustache who had often played straightman to Grover in the Charlie's Restaurant sketches on the show, reminded me of Tosh Lines out of The Bill.
Roy Skelton on Rainbow could easily vary his octave in order to do George and Zippy's voices, and that was part of the success of that programme; and even Bungle himself could do different voices by virtue to a different actor in the bear costume, circa 1988-1989 when it happened. By the same token, neither Jim Henson and Frank Oz had Rory Bremner-alike variations in their voices which was one problem - Bert and Ernie sounded exactly like Kermit and Fozzie Bear respectively. Herry Monster sounded too much like Jimmy Durante, especially during his "say, Jon-Jon, do you know the difference between loud and quiet?" to a young ethnic boy. That, 1-2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-9-10, 11-12, pinball song and its maddening rhythm caused many an earworm to a young viewer, with the featured number in the animation. Indeed, I assume that various clips are put together and filed under the relevant letters of the alphabet and numbers. Also, I literally took Grover's Health Minute too literally and thought that "tooth checker" was indeed the American word for a dentist. They seem to have Post Offices like the UK, but they still prefer to mail letters.
I have to admit in hindsight that I am surprised that British continuity announcers had never gave a warning about Sesame Street before the start of the episode such as: "the content of this programme may be educationally misleading to a young British audience" or something; (well, I have not seen proof or memory of that ever happening). Surely, "zee" is like a swearword when one is supposed to be educated in the correct way, UK-style? As a result, I believe that Sesame Street works better, not surprisingly, as a flat-out entertainment programme, a la The Muppet Show; Bert and Ernie were my favourite characters and I always looked forward to their skits on the programme. Also, in the rare times that it was shown circa 1983, it did help me to read, even though a British programme would have been a lot better - although it didn't put me into The Times territory for a few years yet. Thank goodness for the Britishness of series like Rainbow, I say. The Muppet Show was to Sesame Street as what Play Away was to Play School; its more mainstream counterpart.
On St Andrew's Day 1987, it turned up on Channel 4 where it would its British home for the following 14 years; a few weeks into its run, I was reunited with an episode and the memories kept flooding back. Errol Brown out of Hot Chocolate-lookalike Gordon was there as one of the human "presenters", and everyone seemed to present and correct from 1983-1984, probably because it was the sane episodes that were seen on ITV back then - Ulster TV was still showing episodes right until May 1987. I watched the episode, full of puppets, cartoons, documentaries, and so on - and then all of a sudden, someone says "zee". My late mother then reminded me of my forgotten meeting with the speech therapist a few years before, and the alphabet reciting with a misleading ending. The American Alphabet song is sung in such a way that it wouldn't have rhymed if "zed" is used. When I was younger, I used to assume that the United Kingdom was the only English speaking country to call Z "zed" and that Australia, New Zealand, etc, also did that; after all, Australia as a Labor Party, and not a Labour Party. And both those countries have the dollar as their currency. Even though I was outside the age bracket for the series by the late 1980s and early 1990s, it made good entertainment in a rather strange away, especially Gladys the Cow causing mayhem for no apparent reason at all during the final seconds of Guy (and not Carol) Smiley's game show sketches. However one looks at it, the entire damn thing was actually brought to you via a few unusual letters and numbers.
I could never claim to be fluent in more than one language by the age of five, but according to my speech therapist at the time, I must have been so thanks to Sesame Street; being axed to recite my alphabet during a Friday afternoon Child Development session where I went to the local City Hospital at the same time for at least six weeks circa the summer of 1984, and as these sessions were on Friday afternoons, it meant that my weekend away from school had started a few hours earlier than my the rest of my class at school at the time. So, I quoted the alphabet, A, B, C, and so on, and as a result I was doing so well up to the letter Y. And then I pronounced the final letter "zee". "No, that's wrong; zee is the American spelling", I was told. It was probably the reason why Midlands television viewers didn't see Sesame Street again from around April 1984 to November 1987 when it had resurfaced on Channel 4, and as 4 1/2 years was half a lifetime to a nine year old back then, I might have been a bit too old for it by then, but I watched an episode, now on at 1.00 pm instead of a post-TV-am 9.25 am scheduling, and not much had changed. The four digit episode count at the beginning had reached two-thousand-and-something, and still ethnically themed - the BBC's You and Me was the closest to a British Sesame Street clone, with "down and out" Shepherd's Bush Market being the location for Cosmo and Dibbs, and occasionally, Gary Wilmot or Harry Towb.
Many ITV stations transmitted it at around 9.25 am on weekday mornings when the schools programmes were off from 1983 to 1986, but others did not. Central TV had washed their hands of it by Easter 1984 and replaced it with more cartoons, and ironically enough, American imports in its place; perhaps various speech therapists and consultants had complained to the powers that be in order to get it banned? The irony in all this was that Central Independent Television was previously Associated TeleVision, pre-1982 restructure, and ATV for short, had brought the Muppet show from the States exclusively for British screening - which starred Kermit the Frog who was the only one of Jim Henson's characters to appear in both the Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Kermit was seen more on ATV than on Central - that is a fact. Lots of American series are shown in the UK, but many of them are plain old entertainment series and very few of them focus directly on education and dialogue, such as letters of the alphabet like Sesame Street does. One tends to feel that such a programme feels misleading to a young British audience, especially the "trashcan" factor, and the "zed/zee" confusion - after all, the Elizabeth Taylor film was called "X, Y and Zee" so that the British audience would pronounce it correctly. (Another reason to pick up Belmont transmitter Yorkshire TV via the signal booster). But it did look friendly enough because of the puppets used - even Oscar the Grouch (who reminds me of Lou Kelly out of Prisoner: Cell Block H). In fact, Mr Johnson - not Boris, but the equally conservative (with a small C in this case), blue-headed man with a moustache who had often played straightman to Grover in the Charlie's Restaurant sketches on the show, reminded me of Tosh Lines out of The Bill.
Roy Skelton on Rainbow could easily vary his octave in order to do George and Zippy's voices, and that was part of the success of that programme; and even Bungle himself could do different voices by virtue to a different actor in the bear costume, circa 1988-1989 when it happened. By the same token, neither Jim Henson and Frank Oz had Rory Bremner-alike variations in their voices which was one problem - Bert and Ernie sounded exactly like Kermit and Fozzie Bear respectively. Herry Monster sounded too much like Jimmy Durante, especially during his "say, Jon-Jon, do you know the difference between loud and quiet?" to a young ethnic boy. That, 1-2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-9-10, 11-12, pinball song and its maddening rhythm caused many an earworm to a young viewer, with the featured number in the animation. Indeed, I assume that various clips are put together and filed under the relevant letters of the alphabet and numbers. Also, I literally took Grover's Health Minute too literally and thought that "tooth checker" was indeed the American word for a dentist. They seem to have Post Offices like the UK, but they still prefer to mail letters.
I have to admit in hindsight that I am surprised that British continuity announcers had never gave a warning about Sesame Street before the start of the episode such as: "the content of this programme may be educationally misleading to a young British audience" or something; (well, I have not seen proof or memory of that ever happening). Surely, "zee" is like a swearword when one is supposed to be educated in the correct way, UK-style? As a result, I believe that Sesame Street works better, not surprisingly, as a flat-out entertainment programme, a la The Muppet Show; Bert and Ernie were my favourite characters and I always looked forward to their skits on the programme. Also, in the rare times that it was shown circa 1983, it did help me to read, even though a British programme would have been a lot better - although it didn't put me into The Times territory for a few years yet. Thank goodness for the Britishness of series like Rainbow, I say. The Muppet Show was to Sesame Street as what Play Away was to Play School; its more mainstream counterpart.
On St Andrew's Day 1987, it turned up on Channel 4 where it would its British home for the following 14 years; a few weeks into its run, I was reunited with an episode and the memories kept flooding back. Errol Brown out of Hot Chocolate-lookalike Gordon was there as one of the human "presenters", and everyone seemed to present and correct from 1983-1984, probably because it was the sane episodes that were seen on ITV back then - Ulster TV was still showing episodes right until May 1987. I watched the episode, full of puppets, cartoons, documentaries, and so on - and then all of a sudden, someone says "zee". My late mother then reminded me of my forgotten meeting with the speech therapist a few years before, and the alphabet reciting with a misleading ending. The American Alphabet song is sung in such a way that it wouldn't have rhymed if "zed" is used. When I was younger, I used to assume that the United Kingdom was the only English speaking country to call Z "zed" and that Australia, New Zealand, etc, also did that; after all, Australia as a Labor Party, and not a Labour Party. And both those countries have the dollar as their currency. Even though I was outside the age bracket for the series by the late 1980s and early 1990s, it made good entertainment in a rather strange away, especially Gladys the Cow causing mayhem for no apparent reason at all during the final seconds of Guy (and not Carol) Smiley's game show sketches. However one looks at it, the entire damn thing was actually brought to you via a few unusual letters and numbers.
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