Post by Silence on Dec 10, 2019 7:20:41 GMT
Hello everyone my name is Austin, or as I go by online, Silence. I originally posted the following on the Discord server and am reposting it here. I would truly appreciate any help you could give me in rediscovering this huge part of my childhood. This has been driving me crazy for literal years now. I am POSITIVE this exists, as I physically owned the video tapes as a child.
My grandmother worked for both Grollier and Scholastic while I was growing up and I'm pretty sure one of those companies were the ones that gave the tapes to her. For context, I am 24, almost 25, born in 1995. I believe I saw these videos as early as 3 or 4 years old so they were made, at the VERY latest, the late 90s or early 2000s, but they could easily be much older than that.
The videos were educational in nature, the two I owned were about letters and shapes respectively, but I believe there were also two others, one about numbers and one about colors (this fact is unverifiable in my mind, the reason I think the others existed is because the muppet host at the end of the video did a kind of advertisement for the other videos in the series.)
I can barely remember the letters one, but I remember the shapes one vividly. The host of both videos was a muppet with yellow skin and a long, beak-like nose. He looked incredibly similar to Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock, and, as a huge fan of FR as a child, I actually thought at points that it was the same character. Looking back, I would be shocked if the muppet host of the show wasn't Henson. It was incredibly high quality and had the classic Henson-style eyes. Again, not necessarily Henson but if my memory is correct it is very likely.
The show mainly consisted of two types of segments: Firstly, ones starring the yellow muppet 'host' (He was not a 'host' in the tradutional sense, I'm just gonna call him Host from now on as I cannot think of a better word to describe him.) This host character may or may not have had a lazy pet dog, but I may be blurring memories with Fraggle Rock.
During these segements, it showed him in his house doing various things related to the theme (specifically, for my memories, shapes).
The other type of segment were various sketches. Some were animation, some were live action, and some were B-roll footage set to music of toys such as plastic tools, erector sets, and tinker toys. These sketches are VERY similar to those seen in shows such as Pinwheel. I specifically remember the music being very "elevator music-like" for a lack of a better word.
I have specific memories of various sketches throughout the video, as well as aspects of the host segments. Again, these are all for the shapes video. (I seem to be remembering more and more as I write this, so I will update if I can remember specifics)
The main theme of the host segments was that he received a kind of package with various shaped holes in it. In order to unpackage it, he needed to do various things to the holes. As he did so, a layer of the box would fall away, making the package smaller and smaller. Some specific gags I remember about this part:
- The first, outermost, and biggest layer of the box/package was for the circle shape. It had a riddle-like rhyming phrase on it that the host reads aloud, and then he cranks the circle before it comes off via a string and the first layer of the box falls away, starting the Russian-nesting-doll-like process of unpacking the box.
- During the Triangle layer he had to put his eyes into a kind of viewer thing (think ViewMaster) and they left dark black triangles on his eyes.
- Inbetween each layer of the package, each representing a different shape, were the various sketch segments described further down.
- The ultimate gag at the end after all the layers of the box were releveled was a party for the Host. Balloons, streamers, etc. came billowing out of the box at the end.
Some specific animated and live action sketches I remember:
- A mime/clown lady doing various funny mime things. Two I specifically remember are messing with a lightbulb and eating a hardboiled egg in a single bite. This segment was live action.
- A baby puppet hippo in a diaper sitting on a porch describing various objects. I do not remember the context but things start falling from the sky and the porch/whole camera begin to shake faster and faster and by the end it gets ridiculous. I belive the hippo was purple.
- Shapes rolling down a hill. It was to showcase how they all do so differently. (The circle rolls, the square goes end-by-end.) The Triangle gets stuck on the hill when one of its corners falls into a crack.
- A Claymation where a square and circle (portrayed as dumb muscle bros) can’t fit through a rectangular door so they pummel each other to “roll” each other up into cylinders so they can fit through. They accidentally knock each other out in the process. A smart female triangle comes and enters the door by turning sideways.
- An animated, voice-acted, slideshow picturebook about an elephant who is a mailman. He doesn't know how to say no to people who ask him favors and the objects he delivers get larger and larger to the point that it is ridicilous. I believe it starts with him delivering a regular letter and by the end he is trying to carry another fellow elephant.
- An animated sing-a-long about a bunch of animals doing a square dance alongside actual cubes (it was a terrible pun through-and-through). I believe this was claymation.
PLEASE if you have any information whatsoever, leave a comment. I watched it literally hundreds of times at my grandmothers but I can’t find it ANYWHERE! I’m going insane!!
Thank you for your time!
My grandmother worked for both Grollier and Scholastic while I was growing up and I'm pretty sure one of those companies were the ones that gave the tapes to her. For context, I am 24, almost 25, born in 1995. I believe I saw these videos as early as 3 or 4 years old so they were made, at the VERY latest, the late 90s or early 2000s, but they could easily be much older than that.
The videos were educational in nature, the two I owned were about letters and shapes respectively, but I believe there were also two others, one about numbers and one about colors (this fact is unverifiable in my mind, the reason I think the others existed is because the muppet host at the end of the video did a kind of advertisement for the other videos in the series.)
I can barely remember the letters one, but I remember the shapes one vividly. The host of both videos was a muppet with yellow skin and a long, beak-like nose. He looked incredibly similar to Uncle Traveling Matt from Fraggle Rock, and, as a huge fan of FR as a child, I actually thought at points that it was the same character. Looking back, I would be shocked if the muppet host of the show wasn't Henson. It was incredibly high quality and had the classic Henson-style eyes. Again, not necessarily Henson but if my memory is correct it is very likely.
The show mainly consisted of two types of segments: Firstly, ones starring the yellow muppet 'host' (He was not a 'host' in the tradutional sense, I'm just gonna call him Host from now on as I cannot think of a better word to describe him.) This host character may or may not have had a lazy pet dog, but I may be blurring memories with Fraggle Rock.
During these segements, it showed him in his house doing various things related to the theme (specifically, for my memories, shapes).
The other type of segment were various sketches. Some were animation, some were live action, and some were B-roll footage set to music of toys such as plastic tools, erector sets, and tinker toys. These sketches are VERY similar to those seen in shows such as Pinwheel. I specifically remember the music being very "elevator music-like" for a lack of a better word.
I have specific memories of various sketches throughout the video, as well as aspects of the host segments. Again, these are all for the shapes video. (I seem to be remembering more and more as I write this, so I will update if I can remember specifics)
The main theme of the host segments was that he received a kind of package with various shaped holes in it. In order to unpackage it, he needed to do various things to the holes. As he did so, a layer of the box would fall away, making the package smaller and smaller. Some specific gags I remember about this part:
- The first, outermost, and biggest layer of the box/package was for the circle shape. It had a riddle-like rhyming phrase on it that the host reads aloud, and then he cranks the circle before it comes off via a string and the first layer of the box falls away, starting the Russian-nesting-doll-like process of unpacking the box.
- During the Triangle layer he had to put his eyes into a kind of viewer thing (think ViewMaster) and they left dark black triangles on his eyes.
- Inbetween each layer of the package, each representing a different shape, were the various sketch segments described further down.
- The ultimate gag at the end after all the layers of the box were releveled was a party for the Host. Balloons, streamers, etc. came billowing out of the box at the end.
Some specific animated and live action sketches I remember:
- A mime/clown lady doing various funny mime things. Two I specifically remember are messing with a lightbulb and eating a hardboiled egg in a single bite. This segment was live action.
- A baby puppet hippo in a diaper sitting on a porch describing various objects. I do not remember the context but things start falling from the sky and the porch/whole camera begin to shake faster and faster and by the end it gets ridiculous. I belive the hippo was purple.
- Shapes rolling down a hill. It was to showcase how they all do so differently. (The circle rolls, the square goes end-by-end.) The Triangle gets stuck on the hill when one of its corners falls into a crack.
- A Claymation where a square and circle (portrayed as dumb muscle bros) can’t fit through a rectangular door so they pummel each other to “roll” each other up into cylinders so they can fit through. They accidentally knock each other out in the process. A smart female triangle comes and enters the door by turning sideways.
- An animated, voice-acted, slideshow picturebook about an elephant who is a mailman. He doesn't know how to say no to people who ask him favors and the objects he delivers get larger and larger to the point that it is ridicilous. I believe it starts with him delivering a regular letter and by the end he is trying to carry another fellow elephant.
- An animated sing-a-long about a bunch of animals doing a square dance alongside actual cubes (it was a terrible pun through-and-through). I believe this was claymation.
PLEASE if you have any information whatsoever, leave a comment. I watched it literally hundreds of times at my grandmothers but I can’t find it ANYWHERE! I’m going insane!!
Thank you for your time!
