Sesame Street - Television Tropes & Idioms

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

— Opening theme

"Everything happens here. You're gonna love it!"

—Gordon (Matt Robinson), introducing the first episode

Joan Ganz Cooney of the Children's Television Workshop created this hourlong PBS series in 1969 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 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 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.

In 2002, however, thanks to research that indicated children's viewing habits had changed radically enough that they were no longer capable of keeping up with this frenetic, fragmented pace, the show was completely retooled to much more closely resemble a standard kiddie show. 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.

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 (and, 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: African-American 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) African-American student and store clerk David; White freelance musician Bob and his deaf girlfriend Linda, and Mexican 'Fixit Shop' owner Luis, who later married Maria. They have a daughter, Gabriella.

When Will Lee — who played crotchety storekeeper 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.

Various specialised Muppets, created by Jim Henson and his crew, star alongside the humans. The Sesame Muppet characters 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.

Memorable Muppets included:

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...woolly-mammoth-type-thing...Mr. Snuffalupagus, Big Bird's not-so-imaginary friend, originally always just out 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;
Green and flamboyantly grumpy trash-can resident Oscar the Grouch, designed as a way to gently mock bad attitudes — not, as is sometimes claimed, as a cute'n'fuzzy homeless person;
Cookie Monster, the googly-eyed personification of appetite ("Me want COOKIE!!") much to the consternation of whomever was currently trying to teach him Valuable Lessons (counting, sharing etc.) using a plateful. Later, he learned more about nutrition and recently has adopted a new (but somehow much less memorable) catchphrase, "Cookies are a sometimes food!";
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 who pursued his numerical fetish to the point where his victims would probably have been 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 latino 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 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, the show is heavily dependent on merchandising revenues, so...) He was eventually given his own regular fifteen-minute segment, Elmo's World, soon spun off into a series in its own right. 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 provides examples of:

Acid Reflux Nightmare - Cookie Monster's cookie-induced nightmare (well known as a notorious Nightmare Fuel moment).
Aloha Hawaii - A multi-episode story arc in 1978 had the main human characters traveling to Hawaii, along with Big Bird and Snuffy.
Alternate Character Interpretation - Pretty much endless, as befits a kids' series with adult fans, but the most famous is likely the one where Bert & Ernie are a gay couple. Spinoff rumours include a scenario where they're going to marry to teach kids tolerance, and a horrific variant in which Ernie is then to get AIDS and die graphically, again all in the name of understanding. Ironically enough the series did eventually add an HIV-positive Muppet — to the South African version.
- Word Of God says that originally Bert was going to be the father and Ernie his son, which is why they live together. There were concerns that this would encourage kids to talk back to their parents, so the relationship was changed to make them brothers. More specifically, Bert is an older brother as perceived by his kid sibling (kind but boring), while Ernie is a younger brother (affectionate but annoying) from the elder's perspective. The writers eventually kept this vague, to allow more kinds of plots between the two.
- Some people also see Bert in a different light...
Amazing Technicolor Population - Especially among the Muppets.
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.
Bald Of Awesome - Gordon
Balloonacy - Several examples: such as the very end of Kermit's What-Happens-Next machine demonstration, and the Light and Heavy Lecture
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 Friendly Dog - Barkley
Bus Crash (to explain death to children) - Mr. Hooper, after actor Will Lee's death.
Catch Phrase - Dozens; learning is all about repetition, after all.
Christmas Special - The utterly adorable "Christmas on Sesame Street". Most of the Muppet cast also hit the road for "A Muppet Family Christmas".
Clark Kenting - Parodied by Super-Grover, whose glasses-wearing 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.
Classical Movie Vampire
Clown Car Base - Oscar's trash can, which among many other things contains a pet elephant named Fluffy
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.
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".
Crowning Moment Of Awesome - In Follow That Bird, Gordon convinces Big Bird to jump from one moving vehicle to another during the latter's rescue. Big Bird points out the danger involved, leading to a Crowning Moment Of Funny.
Cross Over - "A Muppet Family Christmas"
Died On A Bus - Northern Calloway, who played David, left the show in 1989 — apparently due to illness — and died several months later. Oddly, given the show's notable sensitivity to such subjects, no explanation was ever given for his character's departure; he seems to have simply been deleted from Street memory.
Digging To China - the Big Bird In China TV-movie special.
Edutainment Show
Ensemble Darkhorse - Elmo after Kevin Clash started performing him, so much so that he's now become The Wesley to a lot of the show's older fans.
Expository Theme Tune
Extreme Omnivore - Cookie Monster
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'?"
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.)
Fish Out Of Water - 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 Host - Guy Smiley
Getting Crap 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!"
Great Gazoo - Abby, Mumford the Magician, and dozens of magical one-offs
Heterosexual Life Partners - Bert and Ernie
The Hyena - Harvey Kneeslapper
Iconic Item - Ernie's rubber duckie
I Would Say If I Could Say
Kent Brockman News - Kermit's news reports
Loads And Loads Of Characters
Long Runners - 40 years
My Name Is Not Durwood - Big Bird always addressed Mr. Hooper as "Mr. Looper".
Nightmare Fuel - Some segments were a little more... surreal than others, especially the animated skits from the early years, which tended to be really groovy, man...
- I'm lost, I know it, I'm really lost.
- The Count turned out to be a bit too scary for children, and he was eventually toned down, removing things like his ability to stun people with a cry of "silence!".
- The Cookie Monster was a great source of terror for this troper as a child.
- Placido Flamingo scared the crap out of this troper, and apparently others too. That is propbably why he does not appear anymore.
  - Actually, that was due to Actor Existence Failure. Placido Flamingo was popular enough to get a feature spot with his inspiration (who was reportedly hugely flattered) on the thirtieth anniversary special.
Parental Bonus - If not the actual originator of the concept, then certainly the most sophisticated. Includes parodies of current celebrities, movies and songs- as for instance 'Monsterpiece Theater', 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.
The Movie - Follow That Bird and Elmo in Grouchland.
Multi National Shows - We heartily recommend the documentary "The World According To Sesame Street" on this subject.
Muppet
Never Say Die - Mr. Hooper, famously averted.
No Fourth Wall - often follows the common kid's TV convention in which the viewer is assumed to be 'visiting' the show's characters.
Not So Imaginary Friend - Mr. Snuffleupagus was one of these for about a decade.
Odd Couple - Bert and Ernie
The Other Darrin - Gordon
Our Vampires Are Different - Count von Count
The Pig Pen - Oscar the Grouch.
Reality Subtext - Mr. Hooper
Reptiles Are Abhorrent - Intentionally subverted. "Frogs live in apartment buildings with television sets and we sometimes have..."
- They used a real frog during that scene. It urinated on Jim Henson's head, causing him to make Kermit snicker. When Bob asked what was wrong, Kermit insisted that the frog had "told a funny joke."
- Frogs are not reptiles. They are from a completely different class. Granted, I may be missing the point, but still, it doesn't seem like a true example when the animal is an amphibian and not a reptile. I guess Amphibians Are Abhorrent as well.
Sesame Street Cred - Trope Namer
Sesquipedalian Smith - Forgetful Jones
Take That - Occasionally in the course of parodying adult media, notably High School Musical.
- Including a controversy-inducing one: "From now on, I am watching Pox News. Now there's a trashy news show!"
Talking In Bed - several Ernie and Bert sketches.
Talking Typography
Tear Jerker - We'll all miss you, Mr. Hooper...
- Some of the songs also qualify. Oh, I'd like to visit the moon...
These Questions Three
Throw It In - A small-scale Zoe muppet 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 defacto Zoe. They, of course, tested this smaller Zoe by having kids visit the set, and they didn't seem to notice.
Very Special Episode: Episode 1839, where Big Bird learns about death after Mr. Hooper (and Will Lee, who portrayed him) dies.
The Von Trope Family - Count von Count
The Wesley - Elmo
- And to a lesser extent, Abby Cadabby
The Woobie - Grover, on a kid's-TV level. He frequently pushes himself to literal exhaustion in his drive to be helpful, as when for example demonstrating concepts like 'Near and Far'.
Who Writes This Stuff? - Elmo Live 2.

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