Thirty years ago, the cast of "Sesame Street" left their concrete sidewalks and urban stoops for the verdant backyards of Kaua'i. Mr. Hooper went surfing, Maria and Bob learned Hawaiian songs from Aunty Nona Beamer, and Snuffleupagus searched for his ancestors in the mountains.

Clips from the episodes, which were shot in July 1977 and aired in January 1978, were posted on YouTube by a fan last month. Other than that, the footage has not been released on Classic Sesame Street DVDs and might otherwise slip into the realm of forgotten.

People involved in the Kaua'i production of "Sesame Street" remember it well, though. They remember it fondly.

Longtime Kaua'i resident, Academy Award-winning singer, musician and composer Buffy Sainte-Marie was a regular on "Sesame Street" at the time. She had earlier persuaded the production team to shoot episodes at the Taos Pueblo reservation in New Mexico.

She was the conduit to bring the show to Kaua'i, gathering kupuna and keiki to give input on the project. The culmination of the week of shows was her son Cody Wolfchild's first-year baby lu'au. In fact, many of the scenes were shot in her backyard.

"These people were not just about making a TV show, they were really into doing it for the children," Sainte-Marie said. "They were in it for the long haul and they wanted to get it right."

Toward that end, Sainte-Marie introduced the Sesame Street team to the Beamer family. Keola Beamer, along with brother Kapono and mother Nona, stars in the Kaua'i episodes. The Beamers also composed music for the shows and sang the "Sesame Street" theme song in Hawaiian.

"I worked closely with Sam Pottle, the composer/musical director of Sesame Street/Children's Television Network at the time," Keola Beamer recalled. "We had lots of fun trying to make mosquito sounds on the steel guitar, and I asked Sam to position himself with a catcher's mitt at the end of the studio, because the steel bar could go flying out of Barney Isaac's hand after a high-speed mosquito pass. 'Somebody could get hurt,' I told him with a straight face. Sam looked at me kind of funny after that, but we got to be good friends."

Part of the story line involved the character Snuffleupagus searching for his kupuna of legend, a mountain shaped like a Snuffleupagus that awakened every 100 years. Since Snuffy's prominent feature is his snuffle, and since Beamer is an accomplished nose-flute player, he performed an ohe hano ihu duet with the big muppet.

"I asked the prop department to make a giant nose flute, and then off-camera we hired a guy from the symphony to play tuba as Snuffy jammed," Beamer said.

That clip, a rare little gem, is on YouTube.

Sesame Street was different in 1977. Mr. Hooper ran the grocery store, the neighborhood had yet to be gentrified, and Elmo wasn't even a glimmer in a Muppet designer's eye.

Kaua'i was very different, too. The beaches look deserted. The hills in the distance have no houses. In one clip, you can see a sugar mill working in the distance. The scene where the cast rides in the back of a pickup truck was really how people got around back then. OK, that still happens, but not as much.

In one musical segment, Keola Beamer sings "Real Old Style" while the audience watches a Hawaiian father teach his children how to fix throw nets. It might be the most haunting, lovely music video you'll ever see. In another, Beamer jumps up to demonstrate a hula the likes of which you only get to see at your uncle's backyard party, while wearing tight maroon pants, the likes of which you only got to see in 1977. In one scene, George "Boogie" Kalama, a crew member on Hokule'a's first voyage, shows Susan how to handle two-finger poi. It's museum-quality stuff.

Ingeborg Norden, a Wisconsin fan who posted the clips on YouTube, writes a blog for the Classic Sesame Street Fan Club.

"One fan said he was frightened by seeing Mr. Hooper surfing," she said by e-mail. "Several were impressed with Keola's talent as a musician and storyteller. The scene with Buffy and local children discussing their heritage impressed a few fans who didn't know Hawai'i was that multicultural ... and the search for Mount Snuffleupagus has sparked some lively discussions on at least two Muppet fan forums."

Last year, Sainte-Marie was asked to sign a release so the Kaua'i footage could eventually be included on a DVD of Classic Sesame Street.

She hopes that happens in 2008.

"I learned so much from 'Sesame Street,' " she said. "They were such professionals as well as being all heart. They were ahead of everybody in their thinking, and they were so committed to getting it right."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.