Barbra Streisand

Paul Williams and Barbra Streisand

Jim Henson Hour Food commercial

"I Love a Puree" sung by Barbra Streisandwich

The section of the liner notes for Release Me 2 discussing Rainbow Connection's inclusion.

Release Me 2's liner notes also has an image of a Kermit plush on a shelf sandwiched between the master tapes of the recordings used on the album.

Barbra Streisand (b. 1942) is a singer and actor working in Hollywood since the 1960s.

Her 1972 album Live Concert at the Forum features two performances of the Sesame Street original song, "Sing"; the first one as a medley with "Make Your Own Kind of Music" by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and the second with "Happy Days Are Here Again". During the 1970s, she regularly performed "Somebody Come and Play" in live concerts.

She wrote "Evergreen" with Paul Williams for A Star Is Born in 1977, which earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

In 1979 she recorded vocals for "Rainbow Connection" for her album Wet, but the track was not included in the final album. In 2021, she reworked the track as a duet with Kermit the Frog (using archival audio of a performance by Jim Henson) for her 2021 compilation album Release Me 2.

References

• Streisand's version of "Minute Waltz" from her album Color Me Barbara was lip-synced to in a season one insert on Sesame Street.

• In The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show, Miss Piggy tasks George Hamilton and John Ritter with introducing her following number by reading some cue cards she'd prepared. Amongst the accolades attributed her include alleged comments from Streisand.

• The "Food" episode of The Jim Henson Hour features a fake commercial for an album of food-themed songs. One of them is "I Love a Puree" sung by Barbra Streisandwich.

• In episode 109 of Muppets Tonight, Whoopi Goldberg jokingly tells Piggy that she's always wanted to perform with "the world's greatest female performer...Streisand."

• During a February 24, 1997 appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Elmo says to Rosie O'Donnell as they're about to drive away, "Let's hear some tunes, Rosie. And no Streisand this time."

• During an interview for The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Bug claims that Mandy Patinkin was more nervous working with Elmo than he was with Streisand. Additionally, Bug points out that you never see any Tickle Me Barbra dolls.

• On Elmo's last visit to The Rosie O'Donnell Show in May 2002, he sings a modified version of Streisand's "People" as a farewell song to O'Donnell, rewritten as "Monsters Who Love Rosie." In a pre-taped segment that same month, the Sesame Muppets deliver a musical goodbye to Rosie. At one point, Zoe shows off an image of Streisand.

• The Boss mentions getting Streisand for the Armageddon post-party in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.