Sing!

September 30, 2009 8:39 AM

Even if you don't know Joe Raposo's name, you probably have heard his music. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Joe was the main composer of songs and incidental music for the children's television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company. In this role, he wrote some of today's standards while also imprinting his musical stylings on the consciousness of a generation of children worldwide. In the second half of this post, you will find a curation of youtube-links leading to a good chunk of Joe Raposo's oeuvre -- all gems, mostly under two minutes each. Sing along if you know the words!

From Sesame Street

ABC-DEF-GHI ♫ African Alphabet Song (With Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Kermit) ♫ African Animals ♫ Air (with Bip Bippadotta) ♫ Alaskan Carver ♫ Animal Babies feeding ♫ Animals have two parts ♫ Animals Fighting ♫ As I Was Going to St. Ives ♫ At the Vet ♫ Baboons ♫ Baby Climbs the Stairs ♫ Backflips ♫ Baker Counting Series (10) ♫ Bald Eagle ♫ The Ballad of Casey McPhee ♫ Basket o' kittehs ♫ The Batty Bat ♫ A Bee! ♫ Bein' a Pig ♫ Bein' Green (1969) ♫ Bein' Green (Ray Charles) ♫ Bein' Green (1975) ♫ Believe in Yourself (Diana Ross) ♫ Birds ♫ Body Parts ♫ Bugs ♫ Butterflies ♫ C is for Cookie ♫ C is for Cookie (Candice Bergen version) ♫ Carving a Wood Horse ♫ Cats have Kittens ♫ Chicken Hatching ♫ The Chicken or the Egg ♫ City Alphabet Song ♫ Clink, Clank ♫ Colleen Lives in Arizona ♫ Comb Your Face ♫ Cornfield ♫ Counting Boxes ♫ Counting Buses ♫ Dancing Groove ♫ Days of the week, with Roosevelt Franklin ♫ Dentist ♫ Desert ♫ Did You Guess What It Is? ♫ Disco Frog ♫ Doctor's Office ♫ Doggy Paddle ♫ Doin' the Pigeon ♫ Dolphins ♫ Down, Down, Down ♫ Dressed Up ♫ Dry & Wet ♫ Eating ♫ Eight Penny Candyman ♫ Elephant Guessing Game ♫ Elephants ♫ Empty, Full, Empty ♫ Everybody Dance! (from the Pilot) ♫ Everybody Eats ♫ Everybody Run ♫ Everybody Sleeps ♫ Everybody Wash ♫ A Family ♫ Fast Faster Fastest ♫ Fat Cat (with Bip Bippadotta) ♫ Fish ♫ Fish II ♫ Fish III (luminescent) ♫ Flying ♫ Follow the Arrows (arrangement only) ♫ Forty Dots ♫ Four Furry Friends ♫ The Frog Prince Part 1 ♫ The Frog Prince Part 2 ♫ The Frog Prince Part 3 ♫ Frogs ♫ Froggy (La de da de o day) ♫ Fruit Song ♫ Gazelle ♫ Gibbon ♫ Giraffes ♫ Go Ahead and Touch ♫ Grow High Grow Low ♫ Has Anybody Seen My Dog? ♫ H ♫ H building exercise ♫ Hamburger Bun Factory ♫ Hee Hee Ha Ha ♫ Hey Cow I See You Now ♫ Hippo! ♫ Hoisting the neon sign 'o' ♫ Horse ♫ Horses ♫ How Do You Do? (Lena Horne & Grover) ♫ I Like Alaska ♫ I Stand Up Straight and Tall ♫ I'm an Aardvark ♫ I'm Pretty ♫ Imagination ♫ It's Alive ♫ It's a Long Hard Climb ♫ I've Got Two ♫ Jackrabbit ♫ Jasper Johnson's J Walk ♫ J Jump ♫ Kangaroo Blues ♫ Kayak ♫ Kids ♫ La, La, La! (Ernie and Bert's L song) ♫ Learning to walk ♫ Lemurs ♫ Let's Make a Dream ♫ A Little Bit at the Beginning ♫ Little Plant ♫ Little Things ♫ Lions ♫ Lions II ♫ Look a little closer ♫ Look Through the Window (Placido Domingo) ♫ Marmoset ♫ Me ♫ (Everything I am is) Me ♫ Me and Yo (Everything I am is Me with Spanish verse) ♫ Me Lost Me Cookie At The Disco ♫ Me Lost Me Cookie In The Mosh Pit ♫ Mother giving baby a bath ♫ Mothers and Babies ♫ The National Association of "W" Lovers ♫ Nearly Missed (warning: Elmo & Rosie O'Donnell) ♫ Neon Sign "R" ♫ New Life ♫ New Life tribute YT vid ♫ News Flash Theme ♫ A New Way to Walk ♫ Numero Comparsa (w/Celia Cruz) ♫ The Off-Key Song (We are a couple of Grouches) ♫ One of These Things ♫ One Little Penguin ♫ The "Op" Family Song ♫ Opposite (Bip Bipadotta) ♫ Oryx ♫ Oscar's B Sandwich ♫ Otter! ♫ Otters!! ♫ Over, Under, Around and Through ♫ P (animation) ♫ Panda ♫ Peanut Butter ♫ Pelicans ♫ Penguins ♫ Penguins 2 ♫ Pottery ♫ Practice makes perfect ♫ Prairie Dog ♫ Pretty Baby (Rhinos' Love Song) ♫ Primates ♫ Put a Circle 'Round my Nose ♫ Put on your Kammikluuk ♫ Quiet Time Song ♫ Rain Falls (Oscar) ♫ Readers of the Open Range ♫ Rhinos ♫ Rhyming in School ♫ Riding a Tortoise ♫ Road Runner ♫ Round Ditty (Hippopotamus) ♫ Scuba Diver (on, into, under, through, around) ♫ Seeds Sprouting ♫ Sesame Street Fever ♫ Sesame Street Theme (conclusion to Parents special) ♫ Share ♫ Sing ♫ Sing (in Japanese, Korean) ♫ Sing (from the Sesame Street 25th Anniversary Special) ♫ Sing Your Synonyms ♫ The Skin I'm In ♫ Sleepy Sloth ♫ Slide ♫ Smocks ♫ Snake ♫ Somebody Come and Play ♫ Starfish ♫ Starfish (cover by Universe Society) ♫ Swimming Animals and Children ♫ Swing Up High ♫ Tails ♫ Take a Breath ♫ Take My Hand ♫ There's a Bird on Me ♫ Things you can carry ♫ Three Turtles ♫ Toothbrushin' an Orca ♫ Touch, Hold, Feel ♫ Travelling Musician ♫ Trees ♫ Trying Song ♫ Two is You and Me ♫ Warthog ♫ Water Baby ♫ Waterfowl ♫ Weaver Bird ♫ What Do You Do With a Pet? ♫ Wheelchair races with Sally Struthers ♫ Who is this Boy? ♫ Who You Lookin' At Tiger? ♫ Wood Carvings (Alaska) ♫ Would You Like to Buy an O? ♫ X Marks the Spot! ♫ You Need a Bridge ♫ You're My Baby ♫ The Zizzy Zoomers

From The Electric Company

A Hamburger? 𝄞 An E on the End 1 𝄞 An E on the End 2 𝄞 Argue 𝄞 Barley Farmer's Bar 𝄞 Be Kind to the Letter S 𝄞 Bicycle 𝄞 Billy Lick a Lolly 𝄞 Bleached Blonde Blanche 𝄞 Blizzard, Blow, Bloom 𝄞 BOOM! 𝄞 Candy Candles 𝄞 clunk! 𝄞 Coral 𝄞 Credits 𝄞 Deep, Deeper, Deepest 𝄞 Don't Bring Those Things 𝄞 Dr. Delight (Easy Reader) 𝄞 Easy (That's How I Move) 𝄞 Electric Company 𝄞 Face, Fingers, Feet 𝄞 Fight Song (Written by Tom Lehrer, arranged by Joe) 𝄞 Finch and Dench 𝄞 Fish 𝄞 Found Hound 𝄞 Free Sleep! 𝄞 Fruit! 𝄞 Go Wild! 𝄞 Good ol' Apostrophe S 𝄞 Grin 𝄞 Grumble, Growl & Grunt 𝄞 Hamburger 𝄞 Hat Song 𝄞 He Ho Hi 𝄞 Here Comes the Blob 𝄞 Heros! Hot Dogs! 𝄞 Hey, You Guys! 𝄞 Hill 𝄞 How is Howard? 𝄞 I am going to get that caterpillar. 𝄞 I don't have a cent 𝄞 I Like You 𝄞 I Love The Wind 𝄞 I was young once too 𝄞 I'm Small 𝄞 Ice Cream!! 𝄞 If it swims, we have it? 𝄞 If, you're so terrific! 𝄞 interstitials 𝄞 interstitials 𝄞 It Happens in May 𝄞 It's 𝄞 Jennifer of the Jungle 𝄞 Kissy Kiss Toothpaste 𝄞 Let's Get On With the Show 𝄞 Let's Rap (starring Violet Beuregarde from the first Wonka film) 𝄞 MC Battle: Easy Reader v. Dwayne 𝄞 Mumble Song 𝄞 My Name is Kathy 𝄞 N apostrophe T (Written by Tom Lehrer, arranged by Joe) 𝄞 Of 𝄞 Old Double E 𝄞 Oodles of Noodles 𝄞 ow and oa 𝄞 Pedro & Maurice the plant 𝄞 Platter of Plums 𝄞 Poison 𝄞 Shoo Shoo Sunshine 𝄞 Silent E (Written by Tom Lehrer, arranged by Joe) 𝄞 Silhouettes & Sundae Song 𝄞 Sing Out 𝄞 Slip Him Some Skin 𝄞 Slop the Hogs 𝄞 Spidey Fixes the Hum 𝄞 Sun/Stun Ballet 𝄞 T-I-O-N 𝄞 Thanks to th 𝄞 The Corner 𝄞 The End? 𝄞 The Hound Song (Written by Tom Lehrer, arranged by Joe) 𝄞 the Menu Song (Written by Tom Lehrer, arranged by Joe) 𝄞 The Platter of Plums 𝄞 The Sweet Sweet Sway 𝄞 Vampire! 𝄞 Walk & Talk 𝄞 What did she say? 𝄞 Whimper and Whine 𝄞 Yards and Yards of Yellow Yarn 𝄞 Yield 𝄞 You 𝄞 You Need an L

Joe also did the music for The Great Santa Claus Switch, Halloween is Grinch Night, and Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. He was also the subject/host of a documentary, America Is... [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ]

apologies for any errors, oversights, or neurological tunnels leading to ancient unrecoverable memories

posted by not_on_display (43 comments total)

Holy cow. Awesome! No time to check this out now but I sure will when I get home. Thanks from someone who was reared on both shows!
posted by blucevalo at 8:41 AM on September 30

Gadzooks. Thanks for the load of nostalgia!

One question: what characters were you using between The Electric Company songs? They come out like this.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:47 AM on September 30

flithy light thief: in my browser, they render as a treble clef.
posted by hippybear at 8:51 AM on September 30

If you only have time for one, I suggest N apostrophe T, one of my favorite songs ever.
posted by scrowdid at 8:56 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

You realize you must now change your username.
May I suggest not_not_on_display?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:57 AM on September 30

Raposo also wrote the themes to "Three's Company" and its first spinoff "The Ropers".
posted by inturnaround at 8:58 AM on September 30

Doin' the Pigeon. FREAKING BEST SONG EVER.
posted by contessa at 9:02 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I have to say, not_on_display, I am speechless before your utter post epicosity. And I have you to blame for my lack of achievement for today and probably the next couple of days after this. Thanks so much for posting!
posted by hippybear at 9:10 AM on September 30

in my browser, they render as a treble clef.

Thanks!
posted by filthy light thief at 9:10 AM on September 30

I love Joe Raposo! Thanks for the enormous trove of classics. His page at the Muppet Wiki has screengrabs from many of his Sesame Street songs, which will surely stir people's memories. There are even, as unbelievable as this might seem, some which are not included here!
posted by jocelmeow at 9:15 AM on September 30

Holy cow. We sing the Batty Bat all the time in the ozzy household. One-two-three-count!
posted by uncleozzy at 9:17 AM on September 30

OMG I think I recognize every frickin' one of these song titles. Now "Slop the Hogs" is running through my head.
posted by Melismata at 9:23 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

whoa.
posted by The Whelk at 9:24 AM on September 30

"It's not easy being green.... but green is the color of spring....!" Love that song. Thanks for the excellent post, n_o_d!
posted by Lynsey at 9:28 AM on September 30

holy shit
posted by marxchivist at 9:31 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

in my browser, they render as a treble clef.

in my IE 7, FF, and Chrome, they don't render. WTF?
posted by taumeson at 9:35 AM on September 30

FYI-the DVD set of the Electric Company has a karaoke version of "Silent E" on disc 3. My 4 year old loves it, even if her reading skills have a hard time with the word "karaoke".
posted by TedW at 9:38 AM on September 30

Side. Bar. This.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:46 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I just want to tell you how very much you've made my day[s] with this. Thank you!

in my browser, they render as a treble clef.

in my IE 7, FF, and Chrome, they don't render. WTF?

They don't render for me, either; I wonder if it is a Mac v. PC thing?
posted by alynnk at 10:04 AM on September 30

Amazing post. Thanks, n_o_d.
posted by box at 10:04 AM on September 30

in my browser, they render as a treble clef.

in my IE 7, FF, and Chrome, they don't render. WTF?

They don't render for me, either; I wonder if it is a Mac v. PC thing?

Could be. I'm running OS X 10.5.8 and using Safari. I just checked Firefox and they render correctly there, too.
posted by hippybear at 10:09 AM on September 30

It's like this post is dynamite, and I'm a worthless mule.
posted by the painkiller at 10:14 AM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Interestingly, I've got bass clefs (FF2.0 on OSX.3.9 with UTF-8 encoding).

Less interestingly, I know what I'm doing for the next 45 minutes and it's not reading for class.
posted by knile at 10:16 AM on September 30

Re: Me Lost Me Cookie in the Mosh Pit
Sesame street sure has gotten more edgy of late.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 10:21 AM on September 30

Re: Me Lost Me Cookie in the Mosh Pit
Sesame street sure has gotten more edgy of late.

You have no idea (preview: Cookie Mongoloid is Sesame Speed Metal)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:27 AM on September 30

Just freaking wonderful; thanks for this. But -- looks like Raposo did not compose Monster in the Mirror -- one of my fave Sesame Street songs. Celebrity version here. One great thing about having kids is getting to watch a lot of Sesame Street. I miss it... daughter all growed up now.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 10:33 AM on September 30

His first muppet movie was Hey Cinderella!, and he also worked on The Frog Prince, both of which are up on YouTube, in parts.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:43 AM on September 30

Not_On_Display is just trying to impress his lover, not that theres anything wrong with that.
posted by wheelieman at 10:48 AM on September 30

Hate.
posted by keli at 10:56 AM on September 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

I never met a Joe Raposo song I didn't like. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this wonderful post.
posted by briank at 10:57 AM on September 30

Hey, she had no idea who Joe Raposo was (in name at least), even after she fixed all my borked links when I posted this. (Damn word processor had added smartquotes to my tags instead of regular quotes; it was an easy fix.)
posted by not_on_display at 10:58 AM on September 30

I can't express how awesome this is, but to add a little to it.

I can't find the original album version by Gordon and Susan, but here's Julie Andrews and Perry Como sucking just a little of the soul out of "Picture a World." (dailymotion)
posted by evilcolonel at 11:12 AM on September 30

filthy light thief: One question: what characters were you using between The Electric Company songs? They come out like this.

hippybear: flithy light thief: in my browser, they render as a treble clef.

taumeson: in my IE 7, FF, and Chrome, they don't render. WTF?

alynnk: They don't render for me, either; I wonder if it is a Mac v. PC thing?

hippybear: Could be. I'm running OS X 10.5.8 and using Safari. I just checked Firefox and they render correctly there, too.

knile: Interestingly, I've got bass clefs (FF2.0 on OSX.3.9 with UTF-8 encoding).

To clear up this slight distraction, and simplifying in the hope of making it clear to all: Unicode is a standard set of codes for pretty much every character in any language known to humankind. As such, it's a ridiculously large set of characters, and some ranges of characters are not commonly represented. not_on_display has used good ol' 1D11F between the Electric Company links; you may find a picture (which all of you can probably look at, since it's in a pdf) on the current code chart right here.

Apparently, Apple machines tend to have the musical-notation range, whereas PCs do not.

If you want to clear this problem up: go to this handy Unicode test page for musical notation. Do you see musical symbols on the left, or just a bunch of boxes with numbers? If it's all boxes with numbers, that means that your browser is probably recognizing the unicode character code just fine, but then doesn't have any little picture to show you when it does; in other words, you don't have any (unicode-friendly) fonts installed which have the clefs.

So: go over here and click on "CODE2001.ZIP." Once you've downloaded the file, unzip it (or double-click on it and drag the files out to somewhere else) and install the font. If you're on Vista (like me) that means doing the following:

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Double-click 'Fonts.'
3. This will either bring up a wizard - in which case follow the instructions - or it will bring up a folder with all of your font files - in which case, drag the CODE2001.TTF file into the font folder, selecting 'OK' when asked if you really want to do that.
4. Reload the page, and presto - treble clef.

There are some other interesting music fonts over on Matthew Hindson's page. Oh, and I have no idea what the hell happened in knile's case; he must have a faulty font installed, as none of the past unicode standards had a bass clef in at 1D11F. [ 3.1, 5.1 ]

Now that that's taken care of: this an awesome post. It'll take me some time to go through - thanks!
posted by koeselitz at 11:18 AM on September 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

ARGH. Scratch the number - it's actually 1D11E, not 1D11F—1D11F is the little-used Ottava Alta (or 'French Violin') Clef, which happens to look exactly the same and yet is (counter-intuitively) just a little lower, although it's actually two octave higher (hence the name). Everything else I said is true, though - carry on!
posted by koeselitz at 11:32 AM on September 30

Sidebar this post, indeed. For its conceptual goodness and ambitiousness alone! Great!
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 11:45 AM on September 30

I feel compelled to remind everyone in this thread of the ever-classic Sesame Street Fever album, which Raposo also worked on.
posted by hippybear at 12:35 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Hey, I'm impressed!
posted by jessamyn at 1:55 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Lots of good stuff there, but you missed my all-time favorite! PUNCtuation! Punc-punc-punc-PUNCtuation!
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:35 PM on September 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Like Puff The Magic Dragon, I'm frolicking in the awesomeness.

Those are the words, right?
posted by Nick Verstayne at 4:02 PM on September 30

We sing the Batty Bat all the time in the ozzy household. One-two-three-count!
posted by uncleozzy at 9:17 AM on September 30

Dare I say...eponysterical?
posted by pxe2000 at 5:24 PM on September 30

Imagination: The Music of Joe Raposo is an absolutely marvelous CD of sharply modern interpretations of Raposo songs by Yoon Sun Choi and Jacob Sacks. Check the samples here; it's probably my favorite vocal album of the last 10 years. Great post, thanks.
posted by mediareport at 8:01 PM on September 30

Can I add one righteous, delighteous and plain outttasighteous number? Sure I can. It features Denise Nickerson, and it's called The Sweet, Sweet Sway, which by rights should've been one of the biggest hits of 1973.
posted by droplet at 10:47 PM on September 30

I really like the ones that Joe sings himself (example); they seem even more intimate.
posted by not_on_display at 4:39 PM on October 1