On days when I find myself in need of a good cheering up, I take some advice from
Sesame Street and I sing a song. Heck, there's even a song on
Sesame Street called "It Feels Good When You Sing a Song." Well, I'm sort of applying that song to today's post. I'm a wee bit bored this afternoon and I've got nothing in the way of news or posts to put up today... so I decided to play "
Ask the iPod" (or Zune or Walkman or whatever) with my vast collection of Sesame Street music!
The rules of the game are simple, simply select all of your Sesame Street music on your iPod (this is easy for me, since all of my Sesame music is under the genre "Sesame Street") and put it on shuffle. Ask the iPod (or iTunes, I don't really care) one of the questions seen below and whatever song comes up gives you your answer. Simple enough, yes? So without further ado... this is Ask the iPod: Sesame Street Edition. The song title, artist, and album will appear in
bold and
italics and my witty response will appear in (parentheses).
1) If I was in a band, what would it be called?
"One Small Voice"/The Kids, Telly, Elmo, Hoots, and Prairie Dawn/Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music(GREAT band name.)
2) What should my career be?
"Count it Higher"/Chrissy and the Alphabeats/The Count Counts (What? I should be an accountant? Score keeper? Very cryptic, mister iPod.)
3) What is something good that will happen to me in the future?
"I Love Trash"/Oscar the Grouch/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites(I don't really think I want to know what that means.)
4) What is something bad that will happen to me in the future?
"Put Down the Duckie"/Hoots the Owl and Ernie/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites(Having to put down the duckie? That IS bad!!)
5) What's the next thing I will cry over?
"I Don't Want to Live on the Moon"/Ernie/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites(How eerily appropriate... probably one of the few tear-jerking Sesame songs.)
6) The next thing I will laugh about?
"Loud and Soft (Fuerte y Suave)"/Luis and Bob/Fiesta Songs(I do always laugh at this song... and I did listening to it just now. You win this round, iPod.)
7) Why are my friends my friends?
"The Happiest Street in the World"/Big Bird and the Girls/Sesame Disco!(Because... we live on the happiest street in the world? Of because "wherever I ever go" they'll be there? Eh, whatever.)
8) Why are my enemies my enemies?
"Captain Vegetable"/Captain Vegetable, Andy, and Eddy/Cheep Thrills! (Yes! That is
exactly why my enemies are my enemies--they tried to make me eat vegetables.)
9) How do my friends see me?
"The Ten Commandments of Health"/Dr. Thad and the Medications/Born to Add(My friends see me as the living personification of the Ten Commandments of Health? Works for me.)
10) How do my enemies see me
"Silver Bells"/Bert and Ernie/Sesame Street Christmas Sing-Along(I think this means they see me as a ding-a-ling.)
11) How does my family see me?
"Ain't No Road Too Long"/Big Bird, Waylon Jennings, Gordon, Olivia, Super Grover, and The Count/Follow That Bird(They have faith in me to "learn to say yes when life says no" and realize that "there ain't no mountain you can't climb." How sweet of them. I love this song, by the by.)
12) What is my best quality?
"Three"/Elmo, Prairie Dawn, and Herry Monster/Sesame Street(I must have three best qualities... the iPod can't narrow it down to just one.)
13) What is my worst quality?
"C is for Cookie"/Cookie Monster/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites(Gluttony?)
14) What's my general attitude towards things?
"Because We're Friends"/Zoe, Rosita, and Abby Cadabby/Sesame Street(My general attitude: because we're friends anything is possible? Sure. Let's go with that.)
15) What type of friends would I get along with well?
"The Number Five"/The Kids/The Sesame Street Record(Friends who each have five friends? Or does it mean five friends is my maximum limit? Or... does it mean I can only be friends with five year olds? Honestly... any of those is plausible.)
16) Why should I be famous?
"The Hokey Pokey"/Big Bird, Elmo, Telly Monster, Zoe, and Oscar the Grouch/Kid's Favorite Songs 2(That
IS what it's all about.)
17) What is my motto?
"There's a Big Heap of Trash at the End of the Rainbow"/Oscar the Grouch/Oscar's Trashy Songs(What's a motto? That. That's a motto.)
18) What am I doing right now?
"Little Things"/Prairie Dawn/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites(You got that right.)
19) How am I feeling today?
"What I Am"/will.i.am and the Sesame Street Muppets/Sesame Street(I'm feeling proud and confident in myself--awesome!)
20) What is my life purpose?
"Sing"/The Sesame Street Gang/Sesame Street Celebrates!(Isn't that the purpose of every life? That's what I've learned from Sesame Street!)
21) What song will play at my funeral?
"Sesame Street Theme"/The Elmopalooza! Cast/Elmopalooza!(I am more than okay with this.)
22) What song will play at my wedding?
"I Am Chicken"/A Chicken/Born to Add(Talk about cold feet.)
23) Will I get far in life?
"I'm Square"/Bert/The Gang's All Here(So... is that a no?)
24) What scares me the most?
"A New Way to Walk"/The Oinker Sisters/Hot! Hot! Hot! Dance Songs(Change... I guess?)
25) How is my life going?
"A True Blue Miracle"/The Sesame Street Cast/Christmas Eve on Sesame Street(It's a miracle that my life is still going? Yeesh.)
26) What is my current theme song?
"This Frog"/Kermit the Frog/Songs From the Street: 35 Years of Music(I think this is my always theme song. Kermit's song about making his way no matter what anyone said and being more than what he's meant to be. Perfect.)
27) What is some good advice?
"Keep on Trying"/Baby Ray Franklin and Mary Francis Franklin/My Name is Roosevelt Franklin(Once again, Roosevelt Franklin and friends have the best advice for us all.)
28) What should I do with my life?
"Grover Work Song"/Big Bird, Elmo, Bert, Ernie, and Zoe/A Celebration of Me, Grover(Okay, fair... but do I have to do
every job Grover does?)
29) When I meet a girl for the first time I say...
"Rubber Duckie"/Ernie/Sesame Street Platinum All-Time Favorites("You're the one/you make bath-time lots of fun." Yeah... probably shouldn't say that to a girl.)
30) How can I make myself happy?
"Let's Make a Dream"/Joe Raposo/We Are All Earthlings(I'll be happy by making my dream come true. Makes sense to me!"
Well, Muppet fans, what say you? Go off and play Ask the iPod with your own music collection and let us know what you get! This works with Sesame music, Muppet music, Fraggle music, or even normal people music (bo-ring!)--the important thing is to just enjoy the music on your iPod (or Zune or cassette player or Walkman or whatever) and have fun!
The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier
Earlier this week, we linked to two preview songs from the upcoming Muppets: The Green Album which features Muppet songs covered by some of music's most popular and talented artists. The songs we linked to were "The Muppet Show Theme" by OK Go and "Halfway Down the Stairs" by Amy Lee... both of which have been removed unceremoniously for copyright reasons. Well, fear not, Muppet fans, because Spin.com has an exclusive listen to "Our World" (from Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas) as performed by My Morning Jacket. I love it--a lot. Give it a listen and judge for yourself!
Speaking of The Green Album, Disney has launched a new website called MuppetsMusic.com (http://www.muppetsmusic.com/) to promote the release of both The Green Album and the soundtrack for The Muppets (which the website reveals is to hit stores on November 22--the day before the film is released in US theaters). On this new site you can purchase one of two exclusive combo packs which include The Green Album, an exclusive poster, and a t-shirt featuring the winning design from the Threadless contest. The combo pack that includes the physical CD of The Green Album costs $40, while the one that includes a digital download of the album is $35.
It's impossible to argue that SesameStreet.org isn't the best of the best when it comes to official websites for Muppet characters. Disney's Muppets.com, for instance, pales in comparison when you see the countless video clips and interactivity options presented to you on Sesame Workshop's crowning achievement. Well, this wonderful site has gotten even better thanks to an updated page on the Sesame Street Muppets. This page features links to numerous "profile pages" for numerous Sesame favorites. This includes classic, hugely popular characters like Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster but shockingly and wonderfully includes pages for practically unknown or retired such as Little Chrissie, Ovejita, Little Murray Sparkles, Clementine, Fluffy, and Big Jeffy. It's crazy, it's awesome--therefore, crazy awesome--check it out!
The iTunes Store has been erupting with great new--and old--Sesame Street content over the past week. There's a new iPod Touch and iPhone app called, simply "iYip" starring the Yip-Yip Martians as performed by Matt Vogel and David Rudman. The app lets you hear the Martians spout words and phrases such as "You Betcha," "Booya," and, my favorite, "Awesome." You can also set yourself an alarm clock and be woken up by the Martians random words. It's awesome and well worth the $1.99 price tag just for the fun of it.
But the most exciting iTunes release for Sesame Street this week was the incredible Sesame Street Classics, Vol. 1 which, for $17.99 gives you twelve full, hour-long episodes of Sesame Street from Seasons 1 to 20 and, when purchasing the full season, a "Behind the Street" segment and, free to everyone, a Sesame Flashback retrospective. The fact that it is listed as Vol. 1 makes it seem that we'll see even more classic Sesame Street coming to iTunes very soon... so buy it if you can to encourage the release of even more--and because it's absolutely awesome. Trust me.
