Classic Scary Sesame Street clip ("I-Beam")

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Hello there, back again because I am SO tickled pink, and I'll tell you why in a minute...but first, lemme ask you guys and girls here that grew up with Sesame Street in the 1970's as I did, a question.

Do any of you a live-action sketch from around 1979, which showed a lump of white hot steel being formed and melted into the shape of a capital letter I? Well, I'd only seen the ending of that sketch only once (the first time I saw it at age 7), because it absolutely scared the piss out of me!! The combination of how menacing that piece of steel looked, like it was ready to jump out and BURN you, and that MUSIC with the 'crashing' piano playing and horns, made for a classic example of 'nightmare fuel'! After watching it only once, it scarred me forever, and from that point on, when it came on in future episodes, I immediately BOLTED out of the room and waited the full minute for it to end!

Well, believe it or not, I *found it* on YouTube last night! So I decided to suck up my courage and watch it all the way to the end, for the first time in 29 years! Admittedly, I wasn't as scared anymore, but what astonished me was that I *remembered* how it ended, a few seconds before it ended: with a dramatic freeze-frame and a menacing drum roll. After being impressed that my memory was that sharp, it dawned on me that if I hadn't been scared s**tless by it, I wouldn't have remembered it as easily; it's THAT powerful.

Anyways, enough talking...watch for yourselves. I present to you...

"I-Beam"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNInmrPmug8[/youtube]

...still powerful, even today.

Usagi1992

LOL, I totally remember that. Thanks for sharing.

There's a lot of Muppet / Sesame geeks on YouTube. They got some cool clips there.

Lots of Christopher Cerf stuff. LOVELY!

Yep, I certainly know about the massive amount of Sesame Street old school sketches. Thank you though. ^_^

Sorry if it looks like this is a poor excuse for a revamp, but I saw a variation of "I-Beam" that I just HAVE to share with the board!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irAdVWERst8[/youtube]

This actually succeeded in pinpointing my exact feelings of terror when *I* first watched "I-Beam" as a child!

Heh..."I-Beam"...it stays with you...

Usagi1992

The thing that used to scare me back then when I watched was where whatever number they were doing they count things out - and at the end a man dressed in a chef outfit would be carrying that number of some item of food and fall down the stairs.

I just had a tremendous Deja Vu feeling watching that. I think I've seen it before.

They have all of them I was talking about on YouTube - they had from 2 through 10. They're now unofficially called the "Baker Clip" after the part that scared me (I called him at the time "The Man That Falls Down."


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UL8geCdrk[/youtube]

Awesome! Old School Sesame Street I totally know the clip you're talking about but only really started to watch it once it circulated on YouTube. Here's one that scared ME as a kid (d'oh! It wouldn't let me post it on here. Well just look up "40 Dots" on YouTube and tell me what you think)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CWCpweNvTE[/youtube]


Don't remember it but that would be pretty disturbing for a kid I think.

Indeed!! THIRTY-NIIIIIIINE...THIRTY-NIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNEEE (screen shakes).....THIIIIIRTTTY NIIIIIIIIINNNNNNEEEEEE (screen shakes) (GASP!)....FOOOOOOOORRRTTEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY......

Poor Joe Raposo. Must've really damaged his vocal cords after making this one! The scary thing is he died about a year after this skit was made!!

"The Man Who Falls Down" used to scare me so bad I'd leave the room when they started that counting and my parents would tell me when it was over. If they weren't there I'd wait until I was sure it must be over.


Didn't adults understand back then what could be scary to kids? Not just these, but remember the Mr Yuck commercial?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLsONa3gKIQ[/youtube]

Although I wasn't a little kid when Sesame Street came out, I did think the bit about being "between" two big monsters (I could not find it on YouTube) was pretty creepy when I watched with my kids.

I watched Sesame Street about a decade later than that but it seems like there's at least one clip from the show that will scare someone. I remember being sacred of some cartoon that had two kids play in the snow and all of a sudden, the kids faces are zoomed in real close, very fast and somehow, that scared me because maybe it was too fast. I have no idea what the clip is called so I could probably never find it.

Oh yeah, Mr. Yuk!! I've shown my friends Mike and Peter this commercial they think it's hilarious!! (But they also know how scary it would be for a kid to watch it )

*sings* "Mr. Yuk, is meeeeaaannnn....Mr. Yuk, is greeeeeennn...."

BTW, I remember seeing a photo of Hootie and the Blowfish once where one of the members had a Mr. Yuk T-shirt!!

Reminds of yet another cartoon skit (series of them actually) on Sesame Street called "Willie Wimple". Some of them are available on YouTube they're really weird, though I found 'em funny as a kid. They were cartoons that taught children about pollution and how you shouldn't pollute. The endings were the weirdest, funniest parts of the 'toons - the picture showed the Statue of Liberty with a beard and zoomed out to reveal a blackish-gray planet Earth, and the singer in the background sang, "Now if every kid did it, don't you see, what an icky, yucky, no fun world it would be....Yeeeeccchhhh!! !" That "Yeeeeccchhhh!! !" part always made me laugh when I was a kid!! The one I remember best was about land pollution. For some reason I thought it was a cartoon about cavemen discovering mud when I was a kid. I know I was a weirdo back then (still am )

That's funny, it always creeped me out to such a degree that I'd have to leave the room and plug my ears before that final "Yeeech!" was spoken, it disturbed me THAT badly!

But anyway, wow...I didn't think that this thread of mine would get any more attention, let alone finally kick off after 7 months of its initial posting. I guess all it took was an ultra-scary version of "I-Beam" to finally get the point across, heh.

There's only one other moment in Sesame Street history that freaked me out to the degree of "I-Beam" and the Willy Wimple cartoons...and it was strong enough to even give me a couple of nightmares!

I don't remember the name of it, but it was a cartoon with a singing cowboy riding a horse, singing about emotions. It's a nice little song for the first 96 percent of the cartoon, but then...after the lyric 'cloooose your eyes'....the SCARIEST LOOKING BEAR IN CARTOON HISTORY suddenly comes into the frame and says in a soft, growly voice,
'suprise!'

No thanks to that bear, I've woken up screaming at night because of bad dreams ending similar to that cartoon ending! Oh, and if you do find it and wanna post it here, don't expect me to view it, lol.

Usagi1992

There was one that scared me about two people in a pitch black room looking for either the light switch or a new bulb, which goes on for a while with muttered conversation between them ("Can you see it?" "Oh... yes... I think it's over this way," etc.) Finally the switch/bulb is found and the light switched on by one person, only to reveal that his supposed 'friend' is actually a monster. If I remember correctly, he then switches the light back off again rather than look at him.

I'm starting to feel uncomfortable just thinking about it even now.