Bert & Ernie Sing-Along
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| Bert & Ernie Sing-Along | ||
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| Studio album by Bert and Ernie | ||
| Released | 1974 | |
| Recorded | 1973 | |
| Genre | Children | |
| Label | Pickwick Records | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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Bert and Ernie Sing Along is a Sesame Street album released in 1974 that involved the entire known cast of humans and muppets doing a sing-a-long in Bert and Ernie's bathroom.
[edit] Album's storyline
The album starts out with one of the rare times you hear of Bert taking a bath. As he does so, he is heard singing Yankee Doodle. Eventually Ernie comes in and pushes their piano into the bathroom and decides to join in, much to Bert's dismay. He starts playing music, which accompanies Bert singing in protest of the whole thing ("I Refuse To Sing Along"), with Ernie, in counterpoint, trying to persuade him to sing along.
After the song, and just as it seems Bert is going to get Ernie and the piano out, David joins them, followed by Gordon and Bob, then by Luis, Maria and Susan. They would start off by singing I've Been Working on the Railroad then Gordon, Luis, Maria, and David would do Old MacDonald Had a Farm. At this point Bert would start asking for a towel, conceding his bath to be over, but is either ignored or turned down by others because they couldn't access one for him.
y this point] and is quickly shut back down by the rest.)
Afterwards, Grover decides to contribute his own version of On Top of Old Smoky singing of him losing various things of his, including his way home, eventually finding his way home and finding his mother with everything he thought he had lost. Afterwards, Gordon and Susan sing Living Hand in Hand to end side one of the album.
Side two starts with Luis kicking off a staple called What's the Name of That Song where everybody, including Bert, contribute trying to guess what it is, but they end the song unsuccessfully. David then does a song called A Very Simple Dance where he got the whole group involved clapping their hands, stomping their feet, turning around, touching their toes, pulling their ears, flapping their arms, stretching up high, and all falling down.
Once the song ended, Bob told everybody to stay on the ground and keep quiet, while he sings a quiet song called Morningtown Ride about an overnight train ride to a town called Morningtown "many miles away".
Afterwards, Mr. Hooper arrives with three quarts of ice cream, and Ernie inspires the rest to sing Everyone Loves Ice Cream. Afterwards, Ernie gets Mr. Hooper to confess he also had cookies with him, which of course wakes Cookie Monster out of his silence, and gets him to do a cranked up arrangement of C is for Cookie, to which once the song ends, he eats every single cookie there himself.
The next song is called Peanuts, which is started by Luis, and is basically about a man who had plenty of peanuts and gave his neighbor none. Prairie Dawn (whose entry was never revealed) sings a verse using "soft sweet soda crackers", then Ernie uses "nice rich ripe red strawberry shortcake", while Big Bird tries to top them all with "gooey sticky pizza with plenty of cheese, pepperoni, and anchovies on top, and maybe some orange drink", but his is so far fetched they shut the whole song down on him.
The next song they all sing together is John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, which segues into She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain. Once that ends, Luis brings back up What's the Name of That Song? to which Cookie suggest "Moon Over my Cookie", and Big Bird suggests "The Blue Bird of Happiness", and The Count comes out of nowhere to suggest "604 bats hanging in the steeple", and is booed as they start the song again. Eventually, Bert jumps up and starts up a cranked up rendition of Sing, much to Ernie's surprise.
After that song, punctuated by Bert and Ernie's signature laughs, you'd think that's the end, but no. We soon hear a band playing Stars and Stripes Forever in the distance, and Ernie suddenly remembers he also invited the University of Michigan marching band. At that the door opens and we can hear the band clearer, along with everyone else's sheer delight at their presence, as the album finally fades out.
