I’ve reminisced in the past over the crayon factory and a llama at the dentist, but this video of an orange singing Carmen just might be my most vivid Sesame Street memory ever. This despite the fact that in recent years, I was convinced that the food in question was either a tomato or an onion. Idiot! Anyway, check it out:
I remember wanting the beginning part, when the young fruit endures the treacherous process of becoming a woman, to last longer — I loved that the orange (which is WAY bigger than anything else in that fruit bowl, like 4x the normal scale!) inherited human characteristics from household items. The Atari sound effects also help. Once the orange drag queen started her song, I remember cringing and/or going into the kitchen to beg my mom for more snacks. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love the segment as a whole. I could definitely hear it from the other room and imagine in my head what was going on. It’s just something that was hard for me to devour as a whole after seeing it probably 200 times.
So it goes. I’m still obsessed with it and can’t believe it’s online. Who else remembers this?!
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I think it’s a grapefruit, hence the 4x bigger than anything else in the fruit bowl.
Oh my god, I haven’t even watched the video yet and I can already hear the song in my head. So many memories of this.
Annie, you never fail to send me flying back to my childhood! I remember all of these things like it was yesterday.
I loved this thing when I was a kid! Still do, actually…
Oh, man. This really takes me back to when Sesame Street was cool, long before Elmo ruined it.
Oh my goodness, that grapefruit needs some diction lessons! (just kidding, people) It’s funny—I think I’ve seen other singers look that way as they attempt to reach their high notes.
Thanks for bringing back great memories, Annie.
i found that about a month ago after weeks and weeks of wishing that it would show up on youtube. the amount of time i have spent on youtube looking up old sesame street awesomeness is really embarassing. this is one of my all-time favorites!!!
Oh my god! I used to love this Sesame Street clip! They used to show this all the time during my Sesame Street years–which was about the early-to-mid nineties. There was another Sesame Street segment I used to like, and I can’t remember the exact details, but I seem to remember singing/dancing kitchen utensils, and the main character was a cup with some sort of cartoon on it. Does this sound familiar to anyone else, or did I clearly ingest too much Play-Doh as a child?
I was born in 1987. So I think I missed this when it originally aired lol. All I remember is the worms who would have a track meet or olympics type thing lol..
I do remember the singing orange, but taking the llama to the dentist is still my biggest Sesame Street memory.
The first two I remember. Not this one…
Good stuff right there. I would kill for lashes like that. Can the next Sesame Street flashback be of Teeny Little Super Guy?
I can’t believe you blogged about this! I posted the link for this clip in my comment to “Who Else Remembers This (Volume 2). It used to scare the crap out of me as a young child, and yet, I felt helplessly drawn to watch it anyway each and every time. Until I found the clip on You Tube, I thought I had dreamt the clip, because NONE of my friends could remember it. Imagine my joy (and residual terror, lol) when I found it online!
This is so great! It’s so funny to watch videos like this, because if I were seeing it for the first time, I’d be like “what pot smoking weirdo thought this up?” Instead, since I remember it so vividly from my childhood, I think it’s the greatest, most beautiful thing ever.
Oh yes, the singing orange. The clips that stick most in my head. though, are: “Me and My Llama”, “A Loaf of Bread, a Quart of Milk, and a Stick of Butter” and this one I can’t seeem find on You Tube–its a trippy cartoon where a kid is going to the store and all these people in bell bottoms (possibly speaking jive?) try to sidetrack him. I remember a lot of orange but my whole memory of the 70s is a whole lot of orange. Can anyone help?!?
Or remember this one? The lost kid and the yo-yo man? I remember NOT LIKING this one as a kid.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=I6NsCvCn2EY&mode=related&search=
I remember that one, and I also remember that Sesame Street had a gang of muppets do a doo-wop sketch because Sha-na-na and Grease were popular.
Back in high school we would reminisce about the “L’amour Grapefruit.” I guess we were a bit off.
TO Ugly Allie: First off, you are scaring me with your “early 90s” comment, jeez I’m old, but anyway, I believe you are referring to the Teeny Little Super Guy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjvt6xqKwV8
I always loved the expressive hair.
Annie, I have been enjoying these Sesame Street flashbacks so much! Now if you could just find the “Sugar Beets” clip I could die happy. My mom used to sing that song to my sister and me all the time!
I have to say, I don’t remember this one. I did remember the Llama. The one that has stuck in my head all these years is the Milk film. The tension — will they get the milk to the baby in time? But the best part is the song, I still sometimes pour my cereal saying, “Milk, MI-ILK, Milk, doo doo doo doo doo.”
That clip used to scare the bejesus out of me as a kid. And how fitting is it that Walter/Wendy Carlos was rocking the Moog in the background while that creepy castrato orange sang its pulp out. *shudder* i can feel the nightmares coming back.
Hey Jean, I found one alledgely from 1972 about a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, a stick of butter, etc. on You Tube. It’s a little girl though and I seem to remember it being a boy but that was over 30 years ago! Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFy2jHSIOKA. Enjoy!
Ah memories…
OK, let’s see if this link works.
Try:
And it’s a container of milk. Way too much time on my hands. Don’t remember the orange and LOL to the person who said everything was orange in the 70’s–so true. My childhood was in “Living Color”…
Check out this clip of a muppet as a teacher. The muppet looks simliar to Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoopel.
Check this out: I found the 1977 clip of The Beetles doing “Letter B”.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UyUxVCR0p9g&mode=related&search=
Anyone else remember Smokey Robinson singing “You Really Got a Hold on Me” while a giant letter U came after him? Used to freak me out so much.
Does anybody else remember the song the little generic Muppets (you know, the little skinny green one and the blue one with the fat head that they would dress up in different ways to suit the situation) sang about being alive? I think the lyrics were something like this:
“I’m alive!
Yes, I’m ali-ive.
I’m ali-li-li-li-live,
And that’s no jive!
(uh) Breathe in!
(uh) Breathe out!
(uh) Breathe in!
(uh) Breathe out!”
I don’t remember this orange singing Carmen at all, however – Goddess Lu, I do remember the little girl going to the store for a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter. It was definitely a girl (a black girl) – I remember because being a black girl myself – I thought that it was cool that she was in her own “short”.