Monsterpiece Theater

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Alistair Cookie presents
Alistair Cookie presents

Monsterpiece Theater is a recurring segment on the American version of the internationally acclaimed children's educational program Sesame Street. While using Muppet characters to act out educational principles, Monsterpiece Theater is also a parody of the similarly acclaimed PBS show Masterpiece Theatre.

Monsterpiece Theater is hosted by Alistair Cookie, who is Cookie Monster trying his best to look like Alistair Cooke. Similar segments, parodying fellow PBS anthology Mystery!, are hosted by "Vincent Twice Vincent Twice", a parody of Vincent Price.

Contents

[edit] Sketch Listings

Grover and Herry Monster have a race.
Inspired by: the film Chariots of Fire
  • "Cyranose DeBergerac"
A poet with a two-foot long nose tries to help the queen of France finish her poem. Unfortunately, the word used to finish it is the word he's the most sensitive to: "nose." One mention of that word and he goes medieval.
Inspired by: Cyrano de Bergerac
A pig dances with a wolf.
Inspired by: the Kevin Costner :film
  • "Ernie Cleans Up"
Bert & Ernie is Cleans up Before Lunch Time
A farmer and his daughters sing about "Addition," which involves putting one fiddler on the roof after another.
Inspired by: the Stein/Bock/Harnick musical
Herry Monster sings about how he likes to play with dolls, and Ruby sings about how she likes to play with trucks.
Inspired by: the Frank Loesser musical
Mel Gibson plays Hamlet, who keeps repeating "words, words, words" -- but Elmo can't read, so he only looks at "pictures, pictures, pictures".
Inspired by: the William Shakespeare tragedy
  • "Inside/Outside Story"
Maria is inside; Tony is outside. Will they ever meet face-to-face?
Inspired by: West Side Story
Blooper: In the intro, Alistair Cookie refers to the main characters as monsters, but they are actually Anything Muppets.
Grover plays a king who dances with the lowercase letter i.
Inspired by: the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
  • "Little House on Prairie"
Alistar Cookie displays an embarrassed Prairie Dawn with a little house on her head. Then he shows "Little House Under Prairie" and then "Little House IN Prairie". She runs into the studio, saying she can't do that. He proves her wrong by eating the little house!
Inspired by Little House on the Prairie
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Danger! Sign,
Suddenly! People take cover they fall on the Number 3 in the Sky!
Inspired by the Movie of the Richard Donner Flim.
  • "Me, Claudius"
Several monsters fight over which one is Claudius.
Inspired by: I, Claudius (with a title originating in the catchphrase I'm Spartacus.
(Includes an appearance by the monster who would later become Elmo)
A small monster is supposed to be in a box, but instead he's on a box, and then under a box.
Inspired by the Spaulding Gray monologue
Waiter Grover laments to Fat Blue that the restaurant doesn't have anything he orders.
Inspired by: the Shakespeare comedy
  • "Monsters of Venice"
Grover Want to Tell you The Other Monsters In the party.
Inspired by The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare Film.
  • "Monsters With Dirty Faces"
Police Grover first taks of the day is to get a group of monsters to wash their faces,
but they only do what their tough leader Rocky does.
Inspired by: the Movie, Angels with Dirty Faces.
  • "The Old Man and the C"
Grover is playing an old man on a row boat, which is on a giant letter C.
Inspired by:The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The wrong numbers keep flying over the wrong things.
Inspired by: the Ken Kesey novel
  • "Room at The Top"
Inspired by the 1959 film
  • "The Horse Whisperer"

Various animals whisper their own nosie before a horse comes to whisper "niegh"

Inspried by the 1998 movie
Grover is waiting for the postman to deliver his important letter but, while waiting, many other people come to his house.
Inspired by: the film noir thriller
Grover is sitting on a hill, which moves to the sound of music.
Inspired by: the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
  • "The 400 Blows"
Grover has to blow out the Candles on his
Birthday Cake 400 times, and the grover they his Fall Down
Inspired by Francois Truffaut's Film.
The only one who can make the sun rise is Merry Monster - who won't stop crowing.
Inspired by: the Ernest Hemingway book
  • "The Taming of The Shoe"
Grover is accompanied by a talking shoe.
Inspired by: The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
After going through a situation similar to "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", Alistair Cookie announces he's out of time and is confronted by 12 Angry Men.
Inspired by: the film
  • "39 Stairs"
Grover climbs 39 stairs to see what is at the top, and ends up being disappointed with the results.
Inspired by: the Alfred Hitchcock film, The 39 Steps
  • "Twin Beaks"
Cookie Monster gets to star in this tale, in which he is a detective in a town where everybody has two beaks.
Inspired by: the 1990s television series Twin Peaks
Grover runs up and down a flight of stairs (look for a picture of Dr. Teeth on the wall).
Inspired by: the British television series
  • "Waiting For Elmo"
Inspired by: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

"Gone with the wind"

  • Kermit the frog and his "wife" in their home are caught in Hurricane force winds

they try to hold on to the banister supports while many supports kermit tries to think of ideas to get out of the wind, then his wife suggests subtracting kemit follows and is blown away, then his wife says "one of us,take away one of us is (wife gets blown away) ZEROOO!!!!!!" then Alistair Cookie expiriences the windInspired by: the novel by Mararget Mitchell

[edit] Trivia

  • A few of Sesame Street CD-ROM games, "The Three Grouchkateers" and "Elmo Through the Looking Glass", featured a Monsterpiece Theater intro

[edit] See also

Monsterpiece Theater

[edit] External links

"Category:Sesame Street

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