The Good

A whole new generation of kids will now be able to discover this show for themselves.

The Bad

I hate to say it but I think I've outgrown this show.

Sesame Street: Old School, Vol. 1 - 1969-1974 will bring you back to the time that Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and other puppets were your best friends. Filled with songs, life lessons, and other pieces of education, I think it can safely be said that Sesame Street took a "learning is fun" approach to any and all subject matter. While I don't think that a 33 year old man is the target audience for everything that this show is trying to get across, I can vaguely remember a time in my life when I would watch nothing else. Growing up on the East Coast (well for the first four years of my life), I always sort of pushed this show off into another set of memories when I came to California with my folks. Watching Sesame Street: Old School, Vol. 1 - 1969-1974 sort of brought that all back, even if I can't recall watching this show that much when I was younger.

All in all, these characters still hold up today just as well as they did back then.

Features

1969 Sales Pitch

This segment is a very old piece that was used to get this show made. It presented the characters from the show, and it explained very matter-of-factly what the subject matter was going to be. Aside from looking like this portion of the DVD was going to fall apart at any moment, I found this to be invaluable. As someone who is working in animation, creating a TV show of original characters based on my movie 1985-1986, I really enjoyed screening this. Truthfully, I thought it was a bit too long, but that be my younger mentality coming to the fore.

45 Bonus Segments

Calling this a lot of content would be an understatement. This 3 disc set is packed with such segments as "Bein' Green," "Rubber Duckie," "I Am Somebody" (With Jesse Jackson), and "Jazz Alphabet" among others. I was truly blown away by the wealth of material that all of these discs contain. I could see kids watching these all day and never realizing that they are learning something at the same time. The quality on these was pretty good, but I get the feeling that the creators of this collection never realized there would be demand for these shows beyond television.

Video

Full Screen - I hate to say this but the look of these shows was pretty bad. I know that they are old, and that the audience for this show is probably not going to care, but these episodes and segments seem like they were culled from a VHS tape and then dumped to DVD. I kept waiting for these things to start looking better but that never happened. Now, I could totally rip these things apart but I won't because I don't think I am this sets audience. Very young children will watch these and be none the wiser.

Audio

It doesn't say what kind of audio has been employed on these shows. However, as I have mentioned in other reviews, this being a Sony release I don't really have too many negative things to say about the audio. The best way I can put this is that you can't polish a turd. These things sound fine, but like I mentioned above, I don't think that great care has been taken to make sure that all of the audio and visual assets have been properly preserved.

Package

Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster and others in the gang are all present and accounted for on the front cover of this slipcase. The back just features one shot of Bert and Ernie, a description of what Sesame Street: Old School, Vol. 1 - 1969-1974 contains, a Special Features listing, and very minimal technical specs. All three discs are stored in one piece of artwork which has more artwork from the show laid out all around it. There is also an information laden 16 page booklet that lists out what is on each disc, it provides interviews with some of the characters, and even offers up more educational information for parents to go through with their children. Sony has kept things economical with this packed release.

Final Word

I can't explain it but for some reason I can relate to Fraggle Rock and other Muppet creations a lot easier than Sesame Street. It isn't that I think this show is lacking, I guess it's just that my point of reference and experience with this show just isn't as strong as it with the others. Also, I think I outgrew Sesame Street pretty quickly, while I used to watch Muppet Themed programming endlessly. In fact, it doesn't seem so long ago that a show like Fraggle Rock was a part of my regular TV lineup.

I would say if you have children under the age of 5, you will surely want to pick up Sesame Street: Old School, Vol. 1 - 1969-1974. It is packed with content that children will learn from, even if they don't realize the knowledge gleaning process is taking place.

Sesame Street was released .