Next Time Won't You Sing With Me?
June 5, 2008 6:46 AM   Subscribe

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
posted by Del Far (37 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
A collection of Sesame Street clips featuring celebrities singing the Alphabet song. Most, if not all, of the clip letters correspond to the first or last initial of the celebrity.
posted by cavalier at 6:50 AM on June 5, 2008 [9 favorites]


Ah, and PeeWee's playhouse and JibJab (hosting a Three Stooges clip? WTF, when did JibJab become a YouTube?)
posted by cavalier at 6:52 AM on June 5, 2008


Several of the clips are not from Sesame Street.
West Xylaphone's GDP is now 16,000 times that of Zimbabwe.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:52 AM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


If you have kids, I can highly recommend the TMBG "Here Come the ABCs" and "Here Come the 123s". In fact, forget the kids.

TRIOPS HAS 3 EYES
posted by DU at 6:58 AM on June 5, 2008


(Also, I've found most of these clips while trying to appease the voracious demand my toddlers have for YouTube videos. And yet they won't watch the Sesame Street Old Skool DVDs we bought. WTF TODDLERS)
posted by DU at 7:00 AM on June 5, 2008 [3 favorites]


[double-take] That's one country I'd never heard of before.

Truly a magical place, West Xylophone.

The Three Stooges clip (on "T") was cool.
posted by WalterMitty at 7:05 AM on June 5, 2008


You forgot the link for "I".
posted by Meatbomb at 7:07 AM on June 5, 2008


cavalier
I don't know when it became a youtube clone, all I know is that the three stooges were on it.

DU
I loved here come the ABC's, it was a great idea for them to do, and it honestly is the perfect move in the market, I actually saw them the first time when they were going around promoting it.

Geez... toddlers, ungrateful bastards. :-p
posted by Del Far at 7:09 AM on June 5, 2008


This gratification, it's not instant.
posted by Pecinpah at 7:11 AM on June 5, 2008


Meatbomb
Yeah, I tried to find as much as possible but I definetly could not find it all, I really wanted to find the alphabet rap from Quantum leap featured in the episode "shock theater" but I could not find it at all. :-(
posted by Del Far at 7:11 AM on June 5, 2008


That Three Stooges clip is astonishing. I've watched back to back three times now and have *nearly* worked it out. Is that in any way a common song in the US (Or anywhere?)
posted by Jofus at 7:14 AM on June 5, 2008


Related.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:15 AM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


Actually, though, my girl toddler's (more of a preschooler now, actually) favorite TMBG song isn't even an ABC or 123. It's The Mesopotamians. She goes around saying "sahgawn hamurabee ashu....gilbametch!"

And speaking of TMBG educational videos, does anyone know what this Schoolhouse Rockesque video is about? Do they have an older kids thing coming out or what?
posted by DU at 7:16 AM on June 5, 2008


I really wanted to find the alphabet rap from Quantum leap featured in the episode "shock theater" but I could not find it at all. :-(

Sadly, I've found a torrent that purports to contain it.

...which is how i found this disturbing artifact.

And no matter how hard i scrub, the dirt won't come off.
posted by Jofus at 7:19 AM on June 5, 2008


DU
They did that for a museum I think and it was featured on the venue songs dvd afterward.
posted by Del Far at 7:22 AM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]




I think The Three Stooges are singing a song that links every consonant to every vowel, not including every possible vowel sound but doubling them for I:

B, A, Bay, B, E, Bee, B, I, BIcky BĪ, B, O, BŌ, (Repeat Bicky BĪ BŌ so it sounds fun), B, U, BŪ, (Repeat Bicky BĪ BŌ BŪ).

Next consonant!

This could be incredibly obvious to everyone else. But I just woke up.
posted by Esoquo at 7:39 AM on June 5, 2008 [2 favorites]


Jofus: Regarding the Three Stooge's Alphabet Song, I've heard the song a few times before (I think it's on The Forbidden Zone) but my guess is that they're all referring to this instance of the song.

Pretty amazing if you ask me - I never really examined them but this makes me wonder what else in their oeuvre I'm missing...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:41 AM on June 5, 2008


Good analysis, Esoquo. Obvious - in hindsight. But then this is early in the day for me too....
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:55 AM on June 5, 2008


When is youtube going to get permalinks?

If you want to be all googly about it, you'd do it something like this.

1. The URL for videos will be http://www.youtube.com/watch?l=grover_learns_the_meaning_of_pie

2. There will be a server that responds to all "l" requests in the query string by sending that portion of the string (in this case, "grover_learns_the_meaning_of_pie") to a cluster of computers that will, in turn, serve the string of alphanumerics (eBGIQ7ZuuiU) to the servers currently running at youtube.

3. It's googly, so it has to be full of hashes and whatnot. I'd propose two tiers of servers, one called a "new layer" for videos that have just been uploaded to the system which has equipment that performs well in a state of constant updating and reading. A hard drive will suffice for this tier. The other layer, "the archival layer", will be optimized for fast memory reads, something like a solid state hard drive.

4. The system, upon receiving a query from a user, will look for the proper string of alphanumerics first in the archival tier, and then it will look in the new tier.

5. At some point in the day, data will be migrated from the new layer to the archival layer. The new layer will store its information within a multi drive system, and it will take that drive offline so it can copy the data without worrying about receiving updates. The archival layer will do the same -- offer up one of its drives for the update. The data will be collated, and the archival layer will have its data updated with the newly uploaded information.

6. Here's the tricky part. The other drives in the archival layer have to know about this new data. What you'd do there is take two of the drives out of the system at once, copy over the new data from the drive that has the data already, and then put them back online. There will be a controlling system that knows when drives have been updated. From this, the first layer knows that if they send over the new links to the videos, that the data will be propagated to the archival layer. The other side has to purge the data that it sends over, but this will be done be sending messages during set times to the entire system to a master "delete link server". Once this server receives "link not found" message from all servers, it can delete this from its delete queue.

7. Here's the really tricky part -- storing the data. The best I can come up with is a hash type system on the entire permalink string. A simple hash example would be an additive / modulus hash, but the real hash would be more complicated. for example, if there were only 10 spots of memory to place a link in memory, "grover" (g=7, r=18, o=15, v=22, e=5, r=18; 7+18+15+22+5+18 = 85; 85 mod 10 is 5, so put it in the 5 spot). The result of the algorithm would be the location in memory where the real alphanumeric link is stored (eBGIQ7ZuuiU). I assume that that number is some sort of routing number to the video itself. If they have enough resources to store the information they have now, they have enough resources to store the data for this hashing method.

7.5 You could also do some sort of Huffman-eque tree based memory management system, which is what initially gave me the idea for a fast read archival tier. The first "g" tells you to go to a certain spot in memory which will contain either the alphanumeric characters for the link or another opportunity for a jump to another location. In our grover example, it would jump to where "r" tells it to go. It would eventually find the hit once the permalink's letters have ran out or the tree runs out of branches. On a mature system with a social context like youtube, I'd probably go with the hashing method, if only for the fact that there will be a lot of videos with permalinks of 'baby' and 'britney'.

8. There's going to be a lot of videos named "my laughing baby", so we should ensure that the username is placed on this link if a conflict arises.
posted by sleslie at 7:56 AM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


roll truck roll: Correct!
posted by Jofus at 8:18 AM on June 5, 2008


crank mode on:
is anyone else tired of cryptic FPP?
:crank mode off
posted by evilgenius at 8:19 AM on June 5, 2008 [3 favorites]


Is that in any way a common song in the US (Or anywhere?)

I've never heard it before, but my kid's kindergarten used to sing a song with a similar idea. You sing a verse and then repeat it with the vowel sounds replaced by the next vowel. Like:

I love apples and bananas
I love ooples and boonoonoos
I love eeples and beeneenees

etc
posted by DU at 8:26 AM on June 5, 2008


I like the Beetles on Sesame Street.
posted by hexatron at 8:28 AM on June 5, 2008


Why doesn't youtube have an RSS feed feature?

Love alphabet songs, but the Barenaked Ladies alphabet song is the best, from Snacktime:

A is for aisle
B is for bdelliums
C is for czar
And if you see him, would you mind telling him-

D is for djinn
E for Euphrates
F is for fohn, but not like when I call the ladies

G for Gnarly,
H is for hour
I for irk
J for jalapeños
Good in either corn or flour (tortillas…)
Nice rhyme
K is for knick-knack
L is for llama

N for neumonic
M is for mdomo
O is for ouija board
P for pneumonia pterodactyl and psychosis
Q is for qat

R is for R-gyle
No, it isn’t

Okay, you’re right; I couldn’t find a good “r” word

S is for Saar, a lovely German river
T for tsunami, a wave that makes me quiver
U is for urn, but not like earning money
V for vraisemblance from French,
And therefore kind of funny
W for wren, wrinkly, and who.
X is for Xian, an ancient Chinese city, true!

Y is for yperite, a very nasty gas.
And zed’s the final letter
And by final, I mean last.

Okay, when you say zed,
For the benefit of our American friends
You really mean Z, right?
No I mean Zed, like, like Zed Zed Top.
Zed Zed Top?
Yeah, you know the guys with the big long beards
Well, except the guy whose name is Beard,
he has a mustache
I always thought that was interesting...
posted by misha at 8:35 AM on June 5, 2008 [2 favorites]


Apparently when I was one year old I knew the alphabet. So, my grandmother (I was told later) would go around to her grandmother friends and say "My grandson knows the alphabet" and the other grandmothers would say "Well my grandson or daughter knows the alphabet too" which apparently would piss my grandmother off and she would say "No, your grandson or daughter probably just knows the song. My grandson actually knows the alphabet." Then the other grandmother would often be insistent, saying "No my grandson or daughter really knows the alphabet." That apparently was a mistake. I am told that my grandmother would then just get fucking crazy and say "No they probably just know the song! That isn't the same thing! Show them an 'R' and see if they know what letter it is. You just show them an 'R'! SHOW THEM AN 'R'!" It was always 'R' that she insisted on her other grandmother friends showing their grandchildren. I don't know why. But you tell those old bitches Gramma! I still know it to this day!
posted by ND¢ at 8:40 AM on June 5, 2008 [8 favorites]


Huh. I think I only know the song.
posted by roll truck roll at 9:11 AM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


1. The URL for videos will be http://www.youtube.com/watch?l=grover_learns_the_meaning_of_pie

Oh God, please don't let them do that. That would kill every joke-made-by-pointing-to-youtube ever. Especially the Rick Roll.
posted by fungible at 9:57 AM on June 5, 2008


What rhymes with "Buy"?
posted by patricio at 10:28 AM on June 5, 2008


Meatbomb, that's an S in that video. They're singing I but polishing an S. I can't handle the cognitive dissonance.

Also, Patrick Stewart is my hero.
posted by Caduceus at 11:11 AM on June 5, 2008


Here's how they roll the ABCs on Playhouse Disney. My kid loves this.
posted by Crotalus at 11:14 AM on June 5, 2008


One of the lesser known Sesame Street alphabet songs deserves a nod here.
posted by darksasami at 11:47 AM on June 5, 2008 [2 favorites]


Hey, Choo Choo Soul!

Turns out one of the guys behind that is Greg Johnson, designer of Starflight and ToeJam & Earl.
posted by JHarris at 12:13 PM on June 5, 2008


Caduceus: that was freaking me out as well, so I have solved the problem over here.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:23 PM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


Why doesn't youtube have an RSS feed feature?

It does.

http://www.youtube.com/rssls

Although you don't say specifically what you want to subscribe to, currently it supports tags and users and a few special feeds.
posted by wildcrdj at 1:58 PM on June 5, 2008




This seems as good a time as any to post Norah Jones singing Don't Know Why. Except, see, she's not just singing about any man in this clip. She's singing about her friend Y, the letter, who never showed up when he was supposed to. Ahh, you'll figure it out.
(It's a pretty good vocal performance, too.)
posted by roombythelake at 6:38 PM on June 5, 2008 [1 favorite]


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