Sesame Street "Crack Master" Short from Episode 818 (1975)

On Thursday 31 December, 1975, during Sesame Street Episode #818, aired, for the first time, a 1:29 short involving a girl seeing patterns in the cracks on her walls, from a camel, a monkey, a hen, and, most significantly, the eerie Crack Master that appears. The short is narrated (and partially sung) by a woman.

It was rumoured to have been created by animator Cosmo Anzilotti, though when we contacted him regarding it, he simply had no memory of ever working on the short, and suggested that it had been credited to him by mistake. The official title has never been released, though it is rumoured to be Cracks.

This short was said to be very frightening, as many people recount seeing it as children, and have posted their terrifying experiences on numerous forums. It aired a total of only 11 times over the course of 3 and a half years, with its final airing taking place on May 2, 1980. Some of the other episodes it appeared in have been made public knowledge, thanks to documents found at the CTW Archives. Interestingly, there have been multiple claims made that it did air in the late 90s/early 00s during the Spanish adaptation of Sesame Street called Plaza Sesamo, which was broadcast in Latin America, but so far, no physical evidence of this has been provided.

A man named Jon Armond, in 2009, was able to acquire a copy of the short when someone assumed to be close to the creator contacted him directly, after reading of his search effort online, later providing him with said copy, (although he has been contractually forbidden from sharing it in any form, bar private screenings, of which he has held several). In the same year, a blogger named Namowal (who had previously seen the clip as a child) was lucky enough to receive a viewing of Jon's copy, and later provided recreation sketches of the characters on her Tail o' the Rat blogspot page. For a time, it was rumored that the CTW (Children's Television Workshop) Archives held a copy, but this is simply untrue; we contacted the CTW Archives and they store very little video footage (none of their stored footage being the scarce cartoon we sought).

While Armond cannot release the clip at this time, he is currently in the process of making a documentary on the subject, in which the highly sought-after video will finally be shown again, more than 30 years after it was last aired in America (however, when recently asked about the project, he stated that it was still in its infant stages). He has also created and released a short 9 minute audio-only documentary, containing his rendition of the cartoon and detailing some of its history.