Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?
— Opening theme*
Official location is in New York City, [1], it is unclear where in NYC the street is
Joan Ganz Cooney of the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) created this hourlong PBS series in 1969. Initially, it was created as a means of preparing young inner-city children for kindergarten. Instead, it got to everybody and became one of the all-time great educational shows.The show teaches literacy, counting, simple logic*
"Which key fits" and the What Happens Next machine, see below, demonstrate tools of logic and reasoning such as trial and error, process of eliminations, and cause and effect.
, and social skills through a kaleidoscopic mix of puppetry, animation and short films. In a radical departure for the time, it was designed to deliberately mimic the fast pace and style of TV advertising in order to 'sell' learning to kids: An Aesop-friendly story featuring the recurring characters on the Street would be intercut with rapid-fire 'commercials' for that day's 'sponsors' ("Sesame Street has been brought to you today by the letters A and S, and the number 7...").The show was — and still is — also revolutionary in having an elite squad of educators and child psychologists pore over every single aspect of every segment in the whole show. "Sesame Street" has been called a living laboratory, and the show has been constantly tweaked to introduce new curriculum and improve its educational value. Most recently, the show was completely retooled in 2002 to respond to new child development research. As per The Other Wiki:Sesame Street underwent an obvious, dramatic makeover... The new format emphasized rituals and repetition, featured brighter, more cartoon-colorful real-life characters and sets, and more exaggerated, simplistic mannerisms in addressing the screen and seeking viewer interaction. Regular segments... are almost identical from one episode to the next, with only minor story details changing between shows.The set has expanded and contracted over the years but in classic form is a typical New York cul-de-sac, with a brownstone apartment block, a convenience store, a boarded-off vacant lot, and a big open area at one end used as a playground. This urban setting, multiracial human cast (plus guest stars, including Jesse Jackson and Bill Cosby) and multicoloured Muppets added to the hip, inclusive feel.Although aimed at preschool children, Sesame Street deliberately includes enough mainstream pop culture references to entertain older children and parents as well, the better to encourage family involvement in the learning process. A cameo appearance on the Street quickly became celebrity chic, showcasing such diverse stars as Stevie Wonder, R.E.M., Madeline Kahn, the Star Wars droids, Paul Simon, Mel Gibson and Patrick Stewart. All of this has had the side benefit of the show developing a very strong adult fanbase over the decades, as the original audiences have grown up and introduced the show to their children.On November 11, 2009, Sesame Street celebrated its 40th anniversary, making it the longest-running and most successful children's show in American TV history. For the sake of education, we hope it stays around for at least 50 more.The human cast has varied over the years, but the core has remained relatively stable: Black married couple Susan and Gordon (and later their adopted son Miles), who work as a nurse and a junior-high science teacher, respectively. Puerto Rican college student Maria and (until 1990) black student and store clerk David. White freelance musician Bob and (until 2003) his deaf librarian girlfriend Linda. Hispanic "Fix-It Shop" owner Luis, who later married Maria. They have a daughter, Gabriella.When Will Lee — who played crotchety storekeeper with a heart of gold Mr. Hooper — died mid-season in 1983, the show tackled the character's death head-on, with honesty, dignity and respect, in what is still considered a milestone of children's programming. His store's ownership has changed hands a number of times — Mr. Hooper left the store to his assistant David, who sold it to black retired firefighter Mr. Handford following his own departure, who handed over ownership to Japanese-American Alan in 1998 — but the store retains Mr. Hooper's name to this day.Various specialised Muppets, created and performed by Jim Henson and his crew, star alongside the humans. The Sesame Muppet characters were initially intended as parts of the "commercial" shorts that would only air on occasion, but they became such a hit that the show was tweaked very early in the season to include them into the core structure. They were developed separately from the rest of the Henson stable and are the property of what is now Sesame Workshop; with the exception of Kermit the Frog, they only very rarely cross over into the Muppet Show universe, though, Disney's deal now prohibits Kermit from appearing on the show anymore.
Memorable Muppets include:
Kermit the Frog, seen most often in the guise of a trenchcoat-sporting roving reporter, whose 'fast-breaking exclusives' on fairy tales and other Street developments tended to run into the same problems as Wally Ballou's;
Sweetly naive Big Bird, developmentally age six but physically eight-foot-two, who makes his nest in the vacant lot and is 'parented' by the human characters;
Giant... Hawaiian woolly-mammoth-type-thing... Mr. Snuffleupagus, Big Bird's not-so-imaginary friend, originally always justout of visual range of the grownups but eventually revealed a decade or so in, out of fears that he was teaching kids they wouldn't be believed if they had something important to tell;
Odd Couple roommates Bert and Ernie, the former a seriously uptight fan of pigeons and oatmeal and the latter an imaginative dreamer and prankster;
Cookie Monster, the googly-eyed personification of appetite ("Me want COOKIE!! OMNOMNOMNOM!!!") much to the consternation of whoever was currently trying to teach him Valuable Lessons (counting, sharing etc.) using a plateful;
Prairie Dawn, a pretty, prim, sometimes bossy little overachiever, who gets a lot more facetime lately thanks to being one of very few major female Muppets in the cast;
Count von Count, a vampire (or possibly not, depending on who you ask) who pursues his numerical fetish to the point where his victims would probably be thrilled with requests for their blood instead ("One! One irritated person! Two! Two irritated people! AH AH AH AH AH!");
'Loveable, furry old Grover', a blue monster whose endless enthusiasm and good intentions repeatedly run up against a less-than-impressed universe (especially when he puts on a cape and helmet and, er, 'flies' as Super-Grover);
Various other fuzzy monsters, notably Telly, a neurotic worrywart with a strange enthusiasm for triangles; Herry, an athlete who Does Not Know His Own Strength; the gibberish-talking Two-Headed Monster who sounded out words, and Zoe, a ballet-dancing preschooler added in later years;
Abby Cadabby, the most recent female addition, a pink-and-purple 'fairy-in-training' who — despite having a cell phone for a wand — is perpetually wowed by basic learning concepts in the human world ("That's so magical!");
Elmo, a cutesy-voiced red monster with a 'psychological age' of three and a half and a distinctive habit of referring to himself in the third person ("Elmo not sure this good idea..."). A later addition to the cast who became Urkel-level ubiquitous after the spinoff 'Tickle Me Elmo' toy proved a mega-hit for Christmas 1996. (As a public television broadcast in a country whose government does not fully fund public broadcasting, the show is heavily dependent on merchandising revenues, so...) He was eventually given his own regular 15-minute segment, Elmo's World, soon spun off into a series in its own right outside the US. Whether all this is a good thing or not is the subject of much adult skepticism — to put it kindly — especially among fans of the show's earlier years.
This show has a very rudimentary character page, with characters having few tropes, if any at all. Please come help!
Aloha Hawaii: A multi-episode story arc in 1978 had the main human characters traveling to Hawaii, along with Big Bird and Snuffy. The latter learned that Hawaii happens to be the point of origin for all Snuffelupagi.
Ambiguously Jewish: Mr. Hooper. On rare occasions the show would make it more explicit, as when Bob wished him a happy Hanukkah in the Christmas Eve special, or when Big Bird inquired about the different languages the characters could speak and he mentioned that he learned Yiddish as a boy.
The Count may be a Space Jew. (His lietmotif is actually a Roma tune, but it happens to sound identical to Klezmer.) Meanwhile, Oscar the Grouch has Israeli relatives, as seen in "Shalom Sesame", and they don't seem to be Israeli Arabs.
The Artifact: Telly was originally "The Television Monster", an example of a child who watched too much television - the prototype even came complete with wildly spiralling eyes from sitting too close. This characterization has largely died away, leaving only his trademark nervous personality.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Cookie Monster has never used the catchphrase "Cookies are a sometimes food!". It was Hoots the Owl who sang "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food" to Cookie Monster. After the song, Cookie Monster replied "Me get it, cookie is sometimes food. You know what? Right now is sometime!" and devoured the cookie.
Big Applesauce: Sesame Street has been shown to be in New York on maps in both Follow that Bird and the five-part hurricane story arc.
Big Bird Movie: 1985's Follow That Bird, which required a bigger, more elaborate street set in Toronto (and in the same studio where Fraggle Rock was shot) to make it look good on the silver screen.
Blessed with Suck/Driven to Suicide: Everything King Minus touches ceases to exist. This includes the princess he wanted to save; he annihilated himself in horror after that.
Blowing A Raspberry: The movie in which Elmo goes to Grouchland features the Queen of Trash demanding one hundred of these "raspberries" in a set time.
Bus Crash (to explain death to children): Mr. Hooper, after actor Will Lee's death.
Calling the Old Man Out and Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Big Bird actually did this to freaking Osiris when encountering him in Don't Eat the Pictures when demanding he give the little Egyptian ghost prince he helped get this far another chance on the weighing of the heart.
Canon Discontinuity: Because of the passage of time and as their child audiences grow up, some concepts need to be retaught. One 2006 episode saw Bob introducing his deaf niece to Telly and Elmo and teaching them the concept of deafness, never mind the fact that they had previously known (and in Bob's case, even courted) Linda.
Carrying a Cake: The inevitable climax to the "number song" bits from the first season.
The Count also acted a bit more like a vampire in his early appearances, moving his hands around as if hypnotizing others as well as walking around with his cape across his face. His laugh was also louder and more sinister as opposed to the softer chuckle of today.
Cookie Monster behaved more like a toddler: he interfered with others (though unaware he was doing so), was occasionally fussy when he didn't get his way, and was scolded by other characters when he misbehaved. It wasn't until his Signature Song "C is for Cookie" in 1971 that Cookie Monster's personality was firmly established.
Christmas Special: The utterly adorable Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.
Not to mention A Special Sesame Street Christmas, which first aired on CBS — the same year as Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (and the same network as The Star Wars Holiday Special) — and is known primarily for being less "utterly adorable" than it was utterly awful.
Then there's the brilliant Elmo Saves Christmas featuring Harvey Fierstein and Maya Angelou.
And there's Elmo's Christmas Countdown, and the utterly pointless A Sesame Street Christmas Carol which, you guessed it, is Yet Another Christmas CarolClip Show comprised of the "main" plot with clips from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Elmo Saves Christmas and Elmo's World: Happy Holidays half-assedly connected with the plot.
How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys?: Subverted. In Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Oscar's question is, more accurately, "How can Santa fit down the chimney?" Big Bird nearly freezes waiting up for the answer, and doesn't get one. Elmo Saves Christmas reveals that he has a time-traveling reindeer.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Sadly, numerous Muppet characters have gotten the hook over the years. One, Don Music, the piano player who would bang his head against the piano in frustration, had to be discontinued when kids at home started doing the same thing. Another, Harvey Kneeslapper, was discontinued because his signature laugh was too much of a strain on Frank Oz's vocal cords. Then there was Roosevelt Franklin, arguably one of the first breakthrough Sesame Street Muppets, who had to go as he was considered to be a negative cultural stereotype (he was the only African-American Muppet at the time and was seen mostly in detention after school). Finally, Professor Hastings, a teacher whose lectures were so dull that he'd put himself to sleep while he was giving them, was discontinued because he was too dull.
Clark Kenting: Parodied by Super-Grover, whose bespectacled alter-ego is "Grover Kent, ace doorknob salesman for ACME Inc."; which leaves the fact that they both just happen to be furry blue monsters wholly unexplained.
Commuting On A Bus: Several of the human cast, but most notably Bob and Susan, since season 29. Also happens to the Muppets from time to time, usually due to concerns over the character's particular impact on young audiences.
Companion Cube: Big Bird's teddy bear, Ernie's rubber duckie, Zoe's pet rock.
Content Warnings: On the "Old School" DVDs: "These early episodes of Sesame Street are intended for grown-ups, and may not meet the needs of today's preschoolers". A bit unnerving for now-adult fans, but it must be remembered that the target audience of Sesame Street is very young children. Word Of God is that the main concern — however awkwardly it was phrased — was that seeing early episodes with a goofy Big Bird, bright orange and surly Oscar, younger versions of the humans, and no Elmo would be a Mind Screw for contemporary toddlers.
Cross Over: Mister Rogers passes through the neighborhood in one 1981 episode. Later that year, Big Bird appeared in turn in an episode of Rogers' show.
Kermit the Frog became the host and main character of The Muppet Show, of course. Another early Jim Henson Muppet, Rowlf the Dog, appeared with Kermit in the promotional pitch reel for Sesame Street (and made a single cameo appearance in the "Song of 9" from the show's first season) before becoming a Muppet Show regular himself. Big Bird guest-starred in one Muppet Show episode, Ernie and Bert in another. Still another episode had practically *all* of the Sesame Muppets turn up in one sketch. And then there was A Muppet Family Christmas...
The Danza: Bob McGrath, who plays Bob Johnson on the show.
Linda Bove As Herself, and Miles Robinson was originally played by Miles Orman.
Sesame Street has had a lot of Danzas. Even Tony himself has appeared as a guest star.
Defictionalization: Outside Philadelphia, there's a theme park in Sesame Place. It includes a perfect, life-size replica of the set of the show, and the characters come out to greet guests constantly. Yes, you can take photos.
For the show's 40th anniversary, a corner of Manhattan was temporarily renamed 123 Sesame Street.
Deadpan Snarker: Bert or Oscar, normally. Though the writers have infused many of the characters with this trait when the sketch calls for it.
Died On A Bus: Northern Calloway, who played David, was fired from the show in 1989 due to having serious mental health issues and the wildly erratic behavior it caused. He was institutionalized and died several months later. David was said to have moved to a farm to live with his grandmother.
Digging To China: The Big Bird In China TV-movie special. Oscar and Telly feel left out, so they decide to dig (Oscar makes Telly do all the actual work). As soon as they get there, Oscar decides that "Ehhh, it's not so special!" and immediately turns around to go home.
Dripping Disturbance: In one early episode, one sketch with Bert and Ernie involves a dripping faucet that keeps Bert awake, so he sends Ernie to take care of the problem. How does Ernie solve the problem? By turning on the radio to play loud music to drown out the dripping.
Eagleland Osmosis: It was rumored that in a British primary school, a teacher showed this clip to her class and later asked where milk comes from. Their response? America.
Early Installment Weirdness: Early seasons were much slower-paced, and frequently relied on lectures (such as the aforementioned segment about how milk is made), making it more in line with competitors such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Captain Kangaroo. Also, some segments tended to repeat at least twice, since they acted like TV commercials. They abandoned this around the mid 1970s.
Some of the Muppet characters looked and sounded very different, too. Oscar, for example, was orange, and only his head was visible. Big Bird missed most of the feathers on his head, and had the mindset of a dim-witted adult bird rather than a child. Plus, Grover was green. And Ernie and Bert talked with New York accents.
Animated segments outnumbered Muppet segments, too. Also, the characters broke the fourth wall more frequently, addressing their audience as well as introducing and commenting on segments, as if they tied into each other more.
Enforced Method Acting: Subverted in "Goodbye Mister Hooper". The cast did fine in rehearsal, but when the cameras rolled, they barely hung on, and Loretta Long (who played Susan) flubbed a line. The director wanted to try again, but it was too much for the cast. The footage that the crew kept was the scene that we saw ... and it showed, quite candidly, that even adults cry and genuinely feel deeply saddened when a person they were close to has died, and that children aren't the only ones who become emotional.
Expy: The many co-productions around the world contain their own versions of Big Bird. One example is Abelardo in Plaza Sésamo (Mexico's version), a large green parrot (and officially Big Bird's primo— urm, cousin).
Every Episode Ending: Up to three letters of the day and two numbers of the day are reviewed and given sponsor credits.
Extreme Omni Goat: In an interstitial cartoon demonstrating "zero". A complaint was received from the Dairy Goats Association, leading to a follow-up clarifying that dairy goats only eat healthy, sensible foods. See them both, one after the other, here.
Extreme Omnivore: Cookie Monster. Oscar eats some extremely strange food combinations — like sardine ice cream with chocolate sauce — but they are generally at least edible.
Fairy Companion: Abby Cadabby, who is a serious point of contention for some fans, as it looks disturbingly like the character was designed by a marketing committee. However, the book "Street Gang" — while quite frankly admitting that that is how Zoe was designed, and how much she was hated by the writers because of it — takes pains to point out that Abby was created in the traditional manner by the show's longest established writer.
The Family for the Whole Family: Lefty the letter-pushing salesman, usually shown sidling up to Ernie: "Psst! Hey, kid - you wanna buy an 'O'?"
The Yip-Yip aliens, who spent their first years on Earth attempting to communicate with inanimate objects... like telephones and radios. Hilarity Ensues.
Game Show Appearance: Big Bird and Oscar appeared semi-regularly in episodes of the original version of Hollywood Squares (with Big Bird calling host Peter Marshall 'Mr Marshmallow'), and Elmo has appeared on the revival versions.
Kermit appeared with his 'friend' Jim Henson, and Big Bird with his 'friend' Carroll Spinney, on separate episodes of the syndicated version of What's My Line?.
Getting Stuff Past The Radar: Parental action groups largely hadn't been invented or weren't equipped to handle this kind of kiddie-TV innovation in the early years, leading to such dazzling high points as the aforementioned Lefty, slapstick practical joker Harvey Kneeslapper, and Roosevelt Franklin, the first (and still the only) Muppet hip-hop poet. Can you imagine a modern preschool show ending up with classic moments like this?
Cop: "My name's Stan. I'm the Man. You just got ten years in the can for stealing the Golden An..." Lefty: "Awwww...I shoulda ran!"
An episode featuring Gaby trying on an old fairy costume has Elmo, Telly and Baby Bear coming up to her with Baby Bear saying to the other two, "Hey fellas, check out those great lookin' wings!"
Here comes Santa, girls and boys So, who needs that big red noise? I'll tell him where to put his toys I hate Christmas!
There is this scene with Snuffleupagus and his little sister Alice. She constantly pesters him with the question "why?" to everything poor Snuffleupagus answers. And it leads to this.
Headdesk: Muppet composer Don Music had a habit, when unable to find a rhyme, of slamming his forehead into the keys of his piano in sheer frustration. Which is why you don't see him anymore.
Loud of War: An early Bert and Ernie sketch has the duo engaging in one of these when Ernie hogs the TV set, and Bert turns the record player on to drown him out, which leads to Ernie turning the radio on to drown out the record player, then Bert responds by turning a blender on to drown out the radio... all of which leads to a fuse blowing and the power going out in their apartment.
Manipulative Grouch: Oscar really likes to mess around with others, especially Elmo, Big Bird, and Telly.
Medium Blending: Abby Cadabby moves from live-action to the computer-generated Flying Fairy School. Similarly, Bert and Ernie have Great Adventures in Stop Motion.
My Name Is Not Durwood: Big Bird always addressed Mr. Hooper as "Mr. Looper". He even got away with "Mr. Pooper" on at least one occasion, in a literal application of...well, you know.
"Hello, Mr. Cunningham—gee, that wasn't even close!"
Mythology Gag: Season 40 is filled with them, ranging from props with an hidden reference on them to onscreen cameos from some of the performers. Click here for a complete list.
The song "One Way" also opens with the line "I'm so lonely, I wish I was dead".
Niche Network: In Elmo's World, Elmo's TV tunes in to these kinds of channels to teach kids.
No Export for You: British viewers only saw the show intermittently and courtesy of Channel Four and the now-defunct London Weekend Television, because The BBC had declared it was "too authoritarian" to show on British TV.
No Fourth Wall: Often follows the common kids' TV convention in which the viewer is assumed to be "visiting" the show's characters.
Episodes of Sesamstrasse (the German version) from 1978-88 — when the show took place in a studio — took it Up to Eleven, where some episodes involved the studio crew helping the characters out.
Nostalgia Filter: Arguably, what some adult fans who object to the modern Re Tool are looking through.
Not So Imaginary Friend: Mr. Snuffleupagus was one of these for about a decade. This was eventually changed because it infuriated children, seeing Big Bird driven crazy by everyone's disbelief. Also, as per above, it occurred to the writers that perhaps having all the adults disbelieve Big Bird sent a very irresponsible message.
One Mario Limit: Good luck finding any character named "Elmo" from after the late 70s. The same goes for Grover, Bert and Ernie to a lesser extent. Oscar is luckily a common enough name to avoid this.
Only Sane Man: Averted to extreme, as most of the cast acts pretty eccentric at times, but this is due to them attempting to simultaneously teach preschoolers about letters and numbers.
The Other Darrin: Gordon. And Miles. Some of the Muppets' performers were also replaced.
Parental Bonus: If not the actual originator of the concept, then Sesame Street is certainly the most sophisticated. Includes parodies of current celebrities, movies and songs, such as 'Monsterpiece Theater', a Masterpiece Theatre spoof hosted by Alistair Cookie. It's really doubtful that preschoolers would get a Waiting For Godot parody. Or, for that matter, one based around The Thirty-Nine Steps.
Really Dead Montage: Mr. Hooper would've gotten one, but the producers decided it would confuse the younger viewers.
Recursive Import: Plaza Sesamo, the Mexican adaptation, airs in the U.S.; the only foreign adaptation to do so. This is justified, due to the numerous Hispanic community in the U.S. and dubbing and/or doing an Hispanic version for the U.S audiences could be expensive.
Scandalgate: A crossover between Sesame Street and The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour occurred during a PBS pledge drive in the '80s in which Robert MacNeil covered a presumed cookie theft by Cookie Monster known as "Cookiegate."
Second Person Attack: In the Elmo's World episode "Water", a boy is shown squirting a jet of water at the camera with a hose during a montage of kids playing with water.
Sequel Hook: From Christmas Eve on Sesame Street: "How do you think the Easter Bunny can hide all those eggs in one night?"
Serious Business: Under all the apparent silliness is a deep, deep dedication to their core educational mission, to the point of instantly dropping characters and concepts that might negatively impact young audiences. Sometimes can itself come off as over-the-top funny; as per this early short film wherein the process of getting milk from the cow to a baby's bottle is treated with just slightly less gravity than, say, the Normandy Invasion.
Aversion: No matter what you've heard, Bert and Ernie are not named for George Bailey's childhood friends in It's a Wonderful Life. Henson & co. have been driven crazy by that coincidence for years.
This was lampshaded in Elmo Saves Christmas, where Bert and Ernie walk past a TV playing ''It's a Wonderful Life" and are surprised by the line "Bert! Ernie! What's the matter with you two guys? You were here on my wedding night."
Spotlight-Stealing Squad: For a while after Tickle Me Elmo's runaway success, it seemed that more and more of the show was becoming devoted to Elmo, to the point where it was less Sesame Street and more The Elmo Show. Thankfully, though, it was reverted before things got too out of hand, so that now the character focus is much more balanced again.
Throw It In: A small-scale version of Zoe was originally built for her role as "Mousey the Hatter Helper" in the direct-to-video Abby in Wonderland movie, but the puppeteers liked it so much that, starting in the upcoming Season 40, they're making this Zoe the de facto Zoe. Sesame Workshop, of course, tested this smaller Zoe by having kids visit the set, and they didn't seem to notice.
A good chunk of Muppet dialogue is ad-libbed, or at least used to be. Watch an old "People in Your Neighborhood" sketch to see Jim Henson try to make Bob crack up.
One recurring feature was having the Muppets interact with children in unscripted segments, resulting in such classic (and adorable) bits as this one.
Unsatisfiable Customer: Mr. Johnson, Grover's customer in the "Charlie's Restaurant" skits, is sometimes this.
Vacation Episode: In addition to the aforementioned Aloha Hawaii storyline, there were a series of episodes where the characters went to Puerto Rico to visit Maria's family. Also, there were one-hour specials like "Big Bird in China" and "Big Bird in Japan".
Very Special Episode: Episode 1839, where Big Bird learns about death after Mr. Hooper (and Will Lee, who portrayed him) dies.
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