I scream, you scream, we all scream for "I-Beam"! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' used to be edgy: Cookie Monster was slovenly. The ol' Osk was a grouch. Cartoon darts carried people away and splattered their guts onto dartboards.

And the letter 'I' was a red-hot piece of steel!

Many 'Sesame Street' experts cite a live action clip titled "I-Beam" as one of the show's most thrillingly scary segments. And wouldn't ya know it! Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, it's now on YouPube after many years of obscurity...



That clip from around 1977 shows a piping hot I-beam rolling through a steel mill! It was reportedly filmed at a mill in Pennsylvania, and it was designed to teach about the letter 'I'. Many are still unnerved by it, but clips like this made America strong!

The copy on YouTube starts out with a lengthy leader, for it was gathered at Sesame Workshop's archives. The segment begins 35 seconds into the YouTube clip.

Even the music in this segment is exciting! The clank at the beginning of the sketch always took viewers by surprise!

The only drawback to this clip is that when I saw it in my childhood, I wasn't sure it was supposed to represent the letter 'I'. I knew it looked like an 'I', but the font seemed unusual. I thought maybe it was a giant bone for dogs.

Clank!