Sesame Street turns 40 – part 2: All about the music

This song brings back so many memories. Not of this song, mind you — when I was trawling through video clips at first and saw one titled “Monster in the Mirror” I was like “Holy crap, Grover did a Michael Jackson parody I didn’t know about?” before hearing it and suddenly remembering how awesome this song was. But no, this song really reminds me of one of my absolute favorite books as a child, The Monster at the End of This Book, which  I used to make my dad read to me constantly. Not because I couldn’t read, but because my dad can do a spot-on Grover impression. Of course, to do so he has to pretty much destroy his voice, but I was kind of too selfish as a kid to care, because my dad’s Grover voice was hilarious.

By the way, I have heard many versions of the golden rule, but I’m pretty sure my favorite version is the one quoted in this song. Remember, everybody, if you wubba me than I will wubba you. And seriously, I am a world-class wubba-er.

Do not even argue with me when I say that this, right here, is probably the greatest segment in Sesame Street history. So much so that according to its wikipedia page (that’s right, it has a wikipedia page), not only did this song skyrocket rubber ducks from a rare novelty (did you know they were first made in the late 1800s? Never leave me, wikipedia) to a pop culture icon, but this song placed on the pop charts not only in America, but reached number three in Germany.  I would be surprised, but this is Germany, land of “99 Luftballoons,” the Ahnuld, and still living in a nefarious twilight zone where, I hear, David Hasselhoff is still considered hip. I mean sorry, Germany, but now that you’ve sort of been forgiven in a genocidal context, you need to work on your tragic pop culture history.

I have eight words for you as to why this clip is beyond awesome: Smokey Robinson singing about the clingy letter “U.” If you need to hear more, I don’t want to know you.

Of course no Sesame Street song countdown would be complete without at least one version of the ABCs. There were a lot of great ones to choose from — artists like Patti LaBelle, Ray Charles, and India Arie. Heck, Elmo even has a rap version.

But the version I chose as my favorite features the voices of Ladysmith Black Mambazo doing a Zulu version of the ABC’s with Kermit. I like this because not only does it feature actual, you know, words, and my homefrog Kermit, but it’s not just generic “African,” which is a huge pet peeve of mine (It’s a whole freaking continent, people!), but very clearly South African or, more accurately, Zulu. Which is such a better Z word than the generic “zebra.” So once again, thank you, Sesame Street.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Jun 08, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT