The 50 Best Sesame Street Moments

It’s one of the longest-running shows in television history, and one of the best-loved — so perhaps it’s not surprising that there are more than 20,000 Sesame Street videos on YouTube alone.

Babble combed through countless fan sites and video pages — not to mention our collective memories — to bring you the 50 most memorable moments in Sesame Street history. Watch them all here, then leave your own favourites in feedback.

#50 The Two-Headed Monster: Fall How do kids learn to read without the two-headed monster?

#49 Captain Vegetable “It is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrot and my celery…”

#48 Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? Ben Stiller is a person in your neighburhood.

#47 Bruce Stringbean Sings Born to Add "There’s a lot of us adders out here…"

#46 Here is Your Life with Guy Smiley: A Loaf of Bread “She was an adorable little recipe…”

#45 Martian Cutie A bizarre animated song in classic Sesame Street style.

#44 Savion Glover and Snuffy tap dance You wouldn’t guess that Snuffy could do this, would you?

#43 Friends After years of predominantly male Muppets, here’s some female bonding between Rosita, Zoe and Abby Cadabby.

#42 I Love My Hands Kermit’s ode to his favourite appendages.

#41 The Letter L Ernie and Bert, Sesame Street’s definitive odd couple, sing their very different takes on the letter L.

#40 Grover the Waiter Uses His Memory No matter where poor Mr. Johnson goes to eat — a burger joint, a Mexican place, even an airport restaurant — he ends up being served by Grover. In this episode, Grover makes up a poem to remember the order. Hilarity ensues.

#39 The Honkers Have a Baby And we discover that honking is a learned skill.

#38 Letter B As sung by The Beetles.

#37 I Got a New Way to Walk”> Featuring the Oinker Sisters in all their pink-haired, leather-clad, ’80s glory.

#36 Kermit’s W Lecture Kermit just wants to talk about the letter W. The letter W has other plans.

#35 Muppet News Flash: Old MacDonald Had a Spaceship “With a whoosh-whoosh herrre and a whoosh-whoosh therrre…”

#34 Roosevelt Franklin’s Days of the Week Roosevelt Franklin was dropped from the cast after the show received complaints that he was a negative African-American stereotype. (He was played by the actor who plays Gordon, and he was technically magenta.) But for the first five years, skits like this made him one of the most popular characters. He even released his own album.

#33 Things That I Remember A tearjerking love song about Bert and Ernie’s friendship, this was also Sesame Street songwriter Jeff Moss’s farewell to the show.

#32 Monsterpiece Theater: The Sound of Music There’s a rumour that vintage Monsterpiece Theater episodes were eliminated from the Sesame Street: Old School DVDs because they show Cookie Monster (as Allistaire Cookie) with an unlit tobacco pipe. This is a travesty, as it deprives a new generation of Chariots of Fur, The 39 Stairs, and this very funny take on The Sound of Music.

#31 Monsterpiece Theater: Twin Beaks Luckily, some of the best Monsterpiece Theater episodes are nicotine-free — like this awesome Twin Peaks satire.

#30 Put Down the Ducky Ernie gets some celebrity intervention for his ducky habit.

#29 Elmo and Robert De Niro try method acting “I can imagine I’m a New York City taxi driver, or an out-of-shape boxer. Or a cabbage.”

#28 The Count Gets The Mail In the ’70s, The Count was more creepy than cuddly. We think it suits him.

#27 Chrissy and the Alphabeats — "You’re Alive!" “Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in…”

#26 Would You Like to Buy an O? Featuring the shadiest Sesame Street resident of all: Lefty the Letter Salesman.

#25 Women Can Be Sesame Street’s contribution to the feminist movement.

#24 Johnny Cash and Oscar the Grouch This is a duo you don’t want to mess with.

#23 Teeny Little Superguy: School “You can’t tell a hero by his size…”

#22 Grover and John-John Count Backwards John-John was two years old when he started appearing on the show, and he quickly became a recurring character. (Wanna feel old? He’s now approaching 40.)

#21 I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon Why hasn’t every indie band covered this song?

#20 Ladybug Picnic “They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs, and fire insurance for ladybugs…”

#19 ABC-DEF-GHI Big Bird is learning to read, but there’s one word that stumps him: the alphabet.

#18 I Love Trash They just don’t make TV characters like Oscar anymore. Here’s his signature song.

#17 The Yip-Yip Martians Find a Telephone The Yip-Yip monsters proved that there are only two words you really need to know in the English language: Yip and Nope.

#16 The Yo-Yo Master and the Lost Kid A trippy psychedelic animation worthy of "Yellow Submarine." And is that Isaac Hayes’ voice?

#15 Super Grover and the Computer We’ve gotten worse advice from the Dell Support Team than “Jump up and down and say ‘wubba wubba.’”

#14 Sing, Sing a Song The definitive Sesame Street sing-along song.

#13 Ernie’s Bananaphone If you’re going to call an elephant, you need a banana.

#12 Subwaaaaaaay! A glorious ode to urban life.

#11 Snuffleupagus is Real! For more than ten years, Big Bird tried to convince the adults on Sesame Street that his “imaginary friend” was real, but Snuffy kept ducking out sight before they could see him. The recurring gag (parodied in this clip) got old, so in 1985, Snuffy met the whole cast — who then apologized to Big Bird. Sadly, that clip has been pulled from YouTube.

#10 My Name is You It’s “I’d Like to Teach the World To Sing” without the cheesy corporate overtones. And did you catch the part about having two dads? Sadly, that clip has also been pulled from YouTube.

#9 Mr. Hooper Isn’t Coming Back Possibly the most heartbreaking five minutes of television ever aired.

#8 Kermit and Joey sing the Alphabet Song Kids on Sesame Street always seemed like real kids, not over-coached child actors. Here’s the giggly little girl who can’t stop saying “Cookie Monster.”

#7 U Really Got a Hold on Me In which Smokey Robinson is sexually harassed by a letter U.

#6 Richard Pryor’s Alphabet No one’s ever done the ABCs with more attitude. He actually makes U and Z sound like dirty words.

#5 An Orange Sings Carmen Jim Henson had a genius for turning everyday objects into characters. Here’s Exhibit A.

#4 Bert and Ernie Go Fishing “Heeeeeere, fishy fishy fishy!”

#3 Pinball Number Count The vocals are by the Pointer Sisters, the animation is by Jeff Hale’s Imagination, Inc. — and you can sing it in your sleep. In fact, you probably do.

#2 C is for Cookie Forget “A Cookie is a Sometime Food.” Cookie starts with C, and that’s good enough for us.

#1 Rubber Ducky The song reached #16 on the Billboard charts in 1970, and has since been recorded in French, Spanish, Dutch, and German. (There’s a techno remix of the German version.) This is the inanimate-object love song heard ’round the world, and if you had to define Sesame Street with a single clip, this might well be the one.