[David Herrick]

Then there was this acid trip of a show that aired on public television about an hour after Sesame Street, for big kids who were still awake at 6 PM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=websjjCtexM

 

[David Herrick]

Yes, Jung, at our age it’s sad, and a little scary, to hear that one of our contemporaries has died of natural causes.

There actually was a short-lived TV drama in 1990 called The Bradys, starring all of the original cast except Maureen McCormick.  The drama was fictional, though:  Bobby is in a wheelchair, Marcia is an alcoholic, etc.

Back to the main topic, let’s not forget the cartoon versions of the Osmonds, the Jackson Five, and of course the Beatles.  Plus there was one in 1973 starring the voice and music of Rick Springfield.  An album of songs was released, but all I could find in animated form was the theme song for the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e5NlaM8bgI

 

[David Herrick]

A later version of this song (by the same artist) actually became a top-ten hit in most of the English-speaking world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUVrA1l4ptc

 

[David Herrick]

Thank you for the context, Brian; that helps a lot!

I was watching a video the other day that dealt with the difference between just intonation and equal temperament.  Does that come into play here?  I’m thinking that open tuning is done with just intonation to get the frequency ratios exact for the octaves and fifths and thirds in the key of the song, which means they would be off a little if you modulated.

 

[David Herrick]

I never read the book, but supposedly Barry Williams detailed all these behind-the-scenes shenanigans in his autobiography, “I Was a Teenage Greg”.

Of course, where the Brady Bunch franchise goes, the Partridge Family can’t be far behind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvHyiyJWY3k

 

[David Herrick]

Okay, my turn.  Inspired by the stage configuration of the Archies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKxxMqJ3eOg

 

[David Herrick]

Me too, Jung.  I never would have anticipated that joining this club would take me in this direction, but the journey has been an absolute delight.

 

[David Herrick]

I looked it up a little earlier, Jung, and it’s not hard to understand, although I’m a little fuzzy on what it’s good for.  Open tuning means you adjust the tension on the strings so that you get a nice major chord when you strum without depressing any of them (an “open” fingering).

For example, the strings on my ukulele are tuned to the notes G-C-E-A.  If I were to decrease the tension on the A string so that it played a G, then the instrument would be open-tuned to C because the fingerless chord would be C major.

 

[David Herrick]

Great idea for a topic, Jacki!

The first thing that occurs to me is the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons.  I don’t know if those ever crossed the border into Canada (especially the ones about U.S. history), but they are touchstones for me for several musical genres.

 

[David Herrick]

Speaking of TV puppets, do any of my fellow 70’s kids remember a trippy syndicated program out of Detroit called The Hot Fudge Show?  I didn’t think it was that great, but it was the first show out of the gate at 7 AM on Saturday morning, and therefore my excuse to get out of bed.  Notably, one of the puppets was named Mona:

[David Herrick]

Well, apparently I spoke too soon, or perhaps from an entirely different temporal dimension, because now there are only about 9,000 posts.

 

[David Herrick]

Thanks for posting that article, Howard.  I watched an hour-long video about the history of the Easybeats a few months ago, and it didn’t mention that they interacted with the Bee Gees before either group had achieved great fame.  That’s pretty cool.

 

[David Herrick]

Thank you, Mona.  I’ll be looking forward to that eventual worst-case-scenario composition where you sing your grocery list.

 

[David Herrick]

I was just thinking about this segment earlier today, Jacki.  (It’s forever paired in my mind with the Kermit and Joey bit.)  If I recall correctly, the grown-up John John footage is from the 20th anniversary special in 1989.

 

[David Herrick]

That’s hilarious, Jung!  It seems that Cookie Monster has in recent years become Sesame Street’s prime ambassador to the outside world, and I don’t think they could have made a better choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWRbFLYXUGE

He apparently had some surprising fans too.  This passage from beatlesbible.com details the recording of John Lennon’s 1970 song “Hold On”:

 

The final version, take 32, had Lennon singing and playing guitar simultaneously, and the ad-libbed ‘cookie’, a reference to the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. He subsequently double-tracked his vocals, adding a second ‘cookie’.

Sesame Street was first broadcast on 10 November 1969 in the US, and Lennon presumably watched it while undergoing Primal Therapy; his regression to childhood may have helped him make a connection with the show.

Ringo Starr’s song Early 1970, the b-side to the April 1971 single It Don’t Come Easy, also contained a cry of ‘cookie’, during a verse about Lennon and Yoko Ono.