Sesame Street
"This show is brought to you by the letter D and the
number 8," said Sesame Street, cleverly framing its
lessons in the zippy style of TV commercials (which kids loved to
watch because they were quick and catchy).
A variety show for the kindergarten set, with a mix of skits,
songs, puppetry and animation. Sesame Street made learning
the alphabet as much fun for Mum and Dad as it was for Junior.
Sesame Street began its run on National Educational
Television/ PBS on 10 November 1969, and has been blending skits,
songs, puppetry and animation to teach letters, numbers and
concepts of grammar ever since.
The program was the brainchild of Joan Ganz Cooney of the
Children's Television Workshop and was set on the sidewalk of a
city street as it was designed originally to appeal to inner-city
preschoolers.
The show has featured some human characters, but the most
popular characters were the Jim Henson created Muppets, including
Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, Kermit the Frog
and, best-loved of all, Big Bird, a sweetly shy, 8-foot-tall
canary (who is not really a puppet at all, but a life-size figure
played first by Frank Oz and later by Carroll Spinney)..
The Sesame Street songs became a cultural phenomenon of
their own, with over fifty compilation albums recorded. Some
taught letters (“Letter B” to the Beatles’ Let It Be),
others numbers (“Born to Add” to Bruce Springsteen’s Born
to Run), others taught social lessons on everything from
recycling (“Keep On Truckin’”) to cleanliness (“I Gotta Be
Clean”) to self-acceptance (“Everyone Makes Mistakes”).
Still other songs may have had dubious educational value (did
anyone really learn anything from “Rubber Duckie” or “Me
Lost Me Cookie at the Disco”?) but were undeniably fun.
Sesame Street's human performers have included Loretta
Long (Susan), Matt Robinson and Roscoe Orman (Gordon), Bob McGrath
(Bob), Will Lee (Mr Hooper), Northern J Calloway (David), Emilio
Delgado (Luis) and Sonia Manzano (Maria).
Though the mood was usually light, Sesame Street didn’t
shy away from serious topics. When Will Lee (the actor who played
Mr. Hooper) passed away, a special episode dealt with the death,
as Big Bird learned how to cope with the loss of his dear friend.
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