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Is It Time For The Wicked Witch To Re-Visit Sesame Street? (1 Viewer)

Frank Soyke

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I've heard about this episode for years but I suspect that since it was removed from re-runs, we will never see it. I would love to see it. The closest I've been is seeing the same stock picture online that most of us have seen. Let's face facts here folks, the wicked witch may have terrified kids in the mid 70's, but I seriously doubt that in a society where 13 year olds regularly watch movies like Saw and play Call Of Duty, that they would be that afraid of a middle aged woman in green makeup and a witches outfit.
 

Ejanss

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Sure you're not thinking of the time Mister Rogers paid a 70's visit to "neighbor" Margaret Hamilton, to talk about how actors only play dressup?

(And then they had a cup of Maxwell House coffee...)
 

Ethan Riley

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http://badassdigest.com/2013/02/25/the-time-the-wicked-witch-of-the-west-was-too-scary-for-sesame-street/

Here's a page explaining the whole fiasco. Yeah, I just think the whole thing was blown out of proportion. 70s kids weren't as wimpy as they thought! I saw the Wizard of Oz for the first time...probably when I was 4. And yes, that woman scared the crap out of me, and I demanded to see it again and again, every year from then on. Grown-ups like going to horror movies; kids like to be scared too. That was the whole point. And Willy Wonka was scary--and we loved it. I even saw House of Dark Shadows in the theatre at age 4, and I went into the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland that same year. And they scared me. And I loved it. I think those focus groups or whoever heard some kids say that Maggie was "scary" and didn't understand that maybe those kids wanted to be scared.

The page I linked is good because it includes a youtube clip of Margaret Hamilton being interviewed on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. She explains a bit of her philosophy of the witch's character and they both very gently point out that the character was all make-believe and dress-up, like on Halloween. If any wimpy kids still didn't get the point, Fred Rogers helps her into her witch costume so the kids can see how it was done. In my opinion, they needn't have bothered. 70s kids weren't that dumb. She could have come in with the hat and green make-up and all, and turned Mr. Rogers into a toad, cackling all the while, and the kids would have screamed and it would have made for a better episode!
 

Frank Soyke

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Ejanss said:
Sure you're not thinking of the time Mister Rogers paid a 70's visit to "neighbor" Margaret Hamilton, to talk about how actors only play dressup?

(And then they had a cup of Maxwell House coffee...)
Oddly enough from from what I understand this Sesame Street episode was aired AFTER she appeared on Mr. Rogers and explained her costume to the kids. I don't want to get into an extended discussion of social values as per forum rules, but I mostly blame the parents then as I do the parents now. Historically many (not all) have wanted to sit kids in front of a TV by themselves and not watch with them and discuss the programming. Heck, my parents didn't care if I watched Sybil when I was 7. That was a large mistake, by the way
 

JoeDoakes

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Can't really blame the parents for leaving their children to watch Sesame Street unattended. For a lot of mothers, the hour of that show was probably a really good chance to get something done around the house. It would be nice to have oodles of time to do everything, but for families with small children there's rarely time to do anything. I can't imagine children as old as five getting that scared. Personally, I would love to see this come out. Both of my kids really like Gone With the Wind and to see Margaret Hamilton on Sesame Street would be a blast.
 

Frank Soyke

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JoeDoakes said:
Can't really blame the parents for leaving their children to watch Sesame Street unattended. For a lot of mothers, the hour of that show was probably a really good chance to get something done around the house. It would be nice to have oodles of time to do everything, but for families with small children there's rarely time to do anything. I can't imagine children as old as five getting that scared. Personally, I would love to see this come out. Both of my kids really like Gone With the Wind and to see Margaret Hamilton on Sesame Street would be a blast.
I have 3 kids and my wife and me monitor everything they watch despite have 2 jobs. If it's important, you make time. The way my parents did it was flat wrong. The only difference was in the early 70's, the worst a child left alone could see was the sex references on soaps or the shootings/car chases on shows like Mannix, etc. Today, if you leave a child to his own devices, they can easily catch How I Met Your Mother at 6 or 7 PM or a soft porn on Cable.Totally different time period today.
Not to be argumentative bur Margaret Hamilton was in OZ not Gone With The Wind.
 

JoeDoakes

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Frank Soyke said:
I have 3 kids and my wife and me monitor everything they watch despite have 2 jobs. If it's important, you make time. The way my parents did it was flat wrong. The only difference was in the early 70's, the worst a child left alone could see was the sex references on soaps or the shootings/car chases on shows like Mannix, etc. Today, if you leave a child to his own devices, they can easily catch How I Met Your Mother at 6 or 7 PM or a soft porn on Cable.Totally different time period today.
Not to be argumentative bur Margaret Hamilton was in OZ not Gone With The Wind.
You are obviously a super parent. I think that there's a big difference between letting a child watch Sybil unmonitored and watch Sesame Street.
 

Mark Y

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I watched Sesame Street as a kid, but I don't remember this at all. (But by 1976 I probably wasn't following it that much if at all -- it wasn't until years later that I learned Roosevelt Franklin had been taken off the show, for instance.) I had never heard of this until I read this thread, actually. But you know what might have helped, might have been if they ran the Sesame episode back to back with her appearance on Mr. Rogers.

You never know how a kid is going to react to something. I remember a short cartoon that scared the holy crap out of me when I was little. It was about the letter D (probably animated by Ken Snyder) and had some guy hanging from a dart, flying through the air while a jazz groove played, then it hit the bullseye of a target and blew up. He's covered in soot and croaks "dart..." I finally saw it again around 10 years ago when Noggin ran a bunch of old Sesame Streets. It was a huge kick to see all that stuff again.
 

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