Beaker, is that you?

[kukla_tko]

Meme MEme meME.

Sounds like Dr. Honeydew's assistant is trying to warn us about something.

Ah. He's warning all of you away from my attempted MEME:

Can you name all of the original Letter People?

I have put the ones I could remember behind this cut. If you can fill in the blanks, I would appreciate it.


The vowels first, they were the girls:
Miss A; Achoo
Miss E; Exercise
Miss I; Itchy Itch
Miss O; Obstinate Opera
Miss U; Upsidaisy Umbrella

Then there were the masculine consonants:
Mr. B; Beautiful Buttons
Mr. C; Cotton Candy
Mr. D; Delicious Doughnuts
Mr. F; Funny Feet
Mr. G; I don't know, but I think it had to do with gulping.
Mr. H; Horrible Hair. (David Lee Roth in a role that will surprise you!)
Mr. J; I vaguely remember something about jumping. Not sure.
Mr. K; Something about Kicking. He had to be at the end in the squoosh box because otherwise he would kick poor Mr. C.
Mr. L; Not a clue.
Mr. M; Munching Mouth
Mr. N; Noisy Nose
Mr. P; Anyone's guess. I know what MY guesses are, but they wouldn't have been on a kid's educational puppet show, that's for sure.
Mr. Q; Not a clue.
Mr. R; Nope. Nothing.
Mr. S; Super Socks!
Mr. T; Tall Teeth, and everyone remembers him. Several of my friends were terrified of him, too.
Mr. V; Velvet Vest. I think he was dating the Count from Sesame Street.
Mr. W; No recollection.
Mr. X; Probably an x-ray reference, but I don't remember.
Mr. Y; An androgyne?
Mr. Z; Something about zippers. Zippy Zippers sounds about right.



So, anyone who can name Mr. J, Mr. K, Mr. L, Mr. P, Mr. Q, Mr. R, Mr. W, Mr. X, and Mr. or Mrs. Y gets my thanks and a virtual kiss.

"Come and meet the Letter People!
Come and be with the Family!
Words are made of Letter People!
ABCD, Follow me!"

Comments

letter people

[minidoc.livejournal.com]

Very cool. Haven't thought of these guys in a long, long time. They never air any more. Sad.

http://clow.ipsd.org/academics_k_letter-people.html has a comparison with the old and new letter people.

I cheated.

[codeb6.livejournal.com]

I couldn't remember them all either, but having the list incomplete was bugging me. So no rewards for me I suppose. Still, here's what I found.



Mr. G; Gooey Gum
Mr. J; Jumbled Junk
Mr. K; Kicking -- As you remembered, but I can't find a reference to the other half. In the "new" letter people it's Kaboom Kick. Some letter people made the transition between new and old without changing. Don't know if he's one of them.

Mr. L; Lemon Lollipops
Mr. P; Pointy Patches
Mr. Q; Quiet -- Appeared in only one episode during season 2. Like K I can't find a reference to a second word in the show, but for the new stuff it's Quiet Questions.

Mr. R; Ripping Rubberbands -- I always thought they went snap, but what do I know?
Mr. W; Wonderful Wink! -- Had to cross-reference for that one, but I found it.
Mr. X; Mixed Up -- WTF? I dunno, that's what it says. I suppose Xylidine Xenobiotic was too much to ask of pre-schoolers.

Mr. Y; Yawning -- New stuff lists it as Yodeling Yawn. Espisode guide I found for the old show did mention yodeling, but that's as close as I could come to confirmation.

Mr. Z; Zipping Zippers

Apparently the television extension of the learning program began here in St. Louis through the joint efforts of PBS and KETC. It first aired in 1974. Other notable things that occurred that year include:

D&D original release.
Grenada gains independance.
People Magazine publishes its first issue.
The Watergate Scandal.
India becomes a nuclear power.
Stanley Milgram publishes his book, "Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View"

Re: I cheated.

[codeb6.livejournal.com]

Heh. Looks like I'm not the only person who went looking, either.

Promises kept

[kukla-tko42.livejournal.com]

Cheater or no, I promised a virtual kiss for anyone who provided the missing names.

>>>SMOOCH<<<

Cheaters! (Just kidding...)

[kukla-tko42.livejournal.com]

(Grin.)

Of course, after I made this post, I went looking on my own and found the names missing from my memory.

And yes, the new letter people suck. They were going for a more politically correct version, where the first half of the alphabet was one gender, and the second half was another. (I think that the first half is the girls?)

Bleah.

I actually liked the idea of vowels and consonants being a gender-based difference, it helped to teach the idea that vowels and consonants are different, but important to each other. As a girl, I suspect that I liked the idea of the vowels being necessary to form words; there must always be a girl in the word or it isn't a word.

Kaboom Kick seems to be the original and current name for "K".
Y is a yawn but probably also a yodel. Mr. X was "MiX-up" because they apparently wanted to have a prankster in the cast.

(Sigh.) The letter people are different, the theme song to Sesame Street has been changed, and Elmo is the new star (with the second HALF of the show devoted to him and his little world... grumble), and I haven't heard a word about the Electric Company. We're feeding our kids Barney, Teletubbies, and Elmo-- all of which are dumbed down.

Dammit! We must challenge our children! We must not assume that they are all stupid, or that's what they will turn out to be!

Growl.

(Sigh.)

But at least I know the names of all the Letter People now!

Yay!

Re: Cheaters! (Just kidding...)

[codeb6.livejournal.com]

Completely with you on the gender basis for vowels vs consonants. A and I were words all by themselves if they wanted to be. (Really puny ones, but still.)

Usually I laugh when activist groups shoot themselves in the foot, but this one wasn't nearly so funny. :/

Elmo was my favorite as a kid. But he's a lot different now than he used to be. Ever since that tickle-me-elmo-christmas that one year... And have you SEEN that dancing Elmo that sings YMCA?? Bert & Ernie... Pshaw! Red herring is all that was. Heh.

Re: Cheaters! (Just kidding...)

[kukla-tko42.livejournal.com]

Here's where our slight age difference manifests itself.

In My Sesame Street:
There was no Elmo character.
Mumford the Magician did bad magic tricks.
A major muppet character called Roosevelt Franklin was a voice of reason.
Oscar had a friend named Slimy who was a worm. And Oscar was a nasty lil' shit, too.
Big Bird had an imaginary friend named Snuffleuppagas (SP?) whom no one else ever saw.
Mr. Hooper ran the store.
There were chickens in the trees.
There were these beautiful songs with random images that went along with them, sometimes to tell a story, sometimes to show a lesson.
Aesop's Fables were set to music and animated. (And the fox ran away with the cheese... I would pay obscene amounts of money to have a recording of that.)
The animations were filled with techicolor, sensational hippy imagery.
The monsters were "Cookie", "Harry", and "Telly." There's an Id, Ego, and Superego joke in there somewhere.
Ernie was constantly pushing Bert's buttons.
Muppet Aliens came down to try to understand our world. (BRRRRRRing!)

And there was Grover. Your lovable, furry, old pal, Grover. He was earnest, and innocent, and not afraid of his feelings. He was not especially bright, but apparently able to work as a waiter. Remember the blue guy who was his usual customer? (Taste the soup!)
Grover was clearly one of the monsters, but he wanted very badly to be loved by everyone. As a result he never judged people but sometimes had some trouble believing in himself. Big Bird was innocent, too, and blissfully unaware of danger or hurt, but Grover knew what hurt was, and so he was gentle and kind.

I found this website and laughed until it hurt. And yet, it is the best explanation I have found so far to explain the decline of Sesame Street.

http://www.zeroboutique.com/grover/

I think it sprouted out of the "Bert is Evil" website which has been taken down now.

Yepyepyepyepyep rrraaadiiiooo!

[codeb6.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Elmo was the only difference between yours and mine. Though I only barely remember mumford and roosevelt, and I don't remember the chickens. The worm was actually my second favorite character. (Though I had trouble telling it apart from the other worms.) I remember oscar the grouch acting grouchy. I remember Bruno carrying him everywhere. I remember rare glimpses of oscar's feet and how for some reason that was important 'cause you hardly ever got to see them. I remember Mr. Hooper and Gordon and Maria...

I absolutely adored the martians.

I had a teacher once who told me you can tell a lot about a person by who their favorite sesame street character was. Now you didn't actually SAY Grover's your favorite, but I'm reading between the lines here. That said, I can see it. Hehe. Especially when I remember Super Grover!

Hell, you're not even all that much older than me. What is it, five years maybe?

Yep yep yep, Uh-huh, Uh-huh, Uh-huh...

[kukla-tko42.livejournal.com]

I think that Grover is my favorite, when all is said and done. See the next post. I confirm it. Don't misunderstand me, it's like trying to pick a favorite playmate or cousin. The Sesame Street gang was like family to me. Who DOESN'T love Cookie Monster, for example?

Quoting your earlier comment:
"Apparently the television extension of the learning program began here in St. Louis through the joint efforts of PBS and KETC. It first aired in 1974. Other notable things that occurred that year include:"

My being born.
I am a '74 model.
(For those of you doing the math, it means I turned 29 for the first and last time in the fall of last year.)

If I remember, you are about the age of my brother. 26 or 27?

stl_kitten is almost exactly the same age as my youngest brother. They were born in the same month, even.

Re: Yep yep yep, Uh-huh, Uh-huh, Uh-huh...

[codeb6.livejournal.com]

I think I might have known someone at some point who'd been afraid of cookie monster, but that's it.

74? Heh. Three years. I'm a '77. And also born in the fall. (Okay, technically late summer, but I always thought of it as fall. My notions of when seasons begin/end has always been off by about a month.)

You realize you could have stuffed me in a locker as a Junior? I'd have found you SO intimidating back then. Heh... Eh. Actually, that's not so different from now. But the rationale changed at least.

Mr. X?

[felax.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember a 2-part episode in which some of the letter people leave the planet and meet the space champion, Mr. X. Of course, then again, I probably remember several things that have never happened.