Throwback Thursday: How to Get to Sesame Street

Sesame Street's been around so long that when you talk about it, you talk about eras. But whether you grew up in the Snuffy-was-still-imaginary era or in a post-Elmo world, you probably have some favorite moments you want to revisit.

But it can be tricky wading through 40 years of programming and dozens of DVDs to find that time Roosevelt Franklin taught the days of the week or Count sang "Lambaba."

So Throwback Thursday is here to help with our guide to your favorite Sesame Street moments (and where you can find them on DVD.)

And, as always, you can check out any and all of these items from Mentor Public Library.

The Old School collections are probably the single best way to find classic moments from the 1960s through early 1980s. Thus far, they've released three volumes (and two CDs.)

In Volume One, you find "Bein' Green," "Rubber Duckie," "I Love Trash," Batman crosses the street, the alphabet with Jackie Robinson and Lou Rawls, "C is for Cookie," "Ladybugs' Picnic," "There's a Bird on Me," Mumford turning Grover into a rabbit, "Martian Beauty," the first and last with Beetle Bailey, "Doin' the Pigeon," Stevie Wonder performing the Sesame Street theme song and Super Grover's ongoing struggle with the telephone booth.

In Volume Two, there's "Telephone Rock," Richard Pryor's (thankfully not profane) alphabet, Kermit and the weather salesman, Grover inventing the wheel, Paul Simon singing "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," "Cookie Disco," Fonzie and Richie Cunningham brushing their teeth and the Grover's continuing adventures as the world's worst waiter.

In Volume Three, you have Snuffy and Gordon running the New York marathon, a visit from R2-D2 and C3PO, "Dance Myself to Sleep," Oscar's Steve Martin parody "Trash Outta Heaven" and a special goodbye to Mr. Hooper.

40 Years of Sunny Days includes memorable moments from the first four decades of Sesame Street, including the first appearances of Telly Monster, Elmo, Zoe and Abby Cadabby, Maria and Luis' marriage, "Put Down the Duckie," Neil Patrick Harris as the Shoe Fairy and cameos from everyone from Robert Deniro to the Plain White Ts to Patti Labelle. (There's also a great book recapping the first 40 years of Sesame Street.)

And, as per other classic Sesame Street moment, if you're looking for Oscar's Patton homage, check out Follow That Bird.

The Sesame gang ice skating? That would be the Christmas special, (which also has my favorite performance of "Sing.")

That time Elmo went to Grouchland? The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland. (Yeah, some of these are easier to find than others.)

When in doubt, we always have a bunch of stuff with Elmo. Kids like Elmo, right?

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Father's Day Edition

Father's Day is this Sunday. You still have time to buy him a tie he'll never wear. Or you can just borrow a movie from the library that he'll actually want to watch.

We're even willing to offer some suggestions.

(As always, you can check out any and all of these movies and books from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

1. James Bond. Whether your dad prefers Daniel Craig, James Bond, Pierce Brosnan or Roger Moore—we refuse to acknowledge that anyone might prefer George Lazenby—we have what he wants. If he also likes the Ian Fleming novels, we have those too.

2. Rocky. Want a fun idea for Father's Day? Rent your dad all the Rocky movies—well, you can probably skip Rocky 5—and let him spend the day watching those. He'll laugh as Rocky tussles with Thunderlips, cry as he calls for Adrian and cheer as he beats communism by punching it. I promise you'll be his favorite kid. (Unless one of your siblings got him all the James Bond movies.)

3. ESPN's 30 for 30. It's OK if you haven't heard of ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary series. Your father has. they've covered everything from the rise of fantasy football to the twilight years of Ali's career. From baseball to bowling, ESPN's covered a moment of your dad's favorite sport in the sort of detail that only a father could love.

4. Die Hard. Also doubles as an excellent Christmas gift.

5. Fast and the Furious. If your dad's a bit older, try Bullitt.

6. Clear and Present Danger. I'm actually talking about the book this time. Just playing the statistics here: There's a good chance that your dad likes Tom Clancy novels and you might not even know it.

7. Indiana Jones. Another opportunity to borrow the whole series. Fair warning: Crystal Skull is to the Indiana Jones series as Rocky 5 is to Rocky.

8. Star Wars. You're dad probably wants to see Episodes IV-VI. (If your dad is a huge Star Wars fan, have him watch the Clone Wars series.)

9. Con Air. This film-length explosion features the Father's Day All-Stars: John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo and Nicolas Cage.

10. Or you could get your dad what he really wants, which is pretty much anything with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: All Aboard the Magic School Bus

We're celebrating science all summer long with this year's summer reading program.

And we're starting things off with a bang during our kickoff party this Saturday at the Read House. COSI (the Center of Science and Industry) will bring its traveling exhibits to the party and show kids how much fun science can be.

Even Throwback Thursday's getting involved. This week, we're highlight the scientific wayfarers aboard the Magic School Bus.

(As always, you can check out any and all of these movies and books from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

The Magic School Bus began as a series of books that were written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. The books took us inside of both the earth and the human body, out to the solar system, back to the dinosaurs and more. They are still classics (and still available at your local library.)

Of course, there's an entire generation that got to know the Magic School Bus via its TV show on PBS. If you're feeling nostalgic for a supernatural field trip, there are a bunch of ways to revisit Arnold, Wanda, Carlos and the rest of the gang.

You can borrow individual episodes or even the entire series from the library. Or, if you think DVDs are passe, you can stream episodes directly to your computer, phone or tablet for free via Hoopla, as long as you have a MPL card. (Click here if you need a refresher course on how to use Hoopla.)

So get on the Magic School Bus! It doesn't matter if you prefer reading the books, watching the show or even playing the games. What matters is that you learn something new and have fun while doing it.

It's what the Frizz would want.

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: A+ B-Movies

It's a contradiction of terms to talk about great B-movies. If they were that great, they wouldn't be B-movies. They'd just be movies.

But some of the schlocky, silly, underbudgeted films featuring 50-foot cavewomen, voracious blobs, radioactive monsters, and dinosaurs in the Wild West exceed their humble origins. They're a lot of fun. And, whether you're laughing sincerely or ironically, doesn't matter as long as you're having a good time.

So this week, we're dedicating Throwback Thursday to the best of the B-movies.

(As always, you can check out any and all of these movies and books from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

1. King Kong v. Godzilla—It's nigh impossible to get a group to agree on a favorite King Kong or Godzilla film, but anyone with the slightest sense of the spectacular can agree that the combination thereof is B-movie brilliance.

2. Piranha—Jaws begat a million imitators. For my money, Piranha is the funniest and the most fun.

3. Leprechaun 3—Picking a favorite Leprechaun movie is like picking a favorite flavor of M & M. You can dress them up so they look different, but they're all peddling the same shtick. A gory sadistic version of an Irish mythological character goes to some distinctive setting and kills people—usually in over-the-top fashion. In the third entry of this series, the Leprechaun goes to Vegas.

4. Death Race 2000—David Carradine versus a pre-Rocky Sylvestor Stallone (as Machine Gun Joe) in a cross-country race to the death! There are not enough exclamation points in the world to fittingly punctuate that premise!

5. Army of Darkness—Medieval setting? Check. Undead monsters? Check. Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw for a hand? Yes, sir. This is Sam Raimi's finest hour. (Don't talk to me about Spider-Man 2.) Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.

6. Plan 9 from Outer Space—This film from the godfather of schlock, Ed Wood, is legendary for all the wrong reasons. It's on the short list for worst movie ever. Sadly, it bottoms out beneath even Wood's usual standards for a tragic reason. Star Bela Lugosi died during production, so Wood used unrelated Lugosi footage from other films to complete it. No, it doesn't really work; but it's fascinating to watch.

7. Troll 2—You think Plan 9 is bad? Troll 2 is so horrific that they made a documentary about how bad it is.

8. House on Haunted Hill—I'm sure almost every Vincent Price movie except for Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine has been described as his "finest hour." But they're all lying. This is the greatest thing Vincent Price ever did. (Except for The Muppet Show.) by modern standards, it's about as scary as a box of puppies; but it's the quintessential 1950's horror flick.

9. Foodfight—The story behind Foodfight is a lot more entertaining than the movie itself. It stars Charlie Sheen as Dex Dogtective and HilaryDuff as Sunshine Goodness. I'd love to tell you what the movie is about, but I was distracted by the ridiculously bad animation. However, there's a reason for that. This movie was almost finished in 2003 when the hard drives with all the animation on it were stolen. So they had to redo the whole thing. On the cheap. And it shows.

10. Sharknado—It's a tornado of sharks. Do you really need more explanation than that?

Bonus Pick: Hobgoblins—This film is the epitome the good kind of bad and would have topped the list if we had the original and not the just the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. (But you should still totally check out the MST3k version.)

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Remembering our Fallen Heroes

The Mentor Public Library—all branches—will be closed Sunday and Monday for Memorial Day.

We hope you spend some time with your family and friends, but never forget the real reason it's a holiday. It's not so we can barbecue or work on our base tan. It's so we can thank those who have served to keep us free.

While it may seem trite to suggest a movie or a book to coincide with Memorial Day, sometimes entertainment is the most effective way to remind ourselves of what others have sacrificed for us. So this week we're dedicating Throwback Thursday to remembering our fallen heroes.

(As always, you can check out any and all of these movies and books from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

1. Saving Private Ryan—If this film ended after its depiction of the Omaha Beach assault, it would still be worth mentioning. By 1998 (when Private Ryan premiered,) war movies had transcended the dichotomy of either being patriotic or critical of war. This film (and especially its first 30 minutes) told war as it was: sometimes brave, sometimes heroic, often violent and always tragic.

2. The Sands of Iwo Jima—John Wayne is best known for his work in westerns, but he reserved his best work for war films. (Also see They Were Expendable, which you can stream for free on Hoopla.) Iwo Jima encapsulates more than its titular battle. It portrays a hard man—Marine Sergeant John Stryker—during harder times.

3. Platoon, Apocalypse Now & Good Morning, Vietnam—The Vietnam War does not lend itself to optimistic films. Frankly, this list could be longer: Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War... none of these films stir your patriotic spirit. But they are films that will move you.

4. Gettysburg—Perhaps because it's based on a book, this film plays more like a novel than a war film. There are dozens of characters. Each have their own motivation for fighting. Most importantly, every person in this movie thinks he is fighting on the side of right; or, at least, that his side is as right as any. (Also, if you love Gettysburg, check out Gods and Generals—either the book or the movie.

5. Twelve O'Clock High—There's something about the Air Force, right? No other movie juxtaposes the tragedy of war with the majesty of flying as memorably as Twelve O'Clock High, which tells the story of the United States Army's Eighth Air Force who flew daylight bombing missions against Nazi Germany and occupied France.

6. The Patriot—Considering how important it was for our country—for example, we wouldn't have a country without it—there are surprisingly few films about the Revolutionary War. The Patriot is a good place to start. You may also like Johnny Tremain and John Adams.

7. Hurt Locker, Three Kings, Turtles Can Fly—The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already inspired several films. While few have been box-office hits, many of them have been critical favorites and shaped how people view the wars.

8. All Quiet on the Western Front—For as many classic movies as there are about World War II, there are surprisingly few depicting WWI. All Quiet tells the story of Paul Baumer, an enlistee in the Imperial German Army. This 1930 film is realist, harrowing and, in many ways, ahead of its time. It predicts the nihilism of later war movies.

9. M*A*S*H—MASH is an incredible film in that it makes war funny without making it any less tragic. It tells the story of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. If you only know the TV show, you owe it to yourself to check out the movie.

10. Restrepo, The Tillman Story, Taxi to the Dark Side, Standard Operating Procedure—In addition to movies, there have been a lot of thought-provoking documentaries produced about wars.

Also, if you want to watch something right now, IndieFlix is streaming several war films, shorts and documentaries from its site right now, and you can watch as many of them as you want with a Mentor Public Library card. (Here's how to stream videos from IndieFlix, in case you forgot.)

Once more, we at Mentor Public Library want to take this opportunity to thank all those who have served and sacrificed for this country!

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Cartoons of the 80's

Last week we visited the sitcoms of the 1990's. This Throwback Thursday, we're jumping back a decade to the cartoons of the 1980's.

(And, as always, you can check out any and all of these shows from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

Let's start with some a hard truth: Not every 80's cartoon deserves to be remembered. Some were lousy spin-offs of live-action shows with ridiculous premises. (I'm looking at you, Gilligan's Planet. And you weren't much better, Laverne & Shirley in the Army.) Others were barely concealed toy commercials—even more so than He-Man. (They seriously made a Rubik's Cube cartoon.)

But the 80's also gave us a lot of fun shows that you can enjoy all over again.

For example, if you like talking animals, you have an entire zoo from from which you can pick favorites.

You can choose between Gummi Bears and Care Bears, My Little Pony and The Thundercats. (You picked Thundercats, right?) Or you can borrow them all.

My personal favorite of the lot is Garfield & Friends. And you can even fast forward through the U.S. Acres segments if you want. (Just kidding, we love Orson.)

The 80's also had a bevy of cool cartoons with heroines that young girls (and boys too) from any decade would like: Penny from Inspector Gadget, Strawberry Shortcake, Jem & the Holograms and, of course, She-Ra.

This decade was also the golden age of the Robots Turning Into Other Things genre. Voltron, Transformers, Gobots—no robot was just a robot. It was also a sports car and a microwave oven.

And, finally, you have those cartoons that defy definition like The Smurfs. Seriously, what are they? Are they tiny blue primates? Super-intelligent insects? Some sort of fungi? Eh, whatever, the theme song is catchy.

(True story: I thought The Smurfs and California Raisins were related when I was kid. It made enough sense. They were minuscule, similarly hued and solved most of their problems with music.)

What was your favorite cartoon from the 80's?

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Remembering 90's Sitcoms

What you consider the golden age of sitcoms depends on when you grew up.

If you grew up in the era of black-and-white TVs and three channels, you probably think the sitcom peaked with I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

If you’re a child of the 70′s, you’ll probably prefer The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H or All in the Family. The 80′s? Cheers and Cosby.

Each era has its highlights, they’ll likely all get their own dedicated Throwback Thursdays eventually. But, this Thursday, we hearken back to those halcyon days of Seinfeld, Frasier and TGIF.

That’s right. We’re going back to the 90′s! (And, as always, you can check out any and all of these shows from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

Hangout comedies

For most of the last century, sitcoms fell into one of two categories: the family and workplace sitcom. (Some shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show combined them.)


Cheers begat a third: the hangout sitcom.

The 90′s neither invented nor perfected the hangout sitcom. (I don’t know by what metric you rate a sitcom; but, no matter what, Cheers has to rank pretty high, right?) But it did proliferate them, and some of the best sitcoms of the decade were of this type.

Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace and even latter years of Boy Meets World were all about characters who you wanted to spend time with. Maybe something happened in that episode, maybe nothing happened; but, either way, you wanted to hang out.

Workplace comedies

Workplace comedies fell out of vogue in the 90′s. More often than not, the workplace became part of the family sitcom. For example, Home Improvement wasn’t based around Tool Time and Frasier didn’t spend all of his time at the radio station, but you still saw that part of the characters’ lives.

However, there were still some comedies based around the job in the style of The Mary Tyler Show. My favorites of the bunch are Newsradio and Just Shoot Me. Coincidentally, both are based around jobs in media. For Just Shoot Me, it’s a fashion magazine. For Newsradio… well, I think it’s pretty obvious where they’re working.

If you only recall Newsradio and Just Shoot Me as the things Phil Hartman and David Spade, respectively, after Saturday Night Live, then you should give them another look. They’re better than you remember.

Family comedies

From The Honeymooners to Modern Family, the family comedy will never go out of style. And while the 90′s is mainly though of as the era of the hangout comedy, there were still several great shows based around families.

Roseanne, Married… with Children, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Simpsons, Dharma & Greg, Full House,Daria and Family Matters depicted different families that represented the diversity of families watching.

The one thing they all had in common: They made us laugh.

Feel free to check out any of these shows from Mentor Public Library. It’s free with your library card (and you have a library card, right?)

What was your favorite sitcom from the 90′s?

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Superheroes!

Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday. (Between that and Star Ways Day on May 4, this is pretty much the best weekend ever.)

You can and should celebrate Free Comic Book Day with our friends at Comics & Friends; but, with all due respect to them and every other beautiful comic book shop across this wonderful country, every day is Free Comic Book Day at Mentor Library.

That's why we're dedicating this Throwback Thursday to the superheroes! So come with us and see some of the cool superheroics you can check out from the library.

1. We could dedicate an entire Throwback Thursday just to Batman. We have movies where he's played by Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Val Kilmer, Adam West, Kevin Conroy and (ugh) George Clooney. We even have one where he's made from Lego and another where he teams up with Scooby-Doo.

As per TV shows, you can borrow Batman: The Animated Series, Beware the Batman, The Batman, Batman: The Brave & The Bold, Batman Beyond and The New Adventures of Batman.

We also have plenty of videos starring Batman's team, the Justice League—everything from Challenge of the Superfriends to Justice League to Justice League Unlimited to the Robot Chicken DC Special. (Consider yourself warned. The Robot Chicken special is not the sort of thing you want to play for younger kids.)

If you prefer Robin to Batman, we have Teen Titans, Young Justice and Teen Titans Go.

We've got the greatest hits of Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and, ummmm, Martian Manhunter. Sure, why not? Martian Manhunter!

If you'd rather make yours Marvel, we have that been abundance, as well.

We have DVDs that you can borrow of almost every iteration of the X-Men ever committed to video: movies and animated series spanning three decades. No, Pryde of the X-Men though. Sorry.

And that's still dwarfed by our Spider-Man collection. Whether you prefer Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, Neil Patrick Harris, Drake Bell, Christopher Daniel Barnes or Josh Keaton as your webslinger, we have something for you.

And we've still got more Avengers movies and TV shows than you can shake an adamantium claw at: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Planet Hulk (yes, that's a thing,) Iron Man again, the whole team and more Iron Man. We also have the Avengers teaming up with Phineas and Ferb. (A match-up for the ages: Batman & Scooby-Doo v. the Avengers & Perry the Platypus.)

There are plenty of awesome superheroes beyond the Marvel and DC stables: Hellboy, the Rocketeer, Sailor Moon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more are all worth your time. (It makes me sad that Static Shock isn't on DVD.)

Furthermore, there are all sorts of great stories that came from comics that have nothing to do with tights and flights. Ghost World, Road to Perdition and Archie all got their start as sequential art.

If you want to know more, visit your local library or comic shop. (After all, Free Comic Book Day is coming up...)

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Once Upon a Time in a Western

The western, as a genre, seems to have fallen out of vogue. Not even high-powered combination of Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski could make the recent Lone Ranger film a sure thing. (That having been said, if you want an awesome Johnny Depp western, may I recommend Rango.)

But the American west will always have a nostalgic appeal for those who grew up on John Wayne, Louis L'Amour and Bonanza. That's why we're dedicating this week's Throwback Thursday to the western.

With all due respect to the aforementioned L'Amour, the first name in westerns will always be John Wayne. Yes, his range extended beyond a 10-gallon hat and a stoic stare. (Personally, I loved his turn in I Love Lucy.) But if you need a place to start, check out his Oscar-winning performance in True Grit or his classic turn in Hondo. Try his Ultimate Collection if you want to get a taste of the Duke's lesser known films. You can also stream several of Wayne's movies for free onto your computers, phones and tablets with you library via Hoopla. (How to use Hoopla, in case you forgot.)

If you're looking for a more contemporary film, my personal favorite is Tombstone, but 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James are both well worth your time.

There are plenty of classic westerns for the small screen too and you can borrow any of them—Bonanza, Rawhide, Wild Wild West (even the other Wild Wild West)—from Mentor Public Library.

The westerns were such a revolutionary genre of film and television, they created their own style of music to accompany them—wavering harmonicas, barely tuned pianos and rustling spurs for percussion. The most famous composer for westerns was Ennio Morricone, but he's just the tip of the iceberg. And if you love the music as much as you love the movies, you can borrow both at the library.

If you'd rather read than watch, we have dozens of L'Amour books available for checkout. And if you want something more contemporary, may I recommend Elmore Leonard?

And if you like your Western movies a little broader, well, there's always Blazing Saddles. It's the perfect movie if you hate westerns and if you love them.

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Throwback Thursday: Remembering Shirley Temple, America's Sweetheart

As part of National Library Week, we're kicking off Throwback Thursday—our celebration of films, TV shows, music and stars we love from yesteryear.

And who else can we feature for our inaugural edition but America's Sweetheart?

Shirley Temple Black requires no introduction so we'll keep this short. She is on the short list for the most famous child star of all time. (The entire list: Shirley Temple and Michael Jackson.)

Her acting career was a comet. She was the most famous actress in the world before she hit puberty and functionally retired by the age of 22.

To her credit, she avoided many of the pitfalls that snare the obscenely famous once they become slightly less famous. She served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, as well as the first female U.S. Chief of Protocol.

She survived breast cancer and was one of the first prominent women to speak about the disease publicly. She died this year at 85 and was survived by her three children, one granddaughter and two great-grandchildren.

Whether you're already a huge Shirley fan or don't know where to begin with her classic filmography, the Mentor Library can help you find what we're looking for.

We have most of her films on DVD from her classics like Curly Top, Heidi and Bright Eyes to her less known films like Young People.

If you'd rather stream a movie onto your computer, phone or tablet than watch a DVD, you can use your library card to stream Shirley's The Little Princess, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer and The Story of Seabiscuit via Hoopla. (You remember how to use Hoopla, right?)

Maybe you just want to listen to Shirley's music. Who doesn't want to hear "Animal Crackers in my Soup" or "On the Good Ship Lollipop" sometimes?

Well, you can use your library card to download mp3s of those and more of her greatest hits for free from Freegal. You never have to return them either. Those songs are yours to keep and use however you want for the rest of your life. (In case you don't know how to use Freegal...)

And we have all sorts of books about Shirley too. This is, after all, a library. We have biographies, pictorial histories, children's books about her and more.

So if you want to revisit the codfish ball or the good ship Lollipop, stop by the Mentor Public Library; because a classic like Shirely Temple never goes out of style.

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.