Saturday, April 21, 2007

Name That Sketch

I've asked many of you this question in person. I just posted it on Yahoo! Answers, though, and not gotten an answer yet; so hey! What the hell. Bear in mind that this post is being written by a very immature and silly mid-to-late thirties white woman whose almost-six-year-old daughter is currently singing along to Brian Eno. Really! In tune, too.

When Eric and Katie were little, around 1992 or so, there was a sketch that played on Sesame Street that I loved. It was live-action, with no spoken dialogue. All characters appeared to be in their early-to-mid twenties. It went more or less as follows:

A white-bread, 1950s-looking guy in a gray suit, glasses and hat arrives at a bus stop. He puts down a small boom box he's been carrying and pushes the start button on the, yes, cassette player. (Remember those?) Hip-hop strains waft forth, and the guy bounces awkwardly in time to the music.

It won't do, because there are two extremely cool guys already waiting at the bus stop: one is Black and one is Hispanic, and both are in very brightly-colored, MC Hammeresque business suits. (Remember MC Hammer? If I recall correctly, he blew his entire fortune on solid gold bathroom fixtures.) First one, then the other, stops Father Knows Best from dancing with a tap on the shoulder and a shake of the head, then proceeds to demonstrate how a real 90s hipster dances. But the whitebread guy just doesn't get it.

Finally the two other guys each take one of Mr. Whitebread's hands and start making him do the wave. They move from there into some better dance moves, and finally he catches on, and the three of them are all dancing together. At about this point the bus arrives; but the three of them wave it away, and go dancing off together down the street in interracial hipster harmony.

I can't possibly be the only person who remembers this, can I?

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2 Comments:

At April 22, 2007 12:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was a huge fan of Sesame Street as a child and rarely missed an episode. This MUST have been one of the ones I missed.

Or perhaps you dreamed it.

 
At April 30, 2007 7:32 PM, Blogger dreadpir8roberts said...

It's freaking amazing what you can find on YouTube with a bit of patience

 

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