Sesame Street Pinball Number Count [video] | Hacker News Reader

Sesame Street Pinball Number Count [video]

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103 pointscameron_b69 comments

A related video I saw recently: https://youtu.be/TMtGImlEmu0?si=hXBBVi19WZBg_KYI

> This song teaches counting but is INSANELY hard to count

It goes into the theory of how the song works; to me as a layperson it was fairly educational.

This guy has so much (too much?) youtube energy. It's exhausting. Do people act like this in person, or is it solely their youtube persona? what makes this silent movie over acting level of over the top something that is such a thing on youtube?

> (too much?)

Yes. Coming across whilst browsing, or being recommended, anyone that talks 'like this' (overacted, yes, overreacting too), plus is edited so frenetically, is a turn off. The talk is deliberately longer than it needs to be. Feels like being doorstepped.

There's an adage in producing video or being on TV that you need to act 2x "more" than your usual self to appear mildly engaging due to the limits of the medium. Some people go a bit further than that, but the idea of being far more intense and full-on than you would ever be in real life is pretty standard in modern video production. Makeup, lighting, and other factors will often be dialled up too.

I've seen plenty of shy, geeky folks who've become YouTube famous talk about the necessity to do this as they progressed. You can see it for yourself, too, if you find a successful channel and go back to the oldest videos. The energy and style of talking will ramp up over time. Quite few folks will talk, act, and look entirely as they might naturally.

This is actually not the case in credible acting class. No acting teacher will tell you to act like a buffoon for the sake of being engaging unless you're trying to be a children's programming buffoon. Even then, if you look at what's popular for longer than a hot minute in children's programming, the people don't act like that. The people on TV that act like that are usually trying to sell you something. People believing "over the top == good" probably grew up liking JarJar Binks.

This is more an idea around presenting than acting, but I wasn't talking about being a buffoon, as such, but using more energy to overcome the limitations of the medium and to, ironically, appear more "normal" on screen.

If you watch a lot of popular YouTubers' early vs later videos, you can see it in effect. It's common to see radical developments in elocution, projection, and energy from their natural state, and it's nearly always for the better.

If you think this doesn't make them look like a buffoon, then you are much more generous than I.

"always for the better" that's definitely a matter of opinion, and I'm not buying it. it's just another in the long list of reasons why i don't spend a lot of time watching these types of "creators"

I don't think that it's the energy of the acting that's jarring. I think it's the frequency of the cuts. This could be to cover up mistakes in diction (you only need to remember less than a few seconds of your lines at a time!) or just to hold the viewers attention with unnatural movements.

One example of what you describe is GreatScott, a videomaker covering DIY electronics. He has definitely developed a more intense style, but he still gets through a paragraph of his lines without a cut. He doesn't need to turn his image upside-down to be engaging.

It's definitely also the barely contained squeals of glee whenever anything interesting happens in the song.

It's a youtube persona. One of the most effective ways to increase your chances of success in modern media is to be loud and emotive. It's way past trend phase and is now endemic on all platforms among content creators who hope to have any younger viewers.

My concern is that people will actually start acting this way in person every day. I've known a few people that are larger than life over the top whenever they do anything, but they luckily have been rare. These type of people would definitely make me refuse to RTO if my coworkers were like this.

Wait until you hear about Blippi...

George Lucas (half a century ago): “Faster, more intense!”

For the record. I get like this when I'm really geeking out over something. I also know that I can be exhausting to listen to when I'm like this, and try to tone it down depending on my audience. Though, if I was a youtube personality I would probably try to lean into it slightly.

It's a YouTube thing. I think it started with videos for young children, then those kids grew up and wanted adult content with the same kind of energy

Warning: I saw this video three days ago and I had this damn song playing in my head even before I saw this link today. It'll never leave.

(It's a great song, at least...)

That song has been living rent-free in my head since 1977.

Thats the Pointer Sisters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Number_Count on vocals there.

> The song employs complex rhythms, changing time signatures frequently between 4/4, 3/4 and 5/4 during the opening and closing segments, around a rhythmically straightforward 4/4 middle improvisation section.

I was trying to count the beats, and it wasn't going well. That explains why.

HOLY CRAP

For practically my whole life I've had this recurring memory of a 1-12 song with this exact rhythm and couldn't remember where it was from. The older I got, the more I wondered if it was manufactured purely by my imagination. I'm pretty sure this is it. Even though it was made before my time, it must have either been re-run in the 90s or some teacher might have played it off a VHS tape.

Also, gotta love how the video is 12 minutes and 12 seconds long. :)

It ran until the early 2000s

Hah, I had the same experience as you a while back when my oldest was 4 or so. This rhythm and melody was like a staple of my internal, relentless sound/music generation I tend to do, but I could never remember where I got it from. Then one day this comes on and oh my god, it all came pouring back. So cool. And somehow my recollection of the tune was almost perfect; it’s insane how well we can recall music and in such detail. It must have stuck with me largely unchanged for almost 30 years.

I have a similar story. All my life the letters of the alphabet each had a color associated with it. D is green and K is blue, etc.

One day for no particular reason I decided to pay attention to which color each letter evoked in me. And to my great surprise, it was a simple-ass repeating pattern! Up until this point, I had never actually noticed it. And when I did notice it, it sparked a new mystery for me.

I knew right away that this pattern meant my color associations must have come from some toy blocks or a set of magnetic refrigerator letters. But every single time I saw these toy blocks, or magnets, they never matched the colors in my head!

Finally, about five years ago, a friend of mine out of the blue sent me this link:

https://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2013/01/fisher-price-synest...

The colors in that link were the same as the ones in my head, and now I knew where I formed those associations. As a toddler playing with magnets on my fridge, that must have been this particular set.

The color association is still there today, and as strong as it ever was. And it kind of helps me recall peoples’ names when I can’t think of them right away. I’ll say goofy shit like, “oh, what was his name? David? Daniel? …It’s some green name.”

Venetian Snares did a breakcore remix of this song around 20 years ago, released on the Infolepsy EP in 2004: https://youtu.be/AqN53CBb9to?si=wzHFA06T6N-6fxiV

Somewhat related, but their "Geometry of Circles" was written by Philip Glass:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWwOzEDGss

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9467zZV0Lc

* https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Geometry_of_Circles

That's amazing and I'm now wondering if it influenced the demoscene. In fact I'm specifically thinking of "Intrinsic Gravity" by Still, which has fairly similar concepts going on, especially at the end. It's also one of the best executable demos I've ever seen.

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=64756

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxPhDC-r3w

Link links to a better version at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC7l3V1nhWc&t=0s

Consider updating the link.

Much better. Especially the aspect ratio.

I'm actually surprised that someone paid to have the SD source clean up and uprezed to HD. Must have been a pretty clean SD source, maybe some 1" that was only used a couple of times and definitely not someone's broadcast tape.

I'm just guessing but it seems highly likely that the original production was recorded to film and not to tape. Given access to the original film would make it easy to transfer at a higher quality than the original broadcast.

This is a staple of my childhood since I'm a GenXer.

My kids never saw a second of Sesame Street, unfortunately. We didn't watch TV, only streaming, and the other options like Daniel Tiger were much easier to get access to and relatable. It's sad that I don't have that shared experience with them but I guess that's just how life is!

...And the new Sesame Street isn't the same. Older Sesame Street isn't available in the same episode format in high quality. The DVDs containing older Sesame Street have various clips.

Yeah the new stuff is awful. I made a joke to my wife that Sesame Street got gentrified.

The biggest difference I've noticed is that the newer episodes are targeted to a younger demographic, which makes it seem very dumbed-down compared to the old stuff, but it means younger kids can keep up and learn from it. My 3yo learns a ton from the recent episodes, whereas the older sesame streets are just a little too complex for her to follow. I'll try the older ones on her once she ages out of the recent ones.

Hi Bonnie, so sorry to be randomly commenting on this post, but I can't comment on one you posted in 2019 that I'm interested in (about BBS). I'm a journalist researching the topic. My email is in my bio. Thanks!

If you like this, you might also enjoy this extremely psychedelic video that is practically a homage to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCOvylhxks (Leafcutter John - Yes Come Parade With Us)

I never realized the extent to which The Children's Television Workshop must have been fueled by psychedelics.

But now Big Bird is making a whole lot more sense.

I absolutely adored the psychedelic stylings of the pinball number count as a kid and still do. The kids tv stuff from that era even in conservative Ireland was well weird and funky. Check out the into to this mainstay of children’s tv I grew up with:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKsyebZUrA

Tell me they weren’t dropping acid when they came up with that!

And Big Bird's imaginary friend was always high a kite. "Heeeeyyyy Biiirrrrrrrd". At least they didn't make him a pink elephant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcZUPDMXzJ8 Dumbo's dream is from 1941, so it must have been ahead of its time!

This style reminds me of the opening animation of Soul Train https://youtu.be/y3FNXkeXhOc and a bit of the Beatles animated movie.

Does that style of animation have a name?

I believe this look traces back to the work of Push Pin Studios[1], an influential graphic design studio founded in the mid-sixties. It is hard to underestimate how much this style dominated the time; as a kid in the seventies these psychedelic stylized chrome reflections were everywhere.

I mostly think of it by association with artists who were well-known for it, such as the Pushpin guys, or Peter Max.

Worth looking at: the catalog from this exhibition of some of Push Pin's work. [2]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_Pin_Studios

2: https://posterhouse.org/exhibition/the-push-pin-legacy/ - hit the 'download' button on the right sidebar for a whole bunch of psychedelic imagery.

Maybe. I never got the impression Jim Henson needed psychedelics though. It was certainly in the zeitgeist of the time if you were counter culture which I think sesame street was certainly trying to be at the time.

All children’s programming from that era. HR Puffinstuff and New Zoo Revue come to mind.

All I needed was the title, and could immediately hear the tune in my head. This is one of those videos that I turn to as evidence on how we were being groomed to be trippy little stoner kids. Oh, and all of the Sid&Marty Krofft shows too.

Always liked Pentatonix rendition on Sesame Street

https://youtu.be/0b-v-wMR69k

I loved the ramps and movement of this video as a kid... and the mysterious and abrupt holes that apparently send the ball to one of many levels of this strange contraption/world.

I got the same feelings with Commander Mark and The Secret City, the PBS drawing show: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_City (also on YouTube, though the video quality is disappointing)

Sesame Street premiered when I was eleven years old, so I didn't ever watch any episodes. Me and my buds were outside kids and didn't have much time for TV. My children, however, loved it and I did too whenever I could watch it with them.

My grown children now all use streaming services, so their kids hardly ever see Sesame Street. How times change.

Something about that rolling marble is so satisfying. Haven't seen or even thought about this animation in decades, and yet it's completely familiar. It's amazing to think about memories just lying dormant in the brain for so long, consciously inaccessible without the proper stimulation. What other random stuff is hidden up there?

It's this and the tiny little super guy that occupy the same corner of my childhood memories.

Wut? The length of the video is 12:12.

There are 11 of them all strung together 2-12 each got their own segment with a different solo section.

This song is literally my oldest memory. I was ~1 year old, maybe a bit younger.

I had no idea this track was sung by the pointer sisters. Wild.

Why was TV so great in the 70s? What happened?

The drugs of choice changed in the 80s. In the 60s/70s, it was lots of weed and psychedelics. In the 80s, it switched to cocaine, then crack in the 90s. And as we all all know, crack is whack!

Deregulation had a lot to do with it.

Republicans. They defunded PBS.

Why should I go watch this on YouTube? What is the angle that’s interesting?

Since you're not going to watch it, I'll tell you it's about the 12 seconds left on the timer before the bomb goes off, but the Bert & Ernie buddy cop team comes in and disarms the bomb at 1 second, and the older buddy cop says "I'm too old for this" and something about only having two weeks left before his pension.

If you grew up in the 70's or 80's it is nostalgia porn.

Yes but it makes me mad that Sesame Street is a shadow of what it used to be, and (HBO) Max doesn’t have the old ones to show to my kids.

Sesame Street changed in the early 2000’s . They started to invest in digital animation, the issue I had with it was too much energy was put into the production of the medium and not enough into the quality of the content . The last years of pbs before it went to hbo were odd , but my kids aged out of it then too . But good memories none the less .

Torrent.

To phrase my question another way: why is this on-topic?

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

The link shared by notamy is part of it, the musicality is phenomenally technical, but also the collaboration and creativity in the production ( the top-of-their-craft musicians and animations ).

Math

As a musician who also works in tech, it’s a little like a post mortem of a particularly novel and elegant architectural response to a challenging use case, a bit like Carmack’s Reverse. Our expectation is that a song in 12 will sound disjoint and clunky, this one is catchy and funky. Masterful!

I asked pretty much the same kind of question in response to another post, and it was recognized as being very valuable.

This one was perceived differently. Based on the unusually high number of downvotes, I have some explanations that may explain them: some people have little awareness / appreciation for (some combination of):

- the importance of signal to noise ratio on HN

- YouTube, for many, is an unwelcome rabbit hole —- and so a lot of people don’t want to go there without good reason

- the value of asking “what do you get out of this” questions

I am genuinely curious about other people’s brains work. I’m also acutely interested in building better awareness and even mechanisms for collaborating and discussing.

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