Review: Sesame Street at 40 - NJ William Patterson University..

[Michaelangelo]

Hey everyone, went to the event today.... didn't get any real pictures since cameras were not allowed.  Things didn't go as planned.  Of course that is the theme of this week... just hard to really enjoy things when so much other stuff is going on wrong lately... I did try.

Phoenix woke up feeling ill today, and through out the day she hasn't started to feel any better.  So she could not join me for the event, which sucked cause she still had a ticket.  Though Ami (Amicitia) was here, so PG gave her ticket to Ami.  Today I did try to help PG feel better, picking up stuff from the store for her, though she's still feeling ill. 

I went to the event, saw Shredder though he went straight to his seat didn't seem to up for talking before the event.  I noticed Voice Chaser in her seat so I went up and said hi to her, showed her the autograph t-shirt which I did have hopes of getting some autographs on while there... though seeing how far we were from the stage and how much guards and such was around it was clear they were not going to let anyone close to those on stage. 

The show started, first with introductions... I was so excited when Kevin Clash came out, my only wish was that I was closer.  Just to get to say hi to him.  Though the panel I had a hard time totally focusing on it, my arm hates me for the ride here... really it's been hating me since the night the ice storm started since I was out in the cold a lot trying to dig my car out and get it started (more about that on page 82 of Thread Saver)... so there was plenty of times where I just closed my eyes and let them talk away up there.  I was awake... just... hurting.

I saw bags come on stage with puppeteers and realized those had to be puppets in the bag.  I knew Kevin had to bring Elmo with him... being in the same place with them and to have real puppets from Sesame Street there as well.  They talked a lot about Sesame Street, Jim Henson was brought up a lot, Richard Hunt was brought up a lot.  Really most of it was questions from the guy who wrote the book... so it was a rather controlled event, though none the less it was a panel, like what you see at conventions.  My favorite part had to be when the guy asking all the questions decided to interview Elmo and Oscar the Grouch... those were great... Elmo went to crawl back into his bag even.

It was late into the panel that they finally allowed the crowd to come down and ask questions.. I got in line, though only 3 people away from getting to ask my question which of course was going to be TMNT related... they said no more questions... no warnings of "we got time for only a few more questions" or anything like that... just "That's it, we're done" was the way it was cut.  I felt bad for the lady in front of me, she was blind and I bet wanted to thank them for something or other. 

Kevin did bring up Turtles once, but was cut off fastly.  The question from a fan was :  How heavy should a puppet be?  They were doing some answers on to what their heaviest was... and Kevin started to say "Splinter" though Frank Oz took over speaking, so it was just a brief mention.  Though that was cool to see it at least brought up, even though I didn't get up there.

After the show I tried to get to see them some how to get an autograph... though only two doing autographs were book writers... not the people I was there to see.  They had a survey for people to take... I took it and answered the questions... one of them was about their price.  I said it was too much, but they didn't have an area as to comment... so I wrote in my comment about how for the same price people get 3 days of events, seeing stars, going to panels, and getting autographs.   In stead of only getting to go to one panel, and don't even get to say hi to the people they came to see.  Yeah... disappointed there.

I hung out there till we were like the last ones leaving... hanging out with Voice Chaser, Ami and VC's Hubby.  We went back to the hotel, though PG was sick in bed so I didn't bring anyone back to the room.  We hung out in the lobby shortly, than went to McDonalds.

Not much more to say than that... we couldn't record or get pictures so I don't have any video to share.  The event was for a new Sesame Street book that just came out which they were saying is good, I got no reason to dout them.  Just didn't have the $$$ to get it.

Tomorrow morning PG and I hit the road, I'm going to try and get some sleep since I may be doing the drive home.

[Amicitia]

Well, this was a strange one... I wasn't supposed to go, but then events conspired, so anything that happened was automatically better than what I was expecting to get. And so I can't really say anything bad.

Anyway, I thought the panel was really interesting. I haven't watched Sesame Street since I was a kid, don't remember that much about it, certainly don't know anything about the history and behind-the-scenes stuff... so it was very enlightening. They talked about the writing, the music, the creation and evolution of the characters (building the puppets, giving them personalities, inventing the voices), the balance of education and fun, and so on. They had a couple of short videos of old scenes from the show. (Were those really Sesame Street videos though? I thought Kermit was only on the Muppet Show.)

And yes, they did have puppets - Elmo, Oscar, mini-Zoe, and Telly-Monster. It's amazing how the actors snap in and out of these characters, though Frank Oz did make a good point about maintaining the integrity of the characters, and not using them as party tricks. (If anyone wants to know about the Elmo-and-Oscar interview, NPR did a very similar one with Cookie Monster. Try Googling it.)

Mostly the actors were really nice about answering the audience's questions, although they did tend to ramble on and if they hadn't, more people could have gotten to the microphone. (The moderator did ask for questions that could be answered briefly.) And yeah, the ending was pretty abrupt.

I might try to write down some of the actor's stories later... if anyone wants to post and say what in particular they're interested in.

[Michaelangelo]

Kermit did a lot on Sesame Street as well, he was a reporter for the show.  So yeah, those were real clips from the show.

The clips used were in memory of Richard Hunt, I think it should of been in memory of Jim as well since both of the main puppeteers in the clips are now no longer with us. 

for everyone to know what we're talking about:
The clips were one of the letter O, working with a character named "Forgettable" trying to sign a song that started with the letter O, and he made mistakes... like using an A... than using an I... than an E...

The other one was about Mary's Red Bike.. and how it always had a flat tire.  The lesson in it was about rhyming.

[Amicitia]

Kermit did a lot on Sesame Street as well, he was a reporter for the show.  So yeah, those were real clips from the show.

Yeah. Definitely don't remember much about Sesame Street.

The clips were one of the letter O, working with a character named "Forgettable" trying to sign a song that started with the letter O, and he made mistakes... like using an A... than using an I... than an E...

"Forgetful Jones", I think.

ETA: Review from the paper.

[Shredder]

Hey Everyone, I was in a daze the entire evening.

For whatever reason, My mind is always one step ahead, and I never learn to live in the now... And one of my main missions was wondering if I could 'sneak' into the after party that people where supposed to of paid $500's to get into, so I could ask Kevin Clash to record a radio drop....

Well, here's my story..Full of nerves, I enter the building around 7:00.  I quickly wave to Michele as I see her as I am being led to my seat.    By this point, I had totally forgotten that other people than Michelle where going to be there, including VC... About 20 minutes or so later, the event starts. 

It starts off with the actors being introduced, and their stories of how they got to sesame street... But my favorite part of the whole evening, had to of been when they brought the puppets out.  First came one of three favorites as a kid, Oscar.  totally classic lines.  And we also got to hear about a character I Had forgotten about, Bruno the garbage man.  As soon as I heard the description, I could picture him instantly.  After Oscar came Zoe....A character I never saw before, since I think it had been introduced past the 80's...  After Zoe, Elmo made his entrance...and finally, another character I Had totally forgotten about, but remember liking.  Tully.    Tully had the best lines of the evening next to Oscar, including how he gets suffocated in a plastic bag... 'I was told not to play with plastic bags!'

I was thinking of sneaking some audio out of the event, but figured they might see the blue of the media player and decided against it.  I DID, however, manage to get into the after party that was SUPPOSED to be $500's per person....but they never asked for a ticket, so I walked right in.  No one told us what was going on, untill I spotted Frank Oz over in the corner.  I thought there was going to be an organized line or something like a normal signing.  Couldn't get to Frank in time, but was told that there was more people up stairs and that is where the photographs where going to take place.  So, after more confusion, I found out you needed to fill out a card to get a free picture taken with people...  Sadly, only Carole Spinney and Bob McGrath where there, but at an event where I don't think I was supposed to be, I'll take what I can get .

I did get the guts to tell Carole that my favorite song as a kid was 'I love Trash', and that got a verse of it from  him .  Running on adrenaline, and hopefully not looking too weird while doing it, I stumbled on my way down stairs, to see if I could find Kevin Clash...and did.  He was talking to one or two people over by t he orderves.  I waited patiently, and dove right in, again on adreneline.  I told him how much I admired his work as Splinter on the first two turtle movies, and wondered why they didn't come back for a third.  He didn't know, but he said he loved doing them and would have loved to do another one.  As other folks mentioned, probably budget reasons.  Anyway, I asked if he could record a drop for PLJ, after trying to expalin the IronMan Elmo Triathalon without sounding like a total idiot...and unfortunatley,  he and Frank had to leave ASAP, so he politely declined....

So, that being said, I rushed back up stairs to see if I could talk to Frank real quick, who really was making plans to leave, if he could get away from the folks waiting to talk to him in a polite way..   A person before me got him to sign a yoda picture...the lady was a huge star wars fan .  I brought out a picture to show him that I saved from Star Wars Insider, that I thought he might get a kick out of..  Depsite having so many memories, he actually did remember that moment, and it got a laugh out of him.  It was a picture of him and Jim Henson inspecting a prototype Yoda mask.  I did get to ask him really quickly what it was like working with Geroge Lucas, but he gave a short answer as he was really trying to get out of there....

All in all a fun, and possibly VERY lucky night.... 

did you go to the Manor, Amicita?

[Amicitia]

We all made a drive-by of another building, but it looked pretty deserted, probably wasn't the "Manor"... Anyway I'm glad you got to talk to the guests.

So now I've twice been in the same room with you and not gotten past "hello". One of these days we're actually going to have a conversation. (That's a promise and a threat.)

[Shredder]

Nope, you couldn't drive to this place, it was about 2 minutes walk to the right of the building.

Heh, I'm just annoyed I forgot VC was there.  I saw what looked like two totally different people waving at me that night...
One I didn't know at all, but sort of looked like Sean Schemmel, and the other could have been VC at the end of the event,
but wasn't sure.

I was sitting in a chair at the manor waiting for you guys to walk in for about 10 minutes. I didn't think I was moving that fast
for you guys to loose track of me...But when I get really intent on doing something, and building up the nerve for it,
I zone out everything else automatically ..wasn't trying to avoid everyone ..