fireballs & tsunami

Tina blogged about cookies and referenced a phenomenon known as disco Sesame Street, something unbeknownst to me until today, after I embarked on a mission to educate myself in the disco stylings of Cookie Monster and his friends. The results? Read on.

LOST ME COOKIE AT THE DISCO (listen HERE)

A funked-up Cookie Monster, backed by Shaft-esque vocals, laments losing his cookies at the disco, which I truly believe is a metaphor for contracting syphilis at Studio 54. Or maybe he was partying at Paradise Garage, because the late/great Larry Levan apparently re-mixed another Cookie tune (see below). I find Levan’s participation in disco-izing Sesame Street pretty incredible. Decide for yourself.

RUBBER DUCKIE (listen HERE)

As I said on Tina’s site, the most accurate way to describe this song is DISTURBING and … inexplicably EROTIC. Let’s take a look at the last 50 seconds of the song, featuring Ernie’s breathy plea to his toy:

[Splashing sound effects] “Ooh, that was wonderful, Rubbie Duckie! Ooh, go, Rubber Duckie, get down! Yes! Do it! Way to boogie! Oh, that’s it! Wonderful! Keep going, Rubber Duckie! YES! Into the suds! Now underwater! Get down! Way down! Don’t drown down there! Oh, it’s a bathtime boogie! Go, Rubber Duckie! MORE! Don’t get it on the floor, Rubber Duckie! [Upon completion] We got suds all over the floor!”

After Ernie, uh, finishes, he actually smokes a cigarette, still reclined in the bathtub. Where the hell was Bert while all of this was going on? Shudder.

COOKIE’S DISCO (listen HERE)

For a second, when this song first started playing, I thought I was listening to some rare alternative version of Madness’ “One Step Beyond.” Cookie Monster’s raspy intro vocals sound eerily similar to Madness’ raspy intro vocals (listen to Madness’ “One Step Beyond” HERE). I was almost waiting for the “Hey you! Don’t watch that – Watch this! This is the heavy heavy monster sound!” For god’s sake, the word “monster” is even mentioned in the Madness tune. WEIRD.

C IS FOR COOKIE (listen HERE)

Cookie Monster continues waxing discosophical on his obsession with cookies — Cookies is actually a pair of Siamese transvestite twins, of course. Listen to the extended version HERE. Roy Thode also remixed “C Is for Cookie,” and you can listen to that equally excellent track HERE.

Funny, the only Sesame Street song I really remember is that horrible “Me and My Llama” song. But now, thanks to Tina’s recommendation I can, fortunately, relive my childhood — growing up in the basement of Studio 54, strung out on Necco wafers and Kool-Aid — through these disco Sesame Street songs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.