Music by | Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper and Huey Lewis |
Lyrics by | Cathi Rosenberg-Turow and Norman Stiles |
EKA | Episode 2615 |
"It's Hip to Be a Square" is an animated song sketch first seen on Sesame Street in 1989, spoofing "Hip to Be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News. The short features a band of colored squares with stick-figure limbs against black-and-white, photographed backgrounds. Cut-outs and direct cel-drawings were utilized. The lead singer (voiced by Paul Jacobs) sings about his differences from other shapes, but they still get along.
In the Sesame Street Live stage show Big Bird & the ABCs, Bert performs the song with Cookie Monster, Ernie, and Guy Smiley, all wearing sunglasses.
Notes
- Lyricist Cathi Rosenberg-Turow detailed the conception of the piece at a 1992 event at The Paley Center for Media. Turow was inspired to spoof Lewis' "Hip to be Square" after listening to a tape of his and planned on re-titling it "I'm Hip 'Cause I Share." With head-writer Norman Stiles, the two re-worked the piece to be about shapes and later, racial acceptance. Initially conceived as a Muppet piece, the producers decided it should be animated instead. Huey Lewis and his team were contacted to use the original music as opposed to creating a sound-alike melody. The segment was animated by Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafferelli at Buzzco Associates, Inc..
Releases
- Video
- Rock & Roll! (1990, edited with a brief comment from Bert)
- Guess That Shape and Color (2006)
- Elmo's Shape Adventure (2011)
- Online
- Sesamestreet.org Template:SSvideo
- SesameStreet's YouTube Channel
- Other
- Numbers computer game (audio)