Thanksgiving Leftovers: Sesame Street Songs

Back here I posted the cover of a Captain Kangaroo record to illustrate that show's Thanksgiving celebration. Did you happen to notice that the credit "Words and Music by Jeffrey Moss"? After composing a number of charming songs for Captain Kangaroo (on which he started as a production assistant), Jeff became one of the leading creative forces on Sesame Street, which debuted in 1969 (a year after the Captain Kangaroo record was released). In addition ti being head writer, Jeff composed many songs for the show, including "I Love Trash" and most famously the Sesame Street standard "Rubber Duckie," which became a mainstream hit (sung by Jim Henson as Ernie). A winner of 14 Emmy Awards for his Sesame Street work, Jeff Ross created many memorable music Muppets moments, including the Oscar-nominated score and songs for The Muppets Take Manhattan. We just couldn't have Muppets Month here at Tulgey Wood without the Sesame Street songs of Jeff Moss.

Thanksgiving At The Treasure House

Hospitality and welcoming. These qualities were a big part of Captain Kangaroo, the classic TV series that ran for decades every weekday morning on CBS, and I think this photo is an illustration of some of those attributes, in both setting (the most charming, most "real" version of the Treasure House, seen on the show 1965 through 1971) and cast (both people and puppets). Some associate the Thanksgiving holiday with Captain Kangaroo because from 1959 through 1965 (perhaps even later), Captain and his friends hosted the Thanksgiving Day parade coverage on CBS. But in what was an annual tradition for a good number of years, Captain would celebrate Thanksgiving within the show broadcast on that particular November Thursday. The conclusion of the Thanksgiving show was particularly powerful: To illustrate that for which we as a country should be grateful on this national day of thanks, Captain would display Norman Rockwell's famed series of paintings, The Four Freedoms. Then, as the Perry Como version of the hymn "Prayer for Thanksgiving (We Gather Together)" played, the Captain, Mr. Green Jeans, Dancing Bear, Bunny Rabbit and Mister Moose (the very characters seen on this record cover) gathered at a festive Thanksgiving table and reverently bowed their heads in prayer. The hymn ended with Perry and chorus powerfully singing the compelling lyric "Lord, make us free." Silence. Fade to black. There were no closing credits and no closing theme music... just a dramatic reminder of what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about: giving thanks.

A Treasure House Anniversary

On this day, October 3, in 1955, the very same day that Walt Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club premiered, another innovative show that created a revolution in children's television made its debut. Captain Kangaroo ran for almost three decades, most of that time on CBS. As the Captain, Bob Keeshan was one of the first TV performers to harness the certain sort of intimacy that's possible between a TV persona and his audience. Bob actively and deliberately worked at creating the illusion he was speaking casually and soothingly, not to a vast viewing audience but to each individual child who was watching. The photo seen above captures some of this, showing Captain leaning against the dutch door of the most inviting and charming version of his Treasure House (so unlike the stylized sets of the 1950s and 1970s), an informal pose he often struck while chatting directly with his audience. (By the way—after you click on the photo to enlarge it—see if you can spot a very interesting [and very hard to notice, given the way the photo is cropped] detail in Captain's costume: he's wearing CBS eye cufflinks.) Most of all, Captain Kangaroo epitomized that rare and undervalued quality, on TV or elsewhere: gentleness. For as Bob Keeshan once stated: "It is my contention...that most people in this world do not encounter violence every day. I think we [on television] prepare people for violence, and I think just as importantly we prepare people for the definition of being gentle." Reason enough to celebrate today's anniversary of the gentle fun and lighthearted fantasy of Captain Kangaroo.