In a way, it's good that Series 1 of palisades' Sesame Street line never made it to shelves: after all, Bert was scheduled for Series 2, so Ernie would have been relegated to being forever alone.
It's also interesting to note one way in which NECA's Bert is firmly superior: Palisades originally sculpted Bert with his eyebrow raised, but made it flat when revisions were done.
They might have done that alternate expression on one of the later variations (there was a "Bedtime Bert" exclusive that was meant to come out alongside Series 1, and "Bathtime Bert" with Series 5), but only NECA came up with the idea to make the brows swap out.
