CookieWaits: Does that it says, etc

August 17, 2011 10:58 AM

CookieWaits is a Tom Waits/Cookie Monster mashup that is so obvious you'll wonder why you never thought of it before. Not the best Sesame Street lip-sync I've seen but still satisfyingly amusing.
posted by mathowie (59 comments total)

We sail tonight for Sesame Street
We're all as mad as Hooper here...

Seriously, this is awesome.
posted by scody at 11:04 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh damnit this is going to be in my head all day now
posted by The Whelk at 11:08 AM on August 17, 2011

Don't see the sun on Sunday
Sweepin' all the clouds away
Don't memorize the faces of neighbors
I got my own special way
But I know where there's sweet air
Maybe just a little bit more
That's where we meet and it's OK
I'm tellin' you to come and play

Well it's got to be a Sesame Sree-et
Tell me how to get inside
Got to be a Sesame Stre-et
Magic carpet ride
posted by shakespeherian at 11:13 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

OH WOW
posted by penduluum at 11:20 AM on August 17, 2011

This is the best thing since Rammstein VS Cookie Monster.
posted by oulipian at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2011 [7 favorites]

We're all as mad as Hooper here...

Hey!
posted by Hoopo at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2011

Oh, I set the video to start at 18s in because there's some weird un-sync'd stuff at the start that I felt took away from the overal quality of it, so I skipped it.
posted by mathowie at 11:25 AM on August 17, 2011

THE PIANO HAS BEEN EATING COOKIE NOT ME
posted by katillathehun at 11:27 AM on August 17, 2011 [32 favorites]

BOURBON IS A SOMETIMES FOOD?
posted by katillathehun at 11:37 AM on August 17, 2011 [15 favorites]

We sail tonight for Sesame Street
We're all as mad as Hooper here...

The captain is a green-furred Grouch
He's digging change out of the couch
In the land of the blind, the googly-eyed monster is king.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:37 AM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

The beauty of quitting is, now that I've quit, I can have one, 'cause I've quit.

/Jarmusch
posted by shakespeherian at 11:41 AM on August 17, 2011

Who's Tom Waits?
posted by eyeballkid at 11:47 AM on August 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

You wouldn't like him. He's not conventionally handsome.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:49 AM on August 17, 2011 [9 favorites]

Who's Tom Waits?
posted by eyeballkid at 2:47 PM on August 17 [+] [!]

Eponysterical dissonance? :)
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:55 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't believe how tight the lip sync is on this. It really nails it.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:59 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

love it
posted by rebent at 12:01 PM on August 17, 2011

Seriously the best thing ever. Who knew I could please my inner 5 year old and the 19 year old in me that fell in love with Tom Waits. Huge smile on my face now.
posted by kanata at 12:04 PM on August 17, 2011

Now I will always picture Cookie Monster singing when I hear Tom Waits. He needs to do a cover of 'C is for Cookie.'
posted by the_artificer at 12:08 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Close Metafilter down. Nothing better will ever be posted.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:32 PM on August 17, 2011 [14 favorites]

The should get Tom Waits to do a duet with Cookie Monster.
posted by Pendragon at 12:34 PM on August 17, 2011

This utterly delights me (in a dark, desolate, shabby fashion, of course).
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 12:36 PM on August 17, 2011

Who's Tom Waits?

To judge by his voice, Tom Waits is an ambulatory heap of cigarette butts glued together with cheap bourbon.

Representative sample of his work:

Temptation (and here's a cover by Dianna Krall. He gets covered more than you'd think by mainstream artists)

Higher intensity weirdness: The Black Rider

A lullaby, sweet if you don't attend to the lyrics: Innocent when you dream

For the Cookie Monster: Chocolate Jesus (gotta love the megaphone he's using for distortion in this live version)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:39 PM on August 17, 2011 [6 favorites]

If Tom Waits hasn't cut a children's album, he should.
posted by dismas at 12:41 PM on August 17, 2011 [5 favorites]

(justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow, I love your rundown, but I'm going to guess the guy named eyeballkid knows who Tom Waits is and was taking the piss)
posted by shakespeherian at 12:42 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Representative sample of his work:

You forgot this one.
posted by eyeballkid at 12:44 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

I really wanted it to end with Cookie Monster eating the "B" cookie.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:49 PM on August 17, 2011

Who is God to a puppet, and what is his business?

Is the puppeteer a puppet's God?

Heavy, man. Heavy.
posted by loquacious at 12:54 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

That made my day. Thanks, Matt.
posted by homunculus at 12:59 PM on August 17, 2011

Who is God to a puppet, and what is his business?

Is the puppeteer a puppet's God?

Yeah something about the gravity of the song really mashed up well with cook's goggly eyed addiction madness.

I think this is easily the best s. street mashup I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of them.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:17 PM on August 17, 2011

Now I'm left thinking that Cookie Monster isn't a hand puppet at all, but Tom Waits in costume. I've seen neither misters Monster or Waits in person, and until I do, I will continue to believe it's a costume. Like a floppy, fuzzy bag version of Big Bird.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:30 PM on August 17, 2011

Well he fell in love with a S. Street girl
And now he's dancing in the Birmingham jail
Dancing in the Birmingham jail
posted by the_artificer at 1:36 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am hoping that the Muppets would do a cover of this song as their next YouTube video...
and yes, this is the best Muppets lip-sync I've seen.
posted by stevil at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2011

Tom Waits does a cover of Heigh Ho on the album Stay Awake, Various Interpretations of Music From Vintage Disney Films, which may or may not be what most people consider a children's album.
posted by corey flood at 1:43 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's the enthusiastic muppet-style nodding after some of the lines that gets me. "Sell your heart to the junkman for a buck? That's right! Good job, kids! And can you guess what else I'd do?"
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:45 PM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

If Tom Waits hasn't cut a children's album, he should.

This is such a good idea that I would suggest it to the man himself
(if I wasn't so awed and terrified by the prospect)
posted by rongorongo at 1:45 PM on August 17, 2011

More or less the best thing ever.
posted by sfred at 2:16 PM on August 17, 2011

I have never liked the Cookie Monster much. And I have one Tom Waits CD which I have not played in over two years.

But this is pretty damn amazing.

Can Kermit the Frog do Bob Dylan? How about a Miss Piggy 10 000 Maniacs?
posted by bukvich at 3:07 PM on August 17, 2011

Kermit might oughta do Dylan, but he's already done Reznor/Cash
posted by pupdog at 3:23 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know what the best part of this is? My children's favorite song -- for the last few years, in fact -- is this song. So now I can play this for them, and they will get more out of it than they would watching the Cookie Monster clips with normal audio.
posted by davejay at 3:33 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

watching four-year-olds stomp around the living room to this song is, by the way, pretty awesome in its own right
posted by davejay at 3:33 PM on August 17, 2011 [6 favorites]

Tom Waits would be a really excellent Classic Muppet Show guest.
posted by Grangousier at 3:38 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

For those of you who liked Cookie Monster vs. Rammstein clip from above, did you know that the German version of Sesame Street did a real version of this?

Krümelmonster (Cookie Monster) sings: "Ich esse den Keks," i.e. I eat the cookie. I don't know Rammstein well enough to know what song of theirs he's singing to, but I imagine it's obvious to anyone who knows the band.
posted by colfax at 3:43 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Representative sample of his work:

You forgot this one too: "Tom Traubert's Blues", and pretty much every other second of Small Change, quite possibly the greatest album ever made. (Yes, I gush. But still. This.)
posted by chuq at 4:27 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is amazing, and easily better than my old favorite muppet/popular artist video with Kermit doing LCD Soundsystem.
posted by sandswipe at 4:45 PM on August 17, 2011

Waitwaitwait ... it all makes sense: CookieWaits uploads this video on August 16th, the very same day I get this email:

There have been rumblings and rumors. New music from Tom Waits, you say?
Come to TomWaits.com on Tuesday August 23rd, and Mr. Waits himself will
set the record straight.

- ANTI Records

AWESOME.

I'd say I'm now just a pawn in the new hype game, but this is clearly territory already in support of Mister Waits.

Anyway, Bad As Me doesn't sound like a kids album or song, but I could be wrong.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:49 PM on August 17, 2011

Wow. WOW. This kind of awesome silliness is why I love MetaFilter.
posted by smirkette at 5:39 PM on August 17, 2011

Cookie is warning all of the happy people of Sesame Street OVER and OVER and they just nod and smile as if he couldn't possibly mean it! It would be Terrifying if it weren't so awesome.
posted by ldthomps at 6:20 PM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

I can't believe how tight the lip sync is on this. It really nails it.

Well...ok, but Cookie Monster doesn't actually have lips. But the syncing of the mouth-flapping to the right syllables was good, yes.

/pedant
posted by emjaybee at 7:13 PM on August 17, 2011

The Diana Krall cover that justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow linked is phenomenal, but my favorite Tom Waits moment is the man performing Cold Cold Ground with the Kronos Quartet.


and thanks to bukvich and pupdog, now I have a desire to do a March of the Miss Piggies mashup
posted by Existential Dread at 8:57 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just put the kids to bed; between books we watched the video. They laughed. And then they insisted on watching the whole thing. Then I sung their "The Fuschia Is Now" book to that song, in that voice. Then we all started singing things like "There's a pee, there's a pee in the toilet bowl" and "The ship is stinky. The ship is stinky."

they just turned six. and apparently so did I.
posted by davejay at 9:30 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Not the best Sesame Street lip-sync I've seen

It looked flawless to me - what's a better one?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 1:59 AM on August 18, 2011

There's also the classic gangsta-rap Bert and Ernie...
posted by pxe2000 at 6:04 AM on August 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Singapore" was the TW song that made me realize he ought to cover the Stonecutters Song.
posted by ifjuly at 10:04 AM on August 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I showed this to my wife and she thought someone had re-recorded the song in Cookie Monster's voice.
posted by EarBucket at 10:08 AM on August 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

she thought someone had re-recorded the song in Cookie Monster's voice

I haven't heard a Tom Waits song in a few years (I used to have several of his albums back in the 90s that saw heavy play) and before I posted this I looked up the song in iTunes just to be sure it was the actual original because I half-thought that the publisher of the video was doing a cover in a jokey cookie monster voice.
posted by mathowie at 4:57 PM on August 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just tried to show it to my 4 year old, but she started screaming and hid behind a chair. Whoops. Husband said, "How did you think that was not going to scare her?"
posted by Knowyournuts at 7:27 PM on August 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

To be fair Tom is doing a much more Cookie Monster-ish voice in this song than he typically does.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:29 PM on August 18, 2011

Yeah, it's no "Murder in the Red Barn."
posted by Knowyournuts at 7:35 PM on August 18, 2011

I got my little brother the Shrek soundtrack with Tom Waits on it. He asked if Waits was a giant.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:45 PM on August 18, 2011 [5 favorites]