Frazzle

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Sesame Street - The "Frazzle" Song -w-o rip marks- (1976, fade-in version)

Sesame Street - The "Frazzle" Song (1976)

Top (Blue): Regular music videos
Middle (Green): Alternative variants
Bottom: Videos

Frazzle is a Sesame Street song about Frazzle, the monster, with vocals by the Frazzletones. The song was first seen on Sesame Street as early as 1975, and has been on several episodes and a couple video release since. The song is about the idea that even the scariest looking creatures have emotions and feelings, and so to not judge a book by its cover, so to speak. As part of the song, the monsters burst out the background leaving Frazzle's rip marks on the surface in-order to communicate from one side to another expressing his emotions with the same grawl.

Nicknames[]

"The Song about Frazzle", "The Frazzle Song", "Broken Monster Background", "Ripped Up Background", "Frazzle's Emotions", "90's rip marks", "Rip wipes", "Falco's beak mark", "Horn with a sword", "Little Chrissy and the Monsters", "Funny Song: Frazzle Laughs" (refered by the chapter name on the Elmo Says BOO! DVD release)

Music Video[]

Febuary 9, 1976-1992, 1997, August 8, 2008

On a green background, we see Frazzle staring at the viewer idling for a second and then he grumbles before the music starts.

He walks a few steps at the beginning and during the song and runs outside the 4:3 screen, then a circle on the background wrapped with white ripped paper around it reveals The Frazzletones singing about him and his expressions prior to the transition to the Frazzletones section with a bourbon colored background. The iris after it engulfs contracts a little bit and the outline stays at it's scaling point.

In the order they sing, Little Chrissy is displayed first, Steve D' Monster second, both third and last, Maurice Monster, next we transit to the Frazzletones section where they shout the phrase "He goes".

As they start to move away to the far point from the camera, we see Frazzle snarling through ruptured circle causing the paper to shake with a teeter totter animation at a speed depending on how fast he growls while they watch him doing it. Immediately after the rip lines stop teeter-tottering, they describe what his growl does depending on his emotions. On the second time Frazzle grumbles, the paper stretches up once. After we hear Frazzle growl three times, we go back to Frazzle's section where we left off and this time, he walks to the left from the screen. The routine with the Frazzletones section through the broken background is repeated.

We head back onto the Frazzletone's section again Frazzle growls six times here. During the point after the third growl from him, he nods his head up and down, then the black line artifacts scattered on the screen from the tape recording flash around the ripped paper while some of the spots are concealed by the paper and he continues growling with the Frazzletones making noises. The last growl will make the ripped paper animation play at a slow speed before he runs to the left while the iris expands.

After that, he runs to the right again, the hole zooms in the center of the screen which Frazzle will appear in the same section with the Frazzletones and it zooms in to the nearest position of the screen instead of returning to that section and the teeter tottering velocity of the outline animation decreases a little. On this part, they switch back and fourth with the Frazzletones singing about his expressions and Frazzle growling ten times.

After it was done and everything about him has been explained, Maurice pops up alone from the rest of the crew, then the circle along with the ripped paper gradually zooms away. During the closure, Frazzle sneaks from behind him and then Frazzle pops up and grawls twice and the Frazzletones come together performing the last ensemble vocals, then it continues to permeate, and vanish while the music continues fading out until the end of the audio track and Frazzle's last growling noise (which are heard on the album version of this music) which then the music stops and we cut to black.

Frazzletones[]

The Frazzletones are three monsters that provide the actual vocals for the song, being as that Frazzle himself only growls. These monsters have been seen on Sesame Street before in other groups and in one monster's case a different form.

The first member is the lavender monster. Officially he does not have a name, however a replica, made by and puppeteered by Joseph Scarbrough, is known as Steve D'Monster. Hes built on a lavender skinned anything muppet, with lavender fur covering everything on him except his chin. He's got two yellow horns, bushy eyebrows, and a small round nose. In this appearance, he is voiced and puppeteered by Richard Hunt.

The second member is Maurice Monster. Hes a bit more unique in his design. He's got light blue fur covering him head to toe, and a big lime green nose. Though not considered a major character, he's a monster that has made many appearances on Sesame Street through the decades and made one appearance as Cookie Monster's cousin "Boso" on the pilot episode of Pizza Mit Biss on Sesamstrasse resembling the title monster. For the series of videos about foster care, he's also part of Karli's foster father along as "Clem" along with her other foster parent "Dalia". Sometimes he is voiced an puppeteered by Hunt, but here both are done by Jerry Nelson (who also voices Frazzle's growls).

The third is a very unique monster. Officially, he does not have a name, but pretty much it is accepted he is Little Chrissy, the well known piano playing muppet, except here he's a monster! It is speculated that he's an early version of Harvey Monster as they are both based on a "Fat Blue" anything muppet template, and have the same colored fur. Unlike Harvey, this guy has glasses, a single tooth on each jaw, and long orange hair. He is voiced by Chris Cerf, who also voices Little Chrissy, but its not known for sure who puppeteered him.

FX/SFX[]

Rip Lines — The ripped paper that teeter totters everytime Frazzle grumbles.

The outline overlay appearance was styled with a tribal like-design that look like horns, thorns, spikes, mountains and beaks. Parts of the design include a beak shaped similar to Falco Lombardi, a left lined horn seen on most tribal designs most notably in the buildings of Haunted Towers on Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a needle-nose plier on the bottom left, some knifes, a spear horn with mountain-like bumps, a screw driver horn on the top right with a line similar to Nike's logo, and a horn on the bottom right resembles a bread clip). Parts of the line's edges have some magenta and burnt orange coloring on it. The paper was created and applied to the circles to tell a viewer how fast and loud Frazzle is snarling. It is also used to make it look like the monsters are bursting through the background while they open up. However, the song has odd minor upscaling of the paper overlay which hides the parts of it that resemble in shape of mountains, a pawn and a horn. This happens on the Frazzletone background part once Frazzle snarls the time after the circle along with the graphic opened up to reveal him.

The graphic is rendered at the same frame rate as the recorded footage which is made for 60 frames per second.

For the ripped paper, I'm not sure who were the designers of the graphic, but if you are able to contact Mike Pantuso, Amy Love, or Pete Ortiz, ask one of them if they created it for this song.

The circles of each footage use clipping mask on the background to appear as the background is open. The opening, expansion and closing of the iris has choppy animation unlike the rip lines.

Lyrics/Transcript[]

Frazzle: ARGGHH!
[Frazzle Steps, then turns around and runs]
[Breaks background]
Little Chrissy: There's a monster name of Frazzle who's a good friend of mine!
Steve D' Monster: He looks ferocious, but he's really fine.
Both: Go up and ask him for his autograph.
Maurice: He'd be so happy that he'd start to laugh. [Circle continues the transition, then the paper disappears]
Three Frazzletones: He goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That's how he laughs he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper stretches and teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's glad he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's having the greatest time that he ever had. [Circle transits back to Frazzle]
[Frazzle leans and points two times, then runs to the left]
[Background tears]
Little Chrissy: Now you know my buddy Frazzle, he's got fangs on his jaws!
Steve D' Monster: His fur is orange, and he's got these claws.
Both: He looks so mean that he could scare a crowd.
Maurice: But if you tickle him he laughs out loud.
Three Frazzletones: He goes!
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That's how he laughs he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper stretches and teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's glad he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's having the greatest time that he ever had.
[Frazzletones making noises]
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper slowly teeters]
Three Frazzletones: Do wop.
[Frazzle tilts left and right three times, then runs and the circle fills the screen]
[Frazzle runs to join the Frazzletones]
[Background tears]
Little Chrissy: Mr. Frazzle has emotions like the rest of us do.
Steve D' Monster: Sometimes he feels low down and ugly, too.
Both: And then the tears begin to fill his eyes.
Maurice: It's so pathetic when a monster cries.
Three Frazzletones: He goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters and enlarges]
[Paper gradually rotates to a normal angle]
Three Frazzletones: That's how he cries he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's sad he goes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's having the lowest time that he ever had!
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's hungry.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's hot.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's sleepy.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means he's not.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means yes.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper slowly teeters]
Three Frazzletones: That means no.
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper slowly teeters]
Maurice: Means thank you for the dinner but, it's getting very late and I really must go. [Circle zooms out of the screen]
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper slowly teeters]
[Frazzletones making noises]
Frazzle: ARGGHH! [Paper slowly teeters]
[Circle zooming speeds up and disappears, then the music gradually fades]
Frazzle: ARGGHH!
[Frazzletones noises pitch down]
Frazzle: ARGGHH!
Three Frazzletones: Do wop.
Frazzle: ARGGHH!
Frazzle: ARGGHH!
[Cut to black]

Errors[]

SS Frazzle Song Circle Opening Frames — While using the frame by frame features while the video is paused, the frame on the left displays the circle appearing without the graphic added which appears to look like the original version of the song as the addition of the graphic was missed; stepping to the next frame will show the graphic in place of the circles that is intended to be seen on the screen.

Due to a keyframe error, the paper moves off-center before moving back to the position the circle is placed during the accelerated circle opening animation.
In some instances, the circle lines are visible because the paper overlay effect didn't fully cover them while zooming in.
The head for the puppeteer is partially shown on the bottom right.

The paper does not always cover the circle leaving some parts of the circle lines to be visible as it makes it's way to the same scale factor as the circle. It also occured with the transition back to the green background from the second time on the Frazzletones part. On the part after Frazzle leaves the green screen the third time from the bourbon colored background, the graphic doesn't stick with the circle and the transformation keyframes were supposed to stay within the position where the circle is placed, but instead moves itself to the top right of the screen which then goes back to it's normal position.

By using frame by frame on the version with the graphic present after Frazzle leaves the green screen or after the transition to the Frazzletones part where Frazzle starts growling, there are a number of frames that the circle appears before the ripped paper appears on the next frame. It is due to frame timing on adding the graphic effect onto the circle during the editing proccess. The first time that Frazzle walks away has it applied onto it at the same time the circle appears.

Another goof has the puppeteer's head for Chrissy partially shown on the bottom right of the screen in the second time in the Frazzletone part.

After the song was updated, a few frames after Frazzle nods his head from the previous variant were supposed to remain intact despite the post graphic animation being worked on, but they went missing. The original variant had the same issue when it was uploaded to the official website.

Variants[]

Pre-1997 episodes and releases had the song without the torn paper effect around the circles leaving the circle (except for the clipping size animations) static as Frazzle snarls. The variant made it's recent appearance on the 50th anniversary song compilation in 2019. A less contrasted variant of the music video without it was posted on Sesame Street's channel on YouTube. Compared to this and the 1997 variants, the colors were originally sienna and graphic green; the colors then were re-filtered giving it more contrast/saturation plus Chrissy's hair and Frazzle on this version has extra yellow tinting.
- Original CTW VHS releases of Elmo Says BOO! had minor differences to how the rip graphic was designed, compared to the reprints, and it's DVD counterpart.
The original version had less purple gradient on the left of the brown screen with the frames on the 2nd greatest time intact. Slightly cropped variations started appearing around the late 90's with one being the rip lines variation and the online versions.
On the home video Monster Hits!, the beginning of the first variant of the song is trimmed off which fades to the point where Frazzle runs to the end of the screen on the green background. The on-screen text is in "Geometric 231" font.
There is an abridged version of the song where it starts with Frazzle grumbling and near the end, the song freezes at the point where it continues to zoom away after the last growl and fades out instead of cutting to black. Additionally, the sides on this variant of the updated music video are also slightly cropped.

Music/Sounds[]

The song "Frazzle" features a sax, tambourines, bass, a guitar, and piano. The song's key is C major (just like Eight Balls of Fur) and uses what is known as the "50's progression", or the I-vi-IV-V chord sequence. Its called this because virtually every 50's era doo-wop group used it in their songs. Near the end, a piano descending sound is played once. The musical arrangement was provided by Sam Pottle, with lyrics by David Axlerod.

Music/Sounds Variant[]

For international dubs of this song, a Japanese dub exists on the Japan laserdisc of "Monster Hits!". It's unknown for any other non-English dubs for the ripped paper and original variants to appear elsewhere on any of the foreign co-productions of the series.
On Elmo Says BOO!, the song fades out early near the end for the ghost transition to transit to the Alphabet joke scene.
- A high pitched PAL variant appeared on the Disney UK VHS release.

Availability[]

Scarce, This was used on a few episodes of Sesame Street since 1975. On HBO Max, it appeared on Episode 1707 on HBO Max, and the home video Monster Hits! on VHS, Laserdisc (released in Japan only) and DVD. It is also included as part of the special as a bonus feature on Big Elmo Fun and the only trailer to feature a clip of this was shown on the 1998 Elmo Says BOO! trailer found on several Sony Wonder VHS releases like The Best of Kermit on Sesame Street.

The updated version was used for the home video Elmo Says BOO! released in July 8, 1997 on VHS, DVD in 2002 and the latter years, international VCD releases and it can also be found on Sesame Street's official YouTube Channel even though the video's thumbnail re-uses the original, but edited 16:9 screenshot, and renamed "The Frazzle Song" starting at 2021 in place of the paper-less version originally posted on July 19, 2011. It also appeared on the said special aired on PBS back in October 1997 and was included on the Season 28 reel at The Paley Center for Media as well as on Nick Jr. Sources for the version of this variant without the fade-out aren't known to appear on any episodes of the show, but don't expect to find the ripped paper variant on TV other than the special even though they should have used this on later episodes with this song. The previous variant was used instead on the 50th Anniversary song compilation although the song was last up to date.
Two variants of this song used to be on the official website "sesamestreet.org" where the video was added back in 2008 after the original website was renamed from "sesamestreet.com" and remained until 2016 while the later variant was available on Hulu. The first variant posted at the original date had the midway duration un-altered and later on, it was replaced with that part trimmed.

Trivia[]

The puppets used for the Frazzletones come from the first Fur song except that the Harvey puppet was modified to form a monster variation of "Little Chrissy".
This is one of Little Chrissy's only appearances on Sesame Street to be featured in monster form ever since he debuted in Count It Higher instead of the normal Chrissy puppet that was also in Eight Balls of Fur despite the subject of 8 fur balls which the monster one should have been in place to match the song's subject.
It appears that Frazzle might have broken through the circles to open a hole on the background so the monsters can see through it as they explain about Frazzle's emotions to the viewer. It also renders realistic hole openings rather than iris transitions itself.
As with the reflections on his glasses, it does not reflect through background intended for the song nor the rip lines. Instead it only reflects the lights shot in the studio where they puppeteered when videotaping this music video.
This is the song where Frazzle first got his name years after being used as an un-named pumpkin monster from an AM pattern.
This song was updated years after We Are All Monsters was changed first giving Kevin Clash's new voice effects for Elmo when these two songs were used to the two home video compilations.

Editor's Note[]

On transition to the Frazzletones part in the first time, the ripped paper disappears right before completely zooming outside of the screen and the irises mirror on the edges of the screen. While Frazzle moves away from the screen, he carries a black fur item on his paws with him making it appear that he's holding it and taking off with it.
The song would be cheesy if the rip lines were to be designed and added on the year where this debuted which then it would get replaced on update. On the other fact, Frazzle's marks aren't affected by VHS-like tape artifacts as it was Photoshopped and applied years after the production date.