Welcome back! We’ve reached the third and final chapter in our coverage of the unmade Sesame Street film, The Alphabet Thieves! Click here to revisit part one and part two. This edition features visuals from our friend Noah Ginex!
When last we left our heroes, they had all been ensnared in one way or another by the baddies of the Land of Make Believe. But thanks to various improbable circumstances, they are now free and ready to rescue the alphabet! Will they be able to?! I hope so, otherwise this whole page will be hard to read!
It’s morning in the Land of Make Believe. The Witch’s henchmen, the Winkies (from The Wizard of Oz), check on the soup. The smell wafts all over the land. Cookie Monster catches a whiff and begins sleepwalking towards the castle. Ernie and Bert also take the chance to sneak away from the Pied Piper while he’s asleep. Zoe, Big Bird, and Little Red get back to their trek, and Super Grover finally manages to free himself from the dragon’s trail, flying off (and I quote) “like a wounded duck with a broken transmission.” Elmo continues alone again and stumbles across a giant beanstalk. He begins to climb, hoping it will give him a good view of the castle.
Ernie and Bert sneak past the Jabberwock guarding the Witch’s castle. They tell the Winky guard at the gate about their “treasure” and are granted an audience with the villains. They perform a musical number called “The Most Precious Things in the World.” The plan only partly works – Hook and the Wolf take Rubber Duckie and the paper clips, but the Witch takes the duo as her slaves, and refuses to give up the alphabet. They become “Winkies” as well, handing out hors d’oeuvres to the villainous guests. The two hear a familiar voice counting from inside a suit of armor – it’s the Count, who has been counting the hours (minutes and seconds) he’s been staked out inside.
By now, the Sesame humans have finally fixed the mirror (again) and race through it, running into Big Bird and co. Elmo reaches a high enough vantage point to spot the castle, but is caught by the beanstalk’s Giant, who is allergic to red fur and sneezes Elmo away. He lands in Gordon’s arms, followed soon after by Super Grover after another run-in with Peter Pan. They try to sneak into the castle, but arouse the Jabberwock. As he looms towards them, he’s suddenly frightened away by the boisterous sounds of Oscar’s car rolling past.
Inside the castle, Hook’s pirate crew entertains the guests with a metal version of “Young at Heart.” The Sesame gang sneaks inside and poses as statues to get past some Winky guards. They make their way to the banquet hall, just as the villains unveil the alphabet soup. Cookie Monster appears with a spoon, ready to chow down. The jig is up and a fast-motion chase ensues all around the castle between the villains and the Sesame gang. Amidst the chaos, Cookie attempts to take a taste of the soup, but Ernie and Bert stop him; he eats his spoon instead. Ernie and Bert begin to push the pot out of the room.
Hook corners Grover against the wall. Grover whips out a baguette, which is no match for Hook’s sword. Ernie and Bert almost make it outside, but the frightened Jabberwock enters ahead of them and sends them running back to the banquet hall. Hook stops them and pulls out a letter B from the soup to erase it for good. But, before he can, Oscar and his car come bursting on the scene, scaring away many of the bad guys. The Witch threatens to turn everyone into real statues, but Maria counters by brandishing a pitcher of water with which to melt her.
Hook concedes for now, but promises he and the others will just do this all over again, with an immediate plan to destroy the letters afterwards. However, everyone begins to sing them a song about how important bad guys are to stories. Flattered, the Wolf shows off his huffing and puffing, which blows the cauldron out the doors. It rolls down the halls and out a window, crashing off on a distant hill. Things seem bleak for a moment, but then all the letters fly out from the wreckage and return to their rightful places all over the world.
Elmo, Zoe, and Big Bird invite Little Red to join them for a playdate, but now that the alphabet has returned, she must return to her story. The gang makes their way back to Sesame Street, with Gordon and Gina having to push Oscar’s car back through the mirror. Elmo, Zoe, and Big Bird then appear over the end credits to read all they can (“There’s my name…who’s Caroll Spinney?” says Big Bird). The film ends with a screen in Time Square reading, “And they lived happily ever after…”
The end! Now, get out your workbooks and let’s discuss. Would this have worked as a full, theatrical film? I think it’s a bit of a fun idea, but it does seem awfully complicated, especially for very young children. This is all based on a much later draft of the screenplay, so if this is the story with most of the kinks worked out, then that’s an issue. One thing I do miss from an earlier draft is a short When Harry Met Sally riff with Meg Ryan at Charlie’s Restaurant, because c’mon, that sounds great (I think you can guess her sole line of dialogue). If you’d like to read more about other elements from other drafts, check out the exhaustive Muppet Wiki article!
The script doesn’t specify whether any of the villains are humans or Muppets, but I’d imagine at least Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch would be serviced best by some celebrity guests. Though I shudder to imagine a grown human man having to dress in a dumb wolf costume. It also seems like a waste to cast a human as Little Red Riding Hood, then give her nearly nothing to do.
It’s interesting to compare this to the previous Sesame film, Follow That Bird, and the one they actually made a few years later, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. The subject matter and fantastical setting are very “preschool” akin to the latter film and very reflective of tone of the show at the time, but it has darker elements you would find in the former film (like Big Bird and Zoe being sent to a watery grave or Elmo being fattened up to be eaten alive).
Other than being extremely complicated, one of biggest problems, I think, is that there really doesn’t appear to be any kind of emotional arc for anyone, or any kind of lesson applicable to the lives of the child audience. In Follow That Bird, Big Bird learns “home is where the heart is,” and in Grouchland, Elmo learns “sharing = good!” I’m not entirely sure what the moral of the film is beyond “letters are important!” and maybe “be nicer to pirates and wolves,” I guess. The closest to any kind of emotional center is Elmo’s supposed plight, but if “Elmo will never learn how to read” is the height of drama, then there really aren’t many stakes for your story. But the fact that the emotional core is centered on Elmo is clear indication of why they’ll eventually come to base a whole movie around him, with the rest of the cast in even smaller parts.
So, there you have it – another entry from the Scrap Heap of Sesame History. And given the lack of updates on that new movie they’ve been trying to make with Warner Bros. in the last few years, I imagine this film is in pretty good company.
Special thanks to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University for preserving this treasure. And shout-out to our artists Noah, Max, and Will for creating wonderful pieces for this series!
Click here to have some alphabet soup on the Tough Pigs Discord!
By Shane Keating
