Sesame Street 1969-1979

The original series of 1970's Sesame Street hand puppets now have their own page in this blog. Anything else from my Sesame collection that was made in the 1970's is included here...at least it will be eventually!

In addition to making toy hand puppets, Child Guidance also made soft rubber finger puppets during the1970's. These are among my most favourite Muppet collectables. The Count finger puppet (not shown) and Herry Monster - the light blue one - are the most difficult characters to find in this collection. That being said, Herry tends to show up more often than the Count. The Count finger puppet is super rare and very hard to find in any condition. The Count for this set is holding the numbers 1, 2, 3 (not to be mistaken for the 1980s Applause finger puppet of the Count which has one arm raised up and no numbers!). Sherlock Hemlock  (the detective) and the Lefty the Salesman (with black hat) were added to the series in 1974.  These two are often missing their hats and can be difficult to find, but not as difficult as Herry and the Count which were added later in 1978.

There are a number of variations for most of these puppets, such as colour of plastic used, paint colour, and even a moulding variation that makes differences in size. Ernie and Bert are also available with rooted hair (as shown above) or with fake fur hair which is less common. There is also a wide variation of packaging for this series, especially if the international packaging for this series is taken into consideration. As with the larger hand puppets, Vicma produced variations of these finger puppets in Spain and other markets. In Mexico, the toy company Lily Ledy produced Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster and Oscar, as well as Abelardo (an orange crocodile) and Paco (a green parrot) from "Plaza Sesemo" as finger puppets for this collection.

Child Guidance also made these nifty "Stack Up" 3D puzzles in the mid 1970s of Big Bird, Ernie, Bert and Oscar. I had all four of them when I was three or four years old but I lost the Big Bird one.  A few years ago, I replaced it with one I bought on e-bay. The other three shown above are the same ones I had since I was three! That explains why the bottom of Ernie's mouth is missing. I had also peeled off the stickers for each of their eyes, so I hand drew some replacements. Bert's nose also came off and was lost at one point! I've seen a Bert stack up puzzle on e-bay that had a blue shoulder piece instead of an orange one, which changed the order of the stripes.

Here are the Super Grover and Herry Monster dolls by Knickerbocker. They are about 15 inches tall. Super Grover is very common, while Herry is a rare find. This is the smaller version of Herry. Knockerbocker also made a larger size plush toy of Herry to go with the large plush series shown below. Grover was also made without his Super Grover costume but this version is not as common.

These are the smaller bean bag sized plush toys of Oscar and Cookie Monster by Knickerbocker. Big Bird was also made for this series.

Here are two different sizes of the Kickerbocker Cookie Monster plush toys from the early 1970s. This series also included Grover, Oscar and Snuffleupagus (all shown below). This was a very popular series of plush toys in their time and were made through to the early 1980s. Various sizes were made, with some being as large as 2.5 feet tall (I have a Cookie Monster this size!). A talking version of Oscar was also made (shown below). I'm not 100% certain if talking versions of the other characters were made as well, though I suspect that they would have. Herry Monster was also offered in this series, in two different sizes, though they are very hard to find in any condition as the character was only made for a short time in the late 1970s.

The Knickerbocker larger plush Grover was made in two different sizes with an open mouth or a closed mouth. It is my understanding that the open mouth version was the original style that was available in the early 1970s, and this was later modified to be the closed mouth version offered in the late 1970s and early 1980s. My reasoning has to do with Grover's eyes. The earlier version of these toys had eyes that were made out of two oval pieces of thin plastic (or vinyl), one black and one white, that were attached with a black button fastener as the iris. This is shown above on the light blue grover, which has an open mouth. The eyes are rather cheep looking and break easily. Later versions have eyes that are each one plastic piece and painted with the white and black parts of the eye, as shown above on the dark blue Grover, which has a closed mouth. This is likely an improvement that was added to the toys at some point to phase out the cheeper two piece eyes.

Fuzzy and Blue: I've also noticed that light blue Grovers are not as common as the dark blue version. The light blue Grover shown above is the only one I've ever seen. As this is an earlier version it is possible that the company was still trying out the colours for each character to see if dark blue or light blue fur looked better, or if one sold more than the other. Note that the larger Cookie Monster shown above is light blue, but the character is actually suposed to be dark blue. Yet, Knickerbocker made the smaller bean bag version of Cookie Monster dark blue (shown above). The Child Guidance Cookie Monster puppet is also dark blue. As these were the first ever plush toys of these characters, Knickerbocker had to figure out how to sell them and the colour choice seems to have been an important piece of the puzzle. Cookie Monster plush toys have been light blue, or bright blue, ever since with only a few exceptions while Grover has always been dark blue.

Here is the large Knickerbocker plush toys of Oscar, in two different sizes. The smaller size shown here is a talking toy, but non-talking plush toys this size were also made. For some odd reason, Knickerbocker originally made Oscar with a red felt tongue. Later versions of this toy from the 1980s don't have the tongue.

Here is the larger Knickerbocker plush toys of Snuffleupagus. It's interesting that Snuffy was included in the original line of plush toys as he was rarely marketed in other types of products. Snuffy was only made during the 1970s as by early the 1980s this toy was dropped from production. However, this is in no way a rare toy as it is easily found on on e-bay.

Here are the many different sizes of Ernie and Bert rag dolls made by Knickerbocker in the 1970s. I'm missing the 15" Ernie doll. The clothes (shirt and pants) are removable from all of these dolls except for the smallest size. I once saw a giant sized version of the Bert rag doll that was about five feet tall sitting down! Likely there would have also been a matching Ernie. Needless to say, those giant sized dolls are quite rare. Toy vechicles such as a truck or bicycle were made for the smallest size rag dolls. The smallest size also had other characters in the set, including Oscar, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and the Count. A plush car was made for either the 5 inch or 9 inch dolls (I'm not sure which). Talking versions were also made, likely for the 15 inch dolls. The Count and Betty Lou were also made as 15 inch rag dolls in this series.

Saving the best for last, here is the Fisher-Price Little People Playset that was made in 1974. Eight figures were included. Above are Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Oscar. I'm missing the three human characters, Mr. Hooper, Susan and Gordon. Other than the street sign I'm missing all the assessories too. That being said, I'm glad to have this set as I put it together very slowly over the years, piece by piece!

All photos and text on this blog page are copyright Mike Artelle.