The Inevitable Cracks (Early 70's Sesame Street Short) Post

IDK, in my experience with things like this, it's usually a combination of not owning the rights, inertia/forgetting it exists, not seeing a profit in releasing it, and other trivial things like that which keeps most "lost" media from the airwaves again. With things like this, it obviously exists in multiple vaults, so its not really rare nor is it being held for some secret nefarious reasons. It's just that the rights expired, or they never had the rights to it in the first place, or they dont have the rights to distribute online (and have no interest playing the old episodes again, or shoehorning this piece into a new episode to please some weirdos online.) It's the simplest explanation and doesnt require some bizarre theory of the artist going crazy or whatever. The artist and/or company that made the short has no official right to air it in public, so they gave a privately recorded copy to that guy as a personal favor. They made him sign a contract because if the thing aired on TV or online, THEIR asses would be on the line as much as his. Some sympathetic person who works at/for Sesame Street with access to the vaults and was sick of the controversy or else sympathetic to the cause sent out the clip anonymously to be done with it. The video was not taken down because Sesame Street doesnt care that much either way--now that it's out, it's over with as far as they're concerned. The higher ups, the types who'd be making legal threats, might not even know or care that any of this has happened. The person who emailed the clip is almost certainly someone on the lower rung of the ladder over there. Unless you frequent this forum chances are you never heard of the Crack Master, so chances are the big guys, the decision makers, never heard of this search in the first place. They probably automatically deny requests for specific clips on principle--Im willing to bet a human never even read that emailed request for the Crack Master.

That's really all there is to it. As for why the artist or someone in the know hasn't come forward with information...maybe they personally are unaware of the search too. Maybe they honestly forget they made this because they do so much random animation work. Maybe they're ashamed of it for whatever reason. Maybe they're contractually obligated not to discuss it (Not sure why, but its a theory.) It can be any number of things. Point is, I think its a combination of stupid legal bullshit and just the simple fact that often nobody cares outside of us with these things. To me, Crack Master was an interesting short film. To some of you it's a haunting childhood memory you were dying to revisit. To the people that matter, the ones who say "yes" or "no" to rereleasing or reairing these things...it's junk. It's a stupid failed little thing they aired a few times that for whatever reason they didnt like or decided not to show again. And they see no profit in bothering with it now, especially just to keep some random weirdos happy.

For those who don't visit the discord or Muppet Central, NPR did a nice piece on this; I haven't listened to it all yet, but here: www.pri.org/programs/studio-360/crack-monster-mystery-behind-creepiest-cartoon-sesame-street

Edit: Between this and another Margaret Hamilton still being found in close proximity to one another, Jim Henson is definitely smiling down on us!
The lineage only gets odder... it was a freakin' fax; they were trying to remain anonymous as fuck, to an unsettling degree.

Dorothy Moskowitz (the narrator): "I think I'm gonna join some of these online chat groups because I was as close to it as you could possibly get and am still mystified"... ha!