This week marked the release of five-time Grammy Award-winning artist Norah Jones’ latest album, The Fall. Billed as a bit of a departure for the jazzy singer — she collaborated with alt-country singer/songwriter Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, among others; Jacquire King (Tom Waits and Kings of Leon) produced the album — it features tracks like Chasing Pirates and Back to Manhattan.
This week also signals the beginning of a new partnership between Hulu and EMI, and to kick things off, we’re bringing you a new page devoted to Norah Jones. It features music videos and concert footage from The Fall, as well as all the essentials from Jones’ previous releases, Not Too Late, Feels Like Home and Come Away With Me; and live performances such as her 2004 show at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, where country greats Dolly Parton and Gillian Welch joined her on stage. But before you dig in, find out what Jones had to say about shooting with Elmo and working with The Lonely Island guys in our exclusive interview below. — Rebecca Harper (), Editor
Hulu: We’re talking about the new collection of your videos and concerts here on Hulu, but I also wanted to ask you about your new album, The Fall. What’s the story behind the name?
Norah Jones: Well, I just really like that it has some different meanings, so it can be kind of interpreted. For me, it relates to the album with all the meanings. I don’t know, it stuck in my head one day and I couldn’t think of anything else.
And I love the cover. Is there a story behind it? It looks like something you’d see in Vogue.
That’s funny. [Laughs] It was the photographer’s idea. She wanted to use a bunch of dogs because she likes working with animals. I thought it sounded fun. We ended up just loving the Saint Bernard so much that we got some shots with just him. He was so beautiful. So yeah, it’s meant to be kind of playful and theatrical.
What influenced some of the sounds of The Fall?
A lot of different things. I really wanted some heavy drum grooves on this album. Listening to stuff like Tom Waits, but also younger bands like Santigold. I don’t know, I did a song with Q-Tip last year that had me kind of wanting some heavier drum grooves in my own music. Just a lot of different things.
You collaborated with a lot of great people on this album, like Ryan Adams and Will Sheff. How did all of that come about — did you approach them?
Well, Ryan’s been an old friend of mine for a while. We were just hanging out, and I ended up playing him a song that I wasn’t able to finish, that I couldn’t come up with any lyrics to. And he just took it and made it great.
It’s nice to have friends like that.
Yeah, it’s fun. I mean, he’s so quick creatively. He finished the song in like five minutes — he wrote all the lyrics and changed them all around. He’s amazing.
Now that we have a lot of your older material on Hulu, are you planning to go back to look at any of it?
I might someday, but I’ve seen it so much. But yeah, it’s always like walking down memory lane, like a photo album or something.
You know, last week happened to be Sesame Street’s birthday, and they hand-picked a collection of clips from the last four decades for us. Your appearance with Elmo was among them.
That’s cool. It’s so funny, because having done that, whenever people come up to me and tell me anything about my music that they like, or whatever, more than anything else, I’ve gotten comments about that Sesame Street performance.
What was it like working with Elmo?
It was amazing. It just happened during my first album when everything was really big and crazy. When we got the call to do Sesame Street, it was a no-brainer. Everybody’s grown up on that show. It was so amazing being on the set, too, because it’s exactly the street you remember from when you were a kid. They were so welcoming to us, and they let us take pictures on the set and everything.
This was a little bit of a surprise to me: you collaborated with The Lonely Island [the Andy Samberg-Akiva Schaffer-Jorma Taccone group behind "I'm On a Boat"]. What was it like working with them on “Dreamgirl” one of their tracks?
Oh yeah, I love those guys. It was great. They’re super-nice guys, and they’re just really fun. They asked me if I’d sing on it, and they were super-sweet about it. They’re just funny, you know?
Given that connection, are we going to see you on Saturday Night Live any time soon?
I would love to, I love that show, but you know, they don’t have a lot of bookings — so we’ll see.
We’d even suggest that you should be the next musical act to crossover as a host.
Yeah, right.[Laughs] I would love to do that someday, but I don’t know if I’m big enough for them anymore!
If Taylor Swift can do it…
Well, Justin Timberlake was so good. He’s got a whole other career if he wants it — he’s so funny. I don’t even really know his music that well, but he won me over just by seeing a sketch on SNL.
You never know, you could be next! Thanks for your time, Norah — good luck with the new album.
Thanks!
In An Education, aspiring Oxford student Jenny (Carey Mulligan) dreams of a world that’s bigger than her genteel neighborhood, set in 1961 suburban London. She longs to smoke, wear black and listen to Jacques Brel with other like-minded Francophiles, and to be free of her upwardly mobile parents. A fateful rainstorm introduces her to David (Peter Sarsgaard), a 30-something music lover who serves as her entrée to all things sophisticated: art collections, jazz clubs and fashion. His world-class charm — powerful enough to convince Jenny’s parents to send her off with him for a weekend away — sweeps the 16-year-old off her feet. The film, based on a screenplay by author Nick Hornby — it was based on a short memoir by journalist Lynn Barber — was directed by Lone Scherfig ( Italian for Beginners), who spoke to us about the film from Denmark last week. Read on to learn how she found star Cary Mulligan and where they found all the fabulous clothes from the film. An Education is in theaters now. — — Rebecca Harper (), Editor
Carey Mulligan is the breakout star of your film. She was also in Pride & Prejudice (2005), but how did you discover her?
Director Lone Scherfig: She was just in a pile of casting tapes. She had done very little, so it was chance. I knew that we probably had to find someone unknown because [her character] Jenny is so young. She was always my first choice — but we saw her again and again, and now I feel really bad that we took so long to make the decision. It’s been going so well, so maybe she doesn’t have to go through all that again.
I hope so, too! An Education is set in 1961. How did that particular time period play into the film? What did that mean for Jenny?
I think it’s really important. The way London was changing at that time is so in sync with how she’s changing. The way she’s bursting with energy for a future she can’t describe because she doesn’t know what it is yet is the way London was shaking the war off its shoulders, wanting to do things for fun and to have much more appetite for life, for art and for literature — and music in particular. That became so much more dominant straight after she [would have] entered Oxford.
I known here in the U.S. right now, that time period is really resonating with our culture — if you look at Mad Men, for example.
It’s a bit different. Maybe what is so attractive with Mad Men is that it’s a period where they, in some ways, were more liberated and also more innocent than it’s the case now. It’s a bit different in England because Jenny, she’s among the last generation of women who had that little future and so few possibilities. It’s almost as if Lynn Barber, who wrote this story, had been fighting at that. What that means is that women since Lynn could relax and take for granted that they had the right to do the things that they like to do, to try and to find individual futures for themselves and to live that future, or live that adult life, at least, if you have an education.
But my guess is about America is that it’s this combination of innocence and freedom that attracts you. Here in Denmark, as well, it was more liberated than it is now, and was definitely more innocent and less dangerous. I mean, when I was a teenager, the world was a lot safer than it is now for my daughter as a teenager, which meant that I could have a lot more fun. It wasn’t risky the way it is now.
Were you familiar with Lynn Barber’s story before you started this project?
It was just a 10-page article in a literary magazine. Later on, I think Penguin commissioned some more chapters, and she oddly became a journalist for Penthouse. She almost went too far because I know her, and I think she’s a woman who’s had a very rich, varied and happy life that is right for her. Her only regret seems to be that she now thinks that she should have been a better wife to her husband, whom she met in Oxford. But apart from that, she has fulfilled a lot of her dreams, and she’s a brilliant writer.
But no, I wasn’t familiar with her or her work, but obviously I started reading it when I got the job, to get to know her better and to portray her better. But Jenny is different. Lynn is more sarcastic, more of a fighter, and her piece has much more self-irony. Because Nick Hornby and I are not her, we could describe her with some warmth that’s not in her piece.
Speaking of Nick, what did he bring to the screenplay? Did he make any significant changes to Lynn’s story?
The story is short, so he fleshed it out. There are a couple of characters that are his, especially the teachers, but the structure and a lot of the details are actually in her original piece. I think he’s given it a tone that’s definitely Nick Hornby — and jokes, too. He’s really humorous. [Lynn] says that Alfred Molina’s role (as Jenny’s dad) is a lot more sympathetic than she had imagined. I hope we have added something as well. It’s just layer upon layer, and as long as we’re telling the same story — a group portrait of a girl and the people her surrounding her, particularly David … the more time we spent on it, the more time [it was] in this development situation, the more detail you see, the more contrast and the more integrity. But it’s the same piece that we’re all working on, and that was really important to me as a director that everyone was making the same film, that everyone contributed to the package and tried to strengthen it and get as many facets as possible but not be over-inventive, just tell the story as well as we possibly could.
I really enjoyed Alfred Molina’s performance. Can you tell us what he brought to his character?
He has really good timing. He’s very musical, and so is Nick. That means that lines are something where Alfred Molina feels immediately at ease and pitches them very well from the beginning. Also, [Alfred] felt that he knew that world very well — he grew up in Notting Hill and he thought that Jack who he portrays was definitely someone that he knows, and that Jack and England have a lot in common at the time, the xenophobia and the fear of everything: the fear of food, the fear of excess of any kind, and also the insecurity because he didn’t have an education, so that’s one of the reasons why they would let someone like David into their home. He seems worldly, and they’re afraid to be prejudiced as well. So they let him in and let him run off with their little girl.
I wanted to ask you about the clothes. I loved the costumes in this film, particularly Helen’s [a friend of David's who takes Jenny under her wing], but also Jenny’s as well. I read that you brought mood boards to your meetings with Odille Dicks-Mireaux, the costume designer…
That was about Paris, though, it wasn’t about clothes. But I did a board for each of the characters because it is a character-based film. I thought that’s a good place to start, to ensure that if I have a language problem, that’s not going to be our problem, that we’re all speaking the same language. A lot of film people, it’s helpful to have visual examples rather than to explain. So it was clothes, but it was also photos of real people at the time and props. Because a lot of people on the crew and in the cast had not experienced that period, it was also about communicating that London was not that “swinging” yet, and it wasn’t that long ago. It may be a period film, but a lot of the things are the same still.
She and I had a really good collaboration, and all of the costumes are just real clothes that have been saved. We only made one single dress, which was the nightclub singer’s dress. It was a copy of my Barbie doll’s ’60s dress. Because the singer is so small, she didn’t fit into any of the clothes that they had at the prop house. But it was so easy, and they have so much stuff in England, it’s probably the biggest place in the world for that kind of thing, and because the actresses are so beautiful, they just jump into anything, everything just fits. It was a good way for me to go and talk to the cast about the characters and to be at the costume fittings because then you get to express the character’s style and what would be in his pockets. I do the same thing with the props department, which kind of wristwatch would she have, who gave it to her, it’s a very concrete and specific way of building characters. It’s a good place to start dialogue with the actors, rather than sitting at reading tables.
Thanks, Lone, for speaking to us about the film. An Education is in theaters now.
When filmmaker Dan Lohaus learned that there were over 150,000 homeless Vietnam War veterans, he decided he wanted to take action. He started reading up on the subject, visiting assistance programs, and talking to vets who were living on the streets, filming their experiences along the way with the intention of turning his footage into a documentary on the subject of homeless vets from the Vietnam war. At the start of the Iraq War, though, Lohaus’ documentary project took a slightly different focus as the veterans started telling Lohaus that, soon enough, soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq would find themselves without options. Enter Iraq War veteran Herold Noel. It was his story, his fight to get assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), that became the focus of Lohaus’ When I Came Home. The film is a sharp, candid look at the struggles our war heroes face when they find themselves unable to work due to injury or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and unable to get benefits from the VA.
Lohaus is currently working on another documentary that will follow the experience of Vietnam veterans and the 10-year battle it took to have PTSD recognized as a mental disorder. He took a break to talk to Hulu about When I Came Home, which he screened at a benefit for Services for the UnderServed (susinc.org) on Veteran’s Day. — Rebecca Harper (), Editor
Hulu: How did you decide to do a documentary about homeless vets?
Filmmaker Dan Lohaus: Back in 2002, I was interested in making a documentary about homeless Vietnam vets; that was really the focus of this film. I had found there are over 150,000 homeless Vietnam vets. I wanted to look at their experience when they come home. Staggering numbers of Vietnam vets ended up in prison when they came home, or ended up ending their lives prematurely. That statistic, that there were over 150,000 homeless Vietnam vets, just really made me angry. I just felt like so many of these guys were in their late 50s or early 60s, and had been out in the streets for years. This is kind of the final chapter for them in terms of being ignored and forgotten when they came home in the early ’70s.
So that’s where it all started, and as I started filming homeless Vietnam vets out on the street, the war in Iraq started. Once that war started, all the Vietnam vets started telling me to keep my eyes open for kids coming out of Iraq, because they were like “This VA is so backlogged, we can’t even get help from the VA. We’re still fighting for our benefits, and we just don’t understand how a whole new generation is going to come and get taken care of.” Then I started seeing little articles on the Internet about homeless Iraq veterans. The first one was in the Boston Globe, about a woman named Vanessa Turner. She’d gotten back from Iraq and ended up homeless in the Boston area. Basically, at that point I decided this is ridiculous; I couldn’t believe this was happening again. I wanted to find homeless Iraq veterans to include in the film and kind of show how history’s repeating itself. And then [in late 2004, early 2005], I found Herold [Noel] in New York. It just took off from there.
Who is Herold?
Herold Noel, he was in the Army, in the 37 Cavalry out of Fort Stewart, Georgia.
How did you find him, and why do you think his story is representative of others?
He was the subject of a cover article for this newspaper here in New York called The Indypendent. They did a cover story about Herold called “The Invisible Soldier.” I just couldn’t believe it — here was this guy in my neighborhood, going through this. At the same time, I had been going to this one organization in [Bedford-Stuyvestant] called Black Veterans for Social Justice, where I had found a couple other Iraq vets, but they weren’t quite ready to be in the film. It just so happens that Herold was also going to Black Veterans for Social Justice to try to get some help. My contact there told him “Hey, if you want to be in a movie, there’s this guy looking for homeless Iraq vets.” Herold was just really determined. The first day I met him, he said “I want you to document this, I want you to show people what a soldier has to go through when they come home. I want you to follow me to the end of the earth with your camera. I want the country to see what we have to go through.” He was a perfect subject. Right after the first day of filming, he was obviously the main subject for the film.
Where is he today?
He’s still in New York. He’s actually working with a non-profit, Urban Neighborhood Services in Coney Island, and he started a veterans’ project there. He’s really trying to reach out to low-income vets that are coming back to the neighborhood where he kind of grew up, just trying to make sure they know where to go for help. He’s just trying to make sure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to anyone else.
It seems like the subject of homeless Iraq war veterans is quiet, not something you hear about in the press very often.
Back in 2003, when I was first starting to see little articles on the Internet, I had a list of organizations that help homeless veterans. I would call them and say, “Hey, are you guys dealing with any homeless Iraq or Afghanistan veterans?” They’d say, “No, we’ve had maybe one come through our program, but they’re doing OK now. We’re ready for them; we’re expecting to see them.” Now, if I call those same organizations, every one of them has 10 or 15 homeless Iraq or Afghanistan veterans in their program. According to the VA, there’s somewhere around 2,000 at this point, but it’s so frustrating, because it’s the same thing that happened with Vietnam vets. I just feel like it’s a generation getting swept under the rug. There have been some stories about them here and there, but I really feel like people don’t know. When they hear what my movie’s about, the first thing they say is, “What? There are homeless Iraq veterans? That’s ridiculous.”
Before this, were you all that aware of homeless veterans? Was this something you’d already been involved with?
Yeah, I had been working in the non-profit world and helped start a couple of organizations that help employ homeless people and, ever since college, volunteering at soup kitchens and stuff. I think along the way, I met a lot of Vietnam vets. I think I was aware in the back of my head that there were a lot of Vietnam vets on the streets, but it was only when I started doing research on it that I really found out the numbers. It’s pretty staggering. One in four homeless people is a veteran, which is kind of staggering. Twenty-five percent of our whole homeless population are vets. I was aware of homelessness among veterans, but it was only when I said “OK, I’m going to do some research; I think I want to do a film on this,” when I really discovered the numbers.
What moment most stands out for you from shooting this film?
The first thing I filmed was the San Diego Stand Down for homeless veterans in 2002. The Stand Down is meant to be a three-day event where homeless veterans can come off the street and live as a community. They actually get like a coat check for all of their stuff. There’s no drinking, there’s no drugs. They just come in off the street, they live in these military-style tents, and they live in a little community together where they can get not only hot food and new clothes but dental care, too, and they can get hooked up with benefits counselors. They’re constantly hearing speeches from formerly homeless veterans. The event is all about motivating these guys to see that there is an option to get off the street, and that there are people out there that care about them. So I went to this event, and there were 1,000 homeless veterans that came in off the street. Of that 1,000, over the course of the weekend, about 400 or so kind of saw the light and were ready to jump into a program. They had kind of had enough and were inspired by everybody there. This was the very first thing I was filming, I was like “Oh my God, we’re about to see 400 homeless veterans get taken off the street. They’re ready to go, they haven’t drank in a few days, they’re signing up for these programs.” In the course of filming, I was trying to see if I could follow someone who was going to get into a program. That’s when I learned that, in fact, even though 400 vets had made the choice to try to get into a program, there were literally only seven spots available in San Diego County. It just became so frustrating.
So here’s this great event called Stand Down that really connects with these vets, it gets them off the street, it gets them to come in and start thinking about what they need to do to get out and get off the street. I was so frustrated when I learned that only seven guys would get a shot at getting into a supported housing program. It just became really obvious to me. If the money was there to create these supportive housing communities — and there are some great models out there like US Vets, which has supportive housing communities across the country, and there’s one in San Diego called the Veterans Village of San Diego, which has like an 85 percent success rate. It was just really frustrating. It became really clear to me. A guy in the movie, the founder of Stand Down, really says it best: “Why is it that we keep asking why there are so many homeless veterans when we don’t ask where are the resources?” It just became really clear. If the government would put the money into supportive housing programs in combination with the Stand Down event, we could literally get these guys off the street. It was really tough for me. That was the first thing I filmed, I got to know a bunch of these guys who decided that was the weekend they were going to get off the street, and I watched them have to pack up and go back out on the street. It just really, really pissed me off, but I think it was a good thing because it pissed me off enough …That was a real point where I decided I was going to have to make this film.
Are you seeing that the same factors that contributed to Vietnam veterans becoming homeless are the same for the new Iraq war veterans?
I think overall, it’s definitely different. It’s 40 years later, but some of the same things are happening to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. I think, in general, the nation is familiar with the term post-traumatic stress disorder, which is good. I think it’s basically, if you’re affected by war and you’re coming home with PTSD, oftentimes, it’s tough to hold a job. If you can’t find a job, it’s hard to pay rent. It’s a downward spiral that I think veterans of any war can fall into. Just like Vietnam vets … We have 1 million Iraq or Afghanistan veterans who are waiting on decisions from the VA on their disability claims. That’s a staggering number. It was at 600,000 earlier this year, and now it’s at a million. There are literally a million veterans who are not able to work right now who are waiting for a decision from the VA on whether they’re eligible to receive benefits and how much they’ll receive. If they’re unable to work because they’re injured, and if they’re waiting on these benefits, I don’t know how we expect them not to end up homeless. I think vets are a very proud people. For some vets, they maybe didn’t leave a good home situation. Once again, they’re coming back to an economy that’s hurting. I think there are similar factors for any generation of vets that come home. When vets don’t get the proper care they need for PTSD, a lot of them will to start to self-medicate. That’s a factor in that whole downward spiral, as well.
To learn more about this film and how you can help homeless veterans in your area, please visit to WhenICameHome.com.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of some of the most iconic characters on television: the Muppets who call Sesame Street home. Combining education with sheer delight, Big Bird, Elmo, Ernie and the gang have made learning the ABCs and 123s fun for generations now.
To celebrate their big 4-0, the team at Hulu asked our friends at Sesame Street to pick some of their favorite clips from over the years. The collection features everything from Norah Jones singing “Don’t Know Why” to bits I remember from my childhood, like “Grover and a Fly in My Soup.”
Hulu had the chance to speak to Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer for Sesame Street, last week as the show ramped up for its Season 40 premiere. The 21-year veteran of the show basically grew up with the likes of Grover and Kermit the Frog, and today, she guides the creative vision for the show. So what’s it like working with a bunch of a bunch of puppets? She tells us all about it below. — Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com), Editor
Hulu: One of my favorite things about Sesame Street is the timelessness of certain segments. Have certain ones proven to be consistently popular through the years?
Sesame Street’s Carol-Lynn Parente: One of the things about the show is that not only do we have a lot of history with different segments, but different characters. Each one has kind of its own cult following. It kind of depends on who you’re talking to in terms of what’s popular, but we have a pretty good, consistent appeal across the board.
You’ve had a ton of celebrity guests over the years.
Yeah, it’s sort of a who’s-who of celebrities, the ultimate list. Season 40 is particularly star-studded with everyone from Sarah Jessica Parker to Cameron Diaz and Adam Sandler and Ricky Gervais and Kobe Bryant and Eva Longoria [Parker]. We’re just very fortunate in that we get lots of requests from celebrities, so we don’t really have to go after these guys — they come to us. We try really hard to fit as many of them in as we can, which is so much fun.
How do those sketches work? Do they come up with ideas?
It’s different with everyone. A lot of time, what we do is wait until we have the booking, and then we assign a writer to a project. Sometimes there’s something that we’re parodying about some project that they’re in. Occasionally they want to get involved in collaborating. So Ricky Gervais this year actually wrote his piece, the song that he’s in. It’s really a lot of fun when the celebrities get into it.
What’s it like working with the characters?
Wow, I’m probably the luckiest person on Earth, because I get to come to work with Big Bird and Cookie Monster and Elmo every day. Not everyone can say that. You know, aside from just having a whole lot of fun, these performers are really the best in the business. The show attracts the best in the business across the board, from writers to directors, too. But the performers are real artists, because they’re making characters and emotion out of just these very simple felt and fur puppets.
Do you have as much fun off camera as you do onscreen?
You know, we really do. I think that’s the reason this show is so much fun to watch. There is just as much fun if not more on the set. These guys are really amazing performers. Our outtake reel at the wrap party is an awful lot of fun.
How do you come up with new ideas for the show?
We’re lucky because we have amazing writers. The model of Sesame Street is unique. Part of the foundation of the show from the very beginning was that writers work with producers and researchers, all in tandem. That’s how we get not only really funny scripts — because we have very funny writers — but also educational ones, because they’re working every step along the way with researchers.
The show has seen some of its cast and extras grow up on the set. Do any of them come back to visit?
They do. It’s sometimes just a very small world. We had a crew member that came by, just a rotating crew member — you know, you sometimes need someone to fill in for someone who’s out — and he was actually on the show when he was a kid. We’ve had a press reporter that also came on the show and was one of the extra kids back in the ’70s. It’s very surreal for them to be back on the set.
What’s in store for Season 40?
What’s amazing about Season 40 is that it’s really a complete format change. The show has gone through evolution over 40 years — I think that’s the secret to its success; that it’s kept up with the times and made changes, really, because it’s a real neighborhood. And just as those real neighborhoods that the show was modeled after have changed, so has the show.
The show format was modeled after variety-type show like Laugh-In, in a very magazine-like format, that’s not the case anymore. In fact, now there are entire networks devoted to preschool programming. We’re an hour-long show, which is a long time for preschoolers, and that’s unique in the preschool programming world. We decided to think of our hour as a block. It’s formatted that way so we have four anchor shows within our hour, and a brand-new show as part that block is Abby’s Flying School with Abby Cadabby, who’s taken the form of 3-D CGI, and so she will appear in the show in puppet form, but she has her own format, this show within a show. It’s really part of that evolution of what kids are watching, what they’re used to watching, that style of graphics animation. And it allows us to be more physical than we can be with puppets, which is great.
Thanks, Carol-Lynn! Good luck with the 40th season.
Think our collection is missing a shining Sesame Street moment? Tell us which in the comments section. We’ll include some of our favorites in a brand-new collection.
I’m an eighties child, and when I grew up in the middle of the country, PBS was one of maybe 5 stations we could get clearly. I won a coloring contest when I was maybe 6 or 7, and got to help promote PBS in Little Rock, AR – and sign Big Bird’s birthday card! I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Sesame Street.
I am so glad you included the Martians Finding Earth, and the Making of Crayons.
The only clip I can think of that is missing, is Maria and Luis singing “Hola Means Hello!” I loved her dress so much, and later in life, when I discovered Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, I thought of Maria and Luis!
Happy 40th, Sesame Street! As a true member of the Sesame Street generation (I started watching the show in 1973), I’ve been celebrating this milestone all month. For many years, the monsters on Sesame Street were more real to me than members of my own family.
You’ve got a decent collection of clips here, but here are some of the best that you’ve missed (I’ve taken them from YouTube).
Kermit and Cookie and the Mystery Box:
Big Bird Finds Out Mr. Hooper Died:
Ernie and Bert Meet Martians:
Grover and the Fly in My Soup:
Grover Teaches Us Near and Far:
Grover Sells Kermit a Nose Warmer:
Sesame Street as MAD MEN:
Sesame Street News reports on Humpty Dumpty:
Here Is Your Life starring Guy Smiley:
The Count Counts Letters to Himself:
Ernie sings the Rubber Duckie song:
Cookie sings ‘C Is for Cookie’:
Kermit the Frog doing an interview for Sesame Street News on the Six Dollar Man. (Yes, $6)
Kermit is an angry news reporter:
Global Grover travels to India (via Queens, NY):
We’re also very fond of the Pinball song
I’ve been hoping for a DVD with just skits from classic Sesame Street (1985 and earlier). Any chance of that happening Carol-Lynn?
Be among the first to see Vanguard’s Christof Putzel report on the future of the adult entertainment industry, “Porn 2.0” before its premiere on Current TV this Wednesday. In the piece, Putzel examines how the industry — which has always been at the forefront of Internet technology — is fostering new innovation in order to stay afloat at a time when fewer customers are paying for their pleasure. Hulu had the opportunity to speak to Putzel to speak about the report last week. You catch Vanguard on your TV set Wednesdays at 10/9c on Current TV. — Rebecca Harper (), Editor
Hulu: What sparked your interest in the relationship between porn and Internet technology?
Vanguard’s Christof Putzel: If you use the Internet, it’s hard to ignore the existence of porn. It shows up in your inbox as spam, as links to your unrelated search inquiries. It’s everywhere. It’s no secret that pornography has been at the cutting edge of media for decades. Pornography is what we have to thank for some of the expansion at the early days of the Internet. So what I was interested in was, in this day and age when mainstream industries like the movie business and the music business are all struggling to figure out how to best utilize the internet and not keep losing their shirts, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the porn industry was doing. It’s traditionally been one step ahead of mainstream businesses when it came to distribution formats.
What were some of the biggest surprises you encountered while working on this story?
I think that I was most surprised by just how much the adult industry is hurting as a whole. There’s a common misconception that anyone can make a dollar dabbling in Internet porn. While there might have been some truth to that 10 years ago, even the well-established companies are having trouble staying in business today. There’s just so much free pornography out there on the Internet, whether pirated or homemade. Many consumers just see the need to pay for it anymore. That’s kind of ironic, that the same technologies that helped push the industry forward — you know, things like cheap cameras and faster Internet connections — are today bringing it to its knees.
Did you find that you were shocked by any of the things that you saw?
Oh man, yeah. I was shocked by a lot of things when I visited Kink.com’s offices. I’m no prude, but the porn that Kink was producing was unlike anything that the darkest, most warped part of my conscious could come up with. Their business model is based on appealing to those with niche fetishes. So it can be a bit much to handle for an unfamiliar outsider, like myself. The company houses its offices and production studios inside the old San Francisco Armory building. When you walk through the hallways, it has this dungeon-castle type atmosphere. The first room that I was taken to was the blacksmith’s workshop, where they build all the cages and the props. When I walked in, the blacksmith was trying to figure out how to construct a device that could simultaneously send electric currents from a car battery to various parts of the female anatomy. That was just like, “Oh, just another day at the office” for them. And then I was escorted into a room that contained multiple shelves lined with various electronics: a KitchenAid cake mixer, a leaf blower, chainsaw; all modified to perform the task that their website implies. But perhaps the most surreal machine was a replica of the beloved Johnny 5 robot from Short Circuit. That movie stirs up fond childhood memories for me, it’s a 1988 classic. It kind of threw me a little bit when the robot followed me around the room.
Do you feel like you ever became more comfortable around all of it?
I think what was most shocking was just how normal I found everyone to be. You have this feeling that it’s gonna be like a kid in a candy store. It was actually just a lot of people working. I guess as someone who works in media production for a company that has a giant website and is into new media, I think I had a preconceived notion of the types of characters who would sink so low to take a job in an industry that’s widely considered to be at the bottom of the barrel. But every employee that I met appeared very cheerful, and genuinely ecstatic and grateful for the opportunity to work there. And they were smart. Many of them had turned down job offers at mainstream companies to have the opportunity for more creative freedom. The guys in the IT department really felt like they were on the cutting edge, Internet-wise. They felt that they were getting challenges and opportunities that they couldn’t get at other companies. I think that’s what I found most shocking. It kind of blew away my stereotypes.
As far as being desensitized, I think that no; it was still a pretty new experience for me to see people having sex right next to me. I think it was hard for me to become desensitized because, in both instances, when I went to Kink and when I went to Wicked, I actually went and interviewed and talked to them first, and got to know them a little bit. So then seeing them take their clothes off and have sex felt wrong in a way. I think that’s why it was a little hard to become desensitized.
Of course, you touch on this a bit, but how did the insiders feel about their jobs?
You know, that was another one that blew me away. The interns at Kink.com couldn’t be more ecstatic to be cleaning [props], hoping for the chance to be promoted to one day be producing or directing their own porn, or at least play a larger role in the production process. I think that was another part that was just so shocking. Everyone I met genuinely believed in what they were doing. The common perception is that there is a lot of abuse in the industry, and while I’m sure that still exists, the people that I encountered were definitely doing what they were doing because they wanted to be. I’d say people like TomKat [seen in the web extra] seems to absolutely love her job. The geeks in the IT departments, I think one of them said to me “We’re a company where you can fulfill not only all of your sexual fantasies, but all of your technological fantasies, as well.” That’s a geek thing to say, but he clearly likes it.
What also became very clear was that, to stay afloat these days in the adult entertainment industry, you’ve got to work really hard at it, and you’ve got to really want to stay afloat — because otherwise, you’ll go under. I think that a lot of the characters from back in the day that might have been sluggish to get online and stuck in their ways, or technically just not very bright, I think they’re being weeded out.
Can you touch on some of the innovations from porn that are now present in mainstream Internet technology?
E-commerce. The first pioneers of e-commerce were in the adult industry, pushing further what kind of credit card transaction could take place over the Internet. Affiliate marketing was pioneered and embraced by porn online and quickly became a system basically every mainstream company that advertises on the web uses. Kink certainly was the first one to be doing multiple galleries of photos, high-speed streaming video. At the time I interviewed them, Kink.com was the only company who had figured out how to stream high definition live on the web. It’s fascinating to see these guys in the basement building the technology out of wood and spare parts, and figuring out how to do it. I thought that was very telling.
How is the rise of Internet porn affected the more established porn companies?
It’s affected them tremendously. The technology has kind of caught up with itself. The same technology that pushed the industry forward is now killing its profits. It’s doing that mainly through privacy, where people are just ripping off DVDs and putting them online through tube sites and bit torrent sites. The genre’s changed, where people like gonzo and amateur porn, which is incredibly cheaply produced and it’s very short. Now people just want to see two or three minutes of porn and, you know, get it over with, and aren’t necessarily sitting down in their living rooms with a DVD that they just bought to watch a whole storyline unfold. A lot of people were predicting, like all the format wars — BetaMax vs. VHS, DVD — whatever porn chose would win. A lot of people were predicting that Blu-Ray and the HD DVD war would be decided by porn. And it wasn’t. The theory of why it wasn’t was because the Internet had been involved this time. People want to watch porn in privacy, on their laptops or on their iPhones. They don’t necessarily need the high-def value and surround sound that the living room would require.
Last year, the biggest-selling porn DVD wasn’t from any big porn companies, it was Paris Hilton. She’s what they call the “accidental porn star”. That’s giving these big companies a serious run for their money and putting a lot of them under. Now the challenge that they’re facing is how do they continue to innovate? How do they provide a service people will pay for? Essentially, it’s what everyone else is trying to figure out — journalism, Hulu. Everyone’s trying to figure out how to make a dollar off of this. Some of the more innovative companies are trying to provide experiences that can’t be pirated, being more interactive, creating communities, doing things live. I think you see at the conference, there’s an on-demand service that syncs with a machine you can attach to yourself and watch things in sync. That’s an experience you won’t be able to pirate. That’s what’s coming next. I think that, like everyone else, they’re just scratching the surface.
What was that experience like?
I was kind of so flabbergasted at the time that something like this existed. But you know, yeah, I got where they were going, definitely. … I don’t know if that’s the future, but it’s very telling of what they discovered that they need to provide in order to survive.
Changing gears a bit, what will you be covering next on Vanguard?
Right now I’m editing a piece about cocaine trafficking in Europe and the growth of the Nigerian mafia. Cocaine use in Europe is at an all-time high, and in order for South America to meet the demand, they have started trafficking cocaine in high volumes through West Africa for geographical and proximity issues. It’s creating quite a stir. It’s called “The Cocaine Mafia.”
What have been some of your favorite assignments for Vanguard?
I think we have the greatest job in the world. We travel around, getting to meet people and understand situations that most people would probably even know. I think that going to Mogadishu was certainly probably one of the most intense reporting experiences I’ve ever had. We went there with our own private militia of 16 armed guards and were some of the first Western journalists to report from there in 15 years. I’d say that it was a petrifying but amazing experience. Definitely one of my favorites.
I’ll be that the porn piece seemed kind of safe after some of your other assignments.
You know, it did. I think Vanguard has covered a lot of doom and gloom. I covered Africa multiple times; disease, drugs, death, destruction, war, fighting, and honestly, I need to lighten it up a little for myself. So that’s kind of why I chose this story. I needed something a little lighter, just to take a break. I think that this season needs to be broken up a little bit and provide people a little something different. If you use the Internet, it’s almost part of your everyday life.
Have you had any scary experiences in general, stuff we could share with our users?
There’s a great scene in Mogadishu. There are two great moments in that story: one when we’re first entering Mogadishu for the first time and we’re basically stopped at gunpoint, and we think we’re about to be executed. There was another moment where we were trying to hide up on a hill while filming the largest public prayer gathering in a mosque in 15 years. We’re hiding up on the hill when everybody, the thousands of people below us, turned and faced west to begin praying and we realized that we were to the west and everyone was staring right up at us. I think the line in the piece was, “If there was ever any secret that two white guys were hanging out in Mogadishu, that cat was now out of the bag.”
I went and interviewed these skinheads in Russia and I ended up in the middle of the woods in this training camp. I was really trying to understand what was behind these guys’ motivations. When I discovered that this guy I was talking to was genuinely ecstatic watching himself beating people up, it was my first realization that I was interviewing a psychopath. That was pretty scary.
Hulu: Watch Now Facebook App
Follow Hulu on Twitter
I’m an eighties child, and when I grew up in the middle of the country, PBS was one of maybe 5 stations we could get clearly. I won a coloring contest when I was maybe 6 or 7, and got to help promote PBS in Little Rock, AR – and sign Big Bird’s birthday card! I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Sesame Street.
I am so glad you included the Martians Finding Earth, and the Making of Crayons.
The only clip I can think of that is missing, is Maria and Luis singing “Hola Means Hello!” I loved her dress so much, and later in life, when I discovered Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, I thought of Maria and Luis!
Happy 40th, Sesame Street! As a true member of the Sesame Street generation (I started watching the show in 1973), I’ve been celebrating this milestone all month. For many years, the monsters on Sesame Street were more real to me than members of my own family.
You’ve got a decent collection of clips here, but here are some of the best that you’ve missed (I’ve taken them from YouTube).
Kermit and Cookie and the Mystery Box:
Big Bird Finds Out Mr. Hooper Died:
Ernie and Bert Meet Martians:
Grover and the Fly in My Soup:
Grover Teaches Us Near and Far:
Grover Sells Kermit a Nose Warmer:
Sesame Street as MAD MEN:
Sesame Street News reports on Humpty Dumpty:
Here Is Your Life starring Guy Smiley:
The Count Counts Letters to Himself:
Ernie sings the Rubber Duckie song:
Cookie sings ‘C Is for Cookie’:
Kermit the Frog doing an interview for Sesame Street News on the Six Dollar Man. (Yes, $6)
Kermit is an angry news reporter:
Global Grover travels to India (via Queens, NY):
We’re also very fond of the Pinball song
I’ve been hoping for a DVD with just skits from classic Sesame Street (1985 and earlier). Any chance of that happening Carol-Lynn?