Sesame Street isn’t the only pop culture phenomenon celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. (Okay, everything that happened in 1969 is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, but I promise you, this is still a big deal.)
Abbey Road, The Beatles’ iconic album with equally iconic album art, was officially released in the UK on September 26th, 1969. And as with anything important or of interest or that makes a mark on history, the litmus test of relevance is in the Muppet connections.
Abbey Road is among the most recognizable – and therefore most parodied – album covers. It’s not surprising that the Muppets have trodden across that famous London street many, many times. The most famous, seen at the top of this article, is the brilliant cover of Sesame Road, the Sesame Street album that features the Beatles spoofs “Letter B” and “Hey Food”.
Seriously, the fact that Sesame Road exists at all is just the greatest. It’s a wonderful album, and the artwork is nearly as memorable as the Beatles version. Even if you’re not familiar with the original, Sesame Road simply pops – inside and out.
But that’s not the only time we’ve seen Sesame Street characters cross that familiar zebra-striped crosswalk! Take a look at some of these, found on official Sesame Street merchandise:
Not satisfied with just t-shirt art, the real Elmo went to the real Abbey Road to take a real walk across the street, as evidenced below:
Naturally, Sesame Street isn’t the only Henson franchise that got into the Abbey Road phenomenon. The Muppets did as well for a couple t-shirt designs of their own (to… varying levels of quality):
Yikes, that last one. They’re not even walking!
Anyway. The Sinclair family from Dinosaurs were probably the first to walk across Abbey Road, since they did it on a promotional poster for their album Big Songs a few billion years before The Beatles.
We’re not done yet! There’s plenty of unofficial artwork that fans have created with Muppets, Abbey Road, and walking in formation. Check out some of these favorites:
(artist unknown)
by Amy Mebberson
(artist unknown)
by Cameron Garrity
All this talk about the outside of the Abbey Road album, and we’ve hardly talked about what’s inside! Abbey Road is full of some iconic Beatles songs (but aren’t they all??), and as we’ve previously stated (many, many times), it’s not iconic unless the Muppets have gotten involved.
In 1970, Jim Henson decided to cover Abbey Road’s lead song, “Come Together”, on The Ed Sullivan Show. While we’ve never seen this particular sketch, the Jim’s Red Book blog gave us some more detail on what we could’ve expected:
…Jim used another track from Abbey Road on The Ed Sullivan Show – “Come Together”. This, too, was a song with a sense of humor, and Jim was clearly tickled by the original words and visual possibilities. Jim’s passion for inventive language (seen in his appreciation for Lewis Carroll’s writing) made him recognize the potential for making John Lennon’s seemingly nonsensical words come to life. Not looking for a deeper meaning, Jim drew up his ideas for what the main guy, dubbed Flattop, and a Beatles-like band would look like. They sang about coming together, and, at the same time, Flattop fell to pieces. Once again, simply doing the opposite of what’s expected proved to be very funny.
Here’s what the puppets looked like, and I’m almost positive that this is what John Lennon had in mind when he wrote the song.
Jim Henson must’ve loved the Ringo Starr classic “Octopus’s Garden”. You know how I know that? Because the song was covered by the Muppets not once…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHF9YMrhqi0
…Not twice…
…But three times!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-blaYP-0Ug
It’s actually really neat to see the Muppets’ evolution through a singular song, from Sesame Street through The Ed Sullivan Show and into The Muppet Show. Eat your heart out, Ringo.
The final Abbey Road song with any sort of Muppet connection is George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun”, which wasn’t covered by the Muppets themselves but by Richie Havens on Sesame Street. His rendition is earnest and beautiful, though not extremely educational.
The Sesame Street version of “Here Comes the Sun” isn’t on YouTube, but it’s pretty identical to the one seen below. So just watch it and pretend the audience isn’t there, and it’ll feel like you’re watching it on a preschool show.
See what we mean? Icons meets icons when Abbey Road and the Muppets cross each other. Or vice versa.
Happy 50th anniversary, Abbey Road! And thanks for letting the Muppets play in your garden!
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by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
