History of Sesame Street

This article reflects the history of the American preschool educational television show. For other productions, see International co-productions of Sesame Street.

Portion of a street sign, in white letters and green background, of the words "Sesame Street", on concrete. The numbers "4187" are written in chalk below.

Sesame Street's title card used since 2009, taken from Episode 4187, the first episode of the show's 40th season, which aired on November 10, 2009.

Sesame Street, with its combination of Jim Henson's Muppets, animation, live shorts, humor, and celebrity appearances, premiered on public broadcasting television stations on November 10, 1969. It was the first preschool educational television program to base its contents and production values on laboratory and formative research, and the first to include a curriculum "detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes". Initial responses to the show included adulatory reviews, some controversy, and high ratings. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was broadcast in over 120 countries, and 20 independent international versions had been produced.

The show was conceived in 1966 during discussions between television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Carnegie Corporation vice president Lloyd Morrisett. Their goal was to create a children's television show that would "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them", such as helping young children prepare for school. After two years of research, the newly formed Children's Television Workshop (CTW) received a combined grant of US$8 million from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. federal government to create and produce a new children's television show.

By the show's tenth anniversary in 1979, nine million American children under the age of six were watching Sesame Street daily, and several studies showed its educational impact. The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. In 1981, the federal government withdrew its funding, so CTW turned to other sources, such as the magazine division, book royalties, product licensing, and foreign income. During the 1980s, Sesame Street's curriculum expanded to include more affective topics such as relationships, ethics, and emotions. Many of the show's storylines were taken from the experiences of its writing staff, cast, and crew, most notably the death of Will Lee—who played Mr. Hooper—and the marriage of Luis and Maria.

In recent decades, Sesame Street has faced societal and economic challenges, including changes in the viewing habits of young children, more competition from other shows, the development of cable television, and a drop in ratings. After the turn of the 21st century, the show made major structural changes, including a change from the traditional magazine format to a narrative format. Due to the popularity of the Muppet Elmo, the show incorporated a popular segment known as "Elmo's World". Sesame Street has won eight Grammys and over a hundred Emmys in its 40-year history—more than any other children's show.

Pre-production (1966–1969)

Beginnings

Until the late 1960s, television programs created for children were widely criticized for being little more than cartoons depicting violence and reflecting commercial values. Producer Joan Ganz Cooney called children's programming a "wasteland", and she was not alone in her criticism. Many children's television programs were produced by local stations, with little regard for educational goals. As author David Borgenich stated, the use of children's programming as an educational tool was "unproven" and "a revolutionary concept".

According to children's media experts Edward Palmer and Shalom M. Fisch, children's television programs of the 1950s and 1960s duplicated "prior media forms". For example, they tended to show simple shots of a camera's-eye view of a location filled with children, or they recreated storybooks with shots of book covers and motionless illustrated pages. Palmer and Fisch called the hosts of these programs "insufferably condescending". An exception was Captain Kangaroo, created and hosted by Bob Keeshan. Author Michael Davis described it as having a "slower pace and idealism" that most other children's shows did not possess. Television historian Cary O'Dell declared that children's television was "in a sad state".

Cooney was producing talk shows and documentaries at educational television station WNDT, and in 1966 had won an Emmy for a documentary about poverty in America. In early 1966, Cooney and her husband Tim hosted a dinner party at their apartment in Manhattan; experimental psychologist Lloyd Morrisett, who has been called Sesame Street's "financial godfather", and his wife Mary were among the guests. Cooney's boss, Lewis Freedman, whom Cooney called "the grandfather of Sesame Street", also attended the party, as did their colleague Anne Bower. As a vice-president at the Carnegie Corporation, Morrisett had awarded several million dollars in grants to organizations involved in the education of preschool children, especially from poor and minority backgrounds. Morrisett and the other guests felt that even with limited resources, television could be an effective way to reach millions of children.

A few days after the dinner party, Cooney, Freedman, and Morrisett met at the Carnegie Corporation's offices to discuss and outline how to "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them". The group, financed by the Carnegie Corporation, in spite of Cooney's lack of experience in the field of education, hired her in the summer of 1967 to visit experts in childhood development, education, and media across the United States and Canada. She researched their ideas about the viewing habits of young children and wrote a report on her findings. Her report also justified why the program should be funded; both Cooney and Morrisett decided that since commercial television required a great deal of investment to ensure a high-quality product able to compete with other shows for children's attention, they would either obtain all the funding required or drop the project completely.

Cooney's study, titled "Television for Preschool Education", spelled out how television could be used as an aid in the education of preschool children, especially those living in inner cities. Early childhood educational research had shown that when children were prepared to succeed in school, they earned higher grades and learned more effectively. In the late 1960s, children from low-income families had fewer resources than children from higher-income families to prepare them for school. Research had shown that children from low-income, minority backgrounds tested "substantially lower" than middle-class children in school-related skills, and that they continued to have educational deficits throughout school. The field of developmental psychology had grown during this period; scientists were beginning to understand that changes in early childhood education could increase children's cognitive growth. As historian Robert Morrow stated, because of these trends in education, along with the "utopian undercurrent" then present in the United States, the time was ripe for the creation of a show like Sesame Street.

In the late 1960s, 97% of all American households owned a television set, and preschool children watched an average of 27 hours of television per week; an educational program would be equally accessible to children of all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. As researcher Gerald S. Lesser, CTW's first advisory board chairman, reported, the focus on the new show was on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, but the show's creators recognized that in order to achieve the kind of success they wanted, they needed to encourage all children, no matter what their background, to watch it. At the same time, their primary goal was to make the show so appealing to inner-city children that it would help them learn as much as children with more educational opportunities. As Lesser stated, "If the series did not work for poor children, the entire project would fail". For this reason, the creators chose public television to broadcast the new show, even though public television had a poor track record in attracting inner-city audiences. There was no organized system of public broadcasting at the time, so they had to individually convince the approximately 180 public television stations in existence to air the show at times preschoolers would be more likely to watch it.

Cooney proposed that public television should improve the quality of children's programming and help young children, especially from low-income families, prepare for school. She suggested using the media's "most engaging traits", including high production values, sophisticated writing, and quality film and animation, to reach the largest audience possible. As New York Magazine television critic Peter Hellman stated, "If [children] could recite Budweiser jingles from TV, why not give them a program that would teach the ABCs and simple number concepts?"

Cooney wanted to create a program that would spread values favoring education to nonviewers—including their parents and older siblings, who tend to control the television set. To this end, she suggested that humor directed toward adults be included, which, as Lesser stated, "may turn out to be a pretty good system in forcing the young child to stretch to understand programs designed for older audiences". As Hellman put it, "Keeping adults interested is the key to its success". Cooney also believed that cultural references and guest appearances from celebrities would encourage parents and older siblings to watch the show together.

Development

As a result of Cooney's proposal, the Carnegie Corporation awarded her a US$1 million grant in 1968 to create a new children's television program and establish the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), which existed to provide support to the creative staff of the new show. Morrisett, who was responsible for fundraising, procured additional grants totaling US$8 million from the United States federal government, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Ford Foundation. As Lesser reported, they procured their funding from a combination of government agencies and private foundations, which protected them from the economic pressures experienced by commercial networks. Sesame Street was an expensive program to produce because the creators decided they needed to compete with other programs that invested in professional, high quality production.

The producers spent eighteen months in preparation for the new show, something that was unprecedented in children's television. The show had a budget of US$28,000 per episode. After being named executive director of CTW, Cooney began to assemble a team of producers: Jon Stone was responsible for writing, casting, and format; David Connell took over animation and volume; and Samuel Gibbon served as the show's chief liaison between the production staff and the research team. Stone, Connell, and Gibbon had worked on Captain Kangaroo together, but were not involved in children's television at the time Cooney recruited them. At first, Cooney planned to divide up the show's production of five episodes a week among several teams, but was advised by CBS vice-president Mike Dann to use only one. This production team was led by Connell, who had gained experience producing many episodes in a short period of time (called "volume production") during his eleven years working on Captain Kangaroo.

Jim Henson, (1989), creator of the Muppets. Henson was initially reluctant to become involved with a children's show.

CTW hired Harvard University professor Gerald S. Lesser to design the show's educational objectives and to establish and lead a National Board of Advisers. Instead of providing what Lesser called "window dressing", the Board's purpose was to actively participate in the construction of educational goals and creative methods. At the Board's direction, Lesser conducted five three-day curriculum planning seminars in Boston and New York City in the summer of 1968. The purpose of the seminars was to ascertain which school-preparation skills to emphasize in the new show. The producers gathered professionals with diverse backgrounds to obtain ideas for educational content. They reported that the seminars were "widely successful", and resulted in long and detailed lists of possible topics for inclusion in the Sesame Street curriculum.

The producers reported that the seminars resulted in more educational objectives than they could ever address in one television series. Instead of focusing on the social and emotional aspects of development, they decided to emphasize cognitive skills, a decision they felt was warranted by the demands of school and the wishes of parents. Their objectives were condensed into key categories: symbolic representation, cognitive processes, and the physical and social environment. Additionally, these seminars set forth the new show's policy about race and social issues and provided the show's production and creative team with "a crash course" in psychology, child development, and early childhood education. They marked the beginning of Jim Henson's involvement in Sesame Street. Cooney met Henson at one of the seminars; Stone, who was familiar with Henson's work, felt that if they could not bring him on board, they should "make do without puppets".

The producers and writers decided to build the new show around a brownstone or an inner-city street, a choice that Davis called "unprecedented". Stone was convinced that in order for inner-city children to relate to Sesame Street, it needed to be set in a familiar place. Despite its urban setting, the producers decided to avoid depicting more negativity than what was already present in the child's environment. As Lesser stated, "With all its raucousness and slapstick humor, Sesame Street became a sweet show, and its staff maintains that there is nothing wrong in that".

The new show was called the "Preschool Educational Television Show" in promotional materials. In a short promotional film shown to public television executives, which Gikow called "funny" and "irreverent", the producers parodied their "naming dilemma". According to Cooney, the producers were "frantic for a title". Lesser reported that they waited until the "last moment" to select a name because they were unable to agree on one they all liked. They finally settled on the name that they least disliked: Sesame Street, inspired by Ali Baba's magical phrase, although there were concerns that it would be too difficult for young children to pronounce. Stone was one of the producers who disliked the name, but as he said, "I was outvoted, for which I'm deeply grateful".

The responsibility of casting for Sesame Street fell to Jon Stone, who set out to form a cast where white actors were in the minority. He did not begin auditions until spring 1969, several weeks before five test shows were due to be produced. He filmed the auditions, and Palmer took them into the field to test children's reactions. The actors who received the "most enthusiastic thumbs up" were cast. For example, Loretta Long was chosen to play Susan when the children who saw her audition stood up and sang along with her rendition of "I'm a Little Teapot". As Stone said, casting was the only aspect that was "just completely haphazard". Most of the cast and crew found jobs on Sesame Street through personal relationships with Stone and the other producers. Stone hired Bob McGrath (an actor and singer best known at the time for his appearances on Mitch Miller's sing-along show on NBC) to play Bob, Will Lee to play Mr. Hooper, and Matt Robinson to play Gordon.

Use of research in production

According to Palmer and Fisch, Sesame Street was the first children's television program that included a curriculum "detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes". Lesser agreed, stating, "This became the first time in television's twenty-five history that child-watching was systematically applied over a sustained period to the design of a televised series for children". According to Lesser, the research had three functions: to test if Sesame Street was appealing to children, to discover what could be done to make the show more appealing, and to report to the public and the investors what impact the show had on its young viewers. Lesser reported that ten to fifteen percent of the show's initial budget of $8 million was devoted to research. Researchers were always present in the studio during the show's filming. A "Writer's Notebook" was developed to assist writers and producers in translating the research and production goals into televised material. As Lesser stated, the Writer's Notebook served as a bridge between the show's curriculum goals and its script development. The Muppet characters, for example, were created to fill specific curriculum needs. Oscar the Grouch was designed to teach children about their positive and negative emotions. Lesser called the collaboration between researchers and producers, as well as the idea of using television as an educational tool, the "CTW model". Cooney agreed, and stated, "From the beginning, we—the planners of the project—designed the show as an experimental research project with educational advisers, researchers, and television producers collaborating as equal partners".

The producers of Sesame Street used laboratory research to test the show's ability to hold children's attention. As author Malcolm Gladwell has stated, "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them". Lesser went even further and stated that in order to teach children effectively, not only does their attention need to be caught and focused, it needs to be sustained. CTW researchers Shalom Fisch and Rosemarie Truglio said the appeal of the show had to be high. Edward Palmer, CTW's first Director of Research and the man Cooney credited with building CTW's foundation of research, was one of the few academics in the late 1960s researching children's television. He was recruited by the CTW to test if the curricula developed in the Boston seminars were reaching their audience effectively. Palmer was also tasked with designing and executing CTW's in-house research and with working with the Educational Testing Service (ETS). His research was so crucial to Sesame Street that Gladwell asserted, "...without Ed Palmer, the show would have never lasted through the first season".

Palmer and his team's approach to researching the show's effectiveness was innovative; it was the first time that formative research was conducted in this way. For example, Palmer developed "the distractor", which he used to test if the material shown on Sesame Street captured young viewers' attention. Two children at a time were brought into the laboratory; they were shown an episode on a television monitor and a slide show next to it. The slides would change every seven seconds, and researchers recorded when the children's attention was diverted away from the episode. They were able to record almost every second of Sesame Street this way; if the episode captured the children's interest 80%–90% of the time, the producers would air it, but if it only tested 50%, they would reshoot. Palmer reported that by the fourth season of the show, the episodes rarely tested below 85%.

July 1969 test episodes

Hal Miller, who played Gordon from 1971–1973, and Loretta Long (Susan), with Oscar the Grouch (Carroll Spinney). The producers, early in Sesame Street's history, decided to eschew the advice of experts and allow Muppets and humans to interact.

During the production of Sesame Street's first season, producers created five one-hour episodes to test the show's appeal to children, and to examine their comprehension of the material. Not intended for broadcast, they were presented to preschoolers in 60 homes throughout Philadelphia and in day care centers in New York City in July 1969. According to CTW researchers Shalom M. Fisch and Lewis Bernstein, the results were "generally very positive"; children learned from the shows, their appeal was high, and children's attention was sustained over the full hour. However, the researchers found that although children's attention was high during the Muppet segments, their interest wavered during the "Street" segments, when no Muppets were on screen. This was because the producers had followed the advice of child psychologists who were concerned that children would be confused, and had recommended that human actors and Muppets not be shown together. As a result of this decision, the appeal of the test episodes was lower than the target.

Palmer referred to the Street scenes as "the glue" that "pulled the show together", so producers knew they needed to make significant changes. On the basis of their experience on Captain Kangaroo, Cannell, Stone, and Gibbon thought that the experts' opinions were "nonsense"; Cooney agreed. Lesser called their decision to defy the recommendations of their advisers "a turning point in the history of Sesame Street". The producers went back and reshot the Street segments; Henson and his coworkers created Muppets that could interact with the human actors, specifically Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird, who became two of the show's most enduring characters. These test episodes were directly responsible for what Gladwell calls "the essence of Sesame Street—the artful blend of fluffy monsters and earnest adults".

Premiere and first season (1969–1970)

Two days before the show's premiere, a thirty-minute preview entitled This Way to Sesame Street was aired on NBC. The show was financed by a US$50,000 grant from Xerox. Written by Stone and produced by CTW publicist Bob Hatch, it was taped the day before it aired. Newsday called the preview "a unique display of cooperation between commercial and noncommercial broadcasters".

Big Bird, meeting First Lady Pat Nixon at the White House in 1970

Sesame Street premiered on November 10, 1969, and received immediate praise. Lesser reported that the show received a large amount of press coverage, and that it "was almost universally applauded for its originality and imagination". Davis described Sesame Street as "the rare children's show stamped with parental approval". The show reached only 67.6% of the nation, but earned a 3.3 Nielsen rating, or 1.9 million households and 7 million children a day. In Sesame Street's first season, the ETS reported that children who watched the show scored higher in tests than less frequent viewers.

In November 1970, the cover of Time magazine featured Big Bird, who had received more fan mail than any of the show's human hosts. The magazine declared, " ...It is not only the best children's show in TV history, it is one of the best parents' shows as well". David Frost declared Sesame Street "a hit everywhere it goes". An executive at ABC, while recognizing that Sesame Street was not perfect, stated that the show "opened children's TV to taste and wit and substance" and "made the climate right for improvement". Other reviewers predicted that commercial television would be forced to improve their children's programming, something that did not immediately materialize. Sesame Street won a Peabody Award, three Emmys, and the Prix Jeunesse award in 1970. President Richard Nixon sent Cooney a congratulatory letter, while Dr. Benjamin Spock predicted that the program would result in "better-trained citizens, fewer unemployables in the next generation, fewer people on welfare, and smaller jail populations".

But Sesame Street was not without its detractors. In May 1970, a state commission in Mississippi voted to not air the show on the state's newly launched public television network. A member of the commission leaked the vote to the New York Times, stating that "Mississippi was not yet ready" for the show's integrated cast. Cooney called the ban "a tragedy for both the white and black children of Mississippi". The state commission later reversed its decision, after the vote made national news. New York Times Magazine reported that Sesame Street has endured criticism of its frenetic pacing, which was thought to induce epilepsy in its preschool audience. According to Children and Television, Lesser's account of the development and early years of Sesame Street, there was little criticism of the show in the months following its premiere, but it increased at the end of its first season and beginning of the second season.

According to Time, the producers of Sesame Street made a few changes in its second season. Segments that featured children became more spontaneous and allowed for more impromptu dialogue, even when it meant cutting other segments. Since federal funds had been used to produce the show, more segments of the population insisted upon being represented on Sesame Street. For example, the show was criticized by Hispanic groups for the lack of Latino characters in the early years of production. A committee of Hispanic activists, commissioned by the CTW in 1970, called Sesame Street "racist" and said that the show's bilingual aspects were of "poor quality and patronizing". The CTW responded to these critics by hiring Hispanic actors, production staff, and researchers. By the mid-70s, Morrow reported that "the show included Chicano and Puerto Rican cast members, films about Mexican holidays and foods, and cartoons that taught Spanish words".

While New York Times Magazine reported criticism of the presence of strong single women in the show, organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW) expressed concerns that the show needed to be "less male-oriented". For example, members of NOW took exception to the character Susan, who was originally a housewife. They complained about the lack of, as Morrow put it, "credible female Muppets" on the show; Morrow reported that Henson's response was that "women might not be strong enough to hold the puppets over the long hours of taping". The show's producers responded by making Susan a nurse and by hiring a female writer.

1970s

By the mid-1970s, Sesame Street, according to Davis, had become "an American institution". ETS conducted two "landmark" summative evaluations of the show in 1970 and 1971 which demonstrated that Sesame Street had a significant educational impact on its viewers. According to Palmer and his colleague Shalom M. Fisch, the positive results of these studies led to the producers securing funding for the show over the next several years, and provided CTW with additional ways to promote the show. By the second season, Sesame Street had become so popular that the design of ETS' experiments to track the educational outcomes had to be changed.

Producer Jon Stone, who "gave Sesame Street its soul", was instrumental in guiding the show during these years. According to Davis, without Stone "there would not have been Sesame Street as we know it". Cooney considered Stone "the key creative talent on Sesame Street and "probably the most brilliant writer of children's material in America". Frank Oz called him "the father of Sesame Street". Stone was able to recognize and mentor talented people for his crew. He actively hired and promoted women during a time when few women earned top production jobs in television. As a result, his policies provided the show with a succession of female producers and writers, many of whom went on to lead the boom in children's programming at Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and PBS in the 1990s and 2000s. One of these women was Dulcy Singer, who later became the first female executive producer of Sesame Street.

After the show's initial success, its producers began to think about its survival beyond its development and first season and decided to explore other funding sources. As Lesser reported, the CTW decided to depend upon government agencies and private foundations to develop the show. This would protect them from the financial pressures experienced by commercial networks, but created problems in finding continued support throughout the show's history. This era in the show's history was marked by conflicts between CTW and the federal government; in 1978, the US Department of Education refused to deliver a US$2 million check until the last day of CTW's fiscal year. As a result, the CTW decided to depend upon licensing arrangements, publishing, and international sales for their funding. Henson owned the trademarks to the Muppet characters, and he was reluctant to market them at first. He agreed when CTW promised that the profits from toys, books, and other products were to be used exclusively to fund CTW. The producers demanded complete control over all products and product decisions; any product line associated with the show had to be educational, inexpensive, and not advertised during its airings. They approached Random House to establish and manage a non-broadcast materials division. Random House and CTW named Christopher Cerf to assist CTW in publishing books and other materials that emphasized the curriculum. In 1980, CTW began to produce a touring stage production based upon the show, written by Connell and performed by the Ice Follies.

Shortly after the premiere of Sesame Street, the CTW was approached by producers, educators, and officials in other nations, requesting that a version of the show be aired in their countries. Former CBS executive Mike Dann, left commercial television to become vice-president of CTW and Cooney's assistant. He began what Charlotte Cole, vice president for CTW's International Research department, called the "globalization" of Sesame Street. A flexible model was developed, based upon the experiences of the creators and producers of the original show. The shows came to be called "co-productions", and they contained original sets, characters, and curriculum goals. Depending upon each country's needs and resources, different versions were produced, including dubbed versions of the original show and independent programs. By 2009, Sesame Street had expanded into 140 countries; Doreen Carvajal of The New York Times reported in 2005 that income from CTW's international co-productions of the show were US$96 million.

Sesame Street's cast expanded during this time, better fulfilling the show's original goal of greater diversity in both human and Muppet characters. The cast members who joined the show during this time were Sonia Manzano (Maria), who also wrote for the show, Northern Calloway (David), Alaina Reed (Olivia), Emilio Delgado (Luis), Linda Bove (Linda), and Buffy Sainte-Marie (Buffy). In 1975, Roscoe Orman became the third actor to play Gordon, succeeding Hal Miller, who had briefly replaced Matt Robinson.

New Muppet characters were introduced during the 1970s. Count Von Count was created and performed by Jerry Nelson, who also voiced Mr. Snuffleupagus, a muppet that required two puppeteers to operate. Richard Hunt, who, as Jon Stone said, joined the Muppets as a "wild-eyed 18-year-old and grew into a master puppeteer and inspired teacher", created Gladys the Cow, Forgetful Jones, Don Music, and the construction worker Sully. Telly Monster was performed by Brian Muehl; Marty Robinson took over the role in 1984. Frank Oz created Cookie Monster. Matt Robinson created, as Davis called him, the "controversial" character Roosevelt Franklin. Fran Brill, the first female puppeteer for the Muppets, joined the Henson organization in 1970. Brill originated the character Prairie Dawn. According to writer Louise Gikow, opportunities opened up for "a new generation of performers and puppets" due to the premiere of Henson's The Muppet Show in 1975, which was filmed and produced in London. The Muppet Show's performers, for the six years it was on the air, were unavailable for anything other than Sesame Street inserts.

The CTW wanted to attract the best composers and lyricists for Sesame Street, so songwriters like Joe Raposo, the show's music director, and writer Jeff Moss were able to retain the rights to the songs they wrote. The writers earned lucrative profits, and the show was able to sustain public interest. Raposo's "I Love Trash", written for Oscar the Grouch, was included on the first album of Sesame Street songs, recorded in 1974. Moss' "Rubber Duckie", sung by Henson for Ernie, remained on the Top-40 charts for seven weeks in 1971. Another Henson song, written by Raposo for Kermit the Frog in 1970, "Bein' Green", which Davis called "Raposo's best-regarded song for Sesame Street", was later recorded by Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles. "Somebody Come and Play" and "Sing", which became a hit for The Carpenters in 1973, were also written by Raposo for Sesame Street.

In 1978, Stone and Singer produced and wrote the show's first special, the "triumphant" Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Davis stated that the special demonstrated "how remarkably gifted were Jim Henson and Frank Oz, two real-life colleagues and friends, at playing puppetry's Odd Couple" in Bert and Ernie. (This was demonstrated in the special's O Henry-inspired storyline, in which the characters gave up their prized possessions—Ernie his rubber ducky and Bert his paper clip collection—to purchase each other Christmas gifts.) Singer reported that the special, which was written, directed, and produced by Stone, also demonstrated Stone's "soul", and Sonia Manzano called it a good example of what Sesame Street was all about. The special won an Emmy in 1971.

By the show's tenth anniversary in 1979, nine million American children under the age of six were watching Sesame Street daily. Four out of five children had watched it over a six-week period, and 90% of children from low-income inner-city homes regularly viewed the show.

1980s

In 1984, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deregulated commercial restrictions on children's television. Advertising during network children's programs almost doubled, and deregulation resulted in an increase in commercially-oriented programming. According to Hellman, Sesame Street was successful during this era of deregulation, in spite of the fact that the United States government terminated all federal funding of CTW in 1981. By 1987, the show had earned US$42 million from its magazine division, book royalties, product licensing, and foreign income—enough to cover two-thirds of its expenses. Its remaining budget, plus a US$6 million surplus, was covered by revenue from its PBS broadcasts.

Framed picture of a caricature of a pleasant-looking man wearing glasses and a bow tie.

Mr. Hooper, whose death was explained to Sesame Street's young viewers in a landmark episode in 1983. This caricature, drawn by Carroll Spinney, was prominently used in the episode.

According to Davis, Sesame Street's second decade was spent "turning inward, expanding its young viewers' world". The show's curriculum expanded to include more "affective" teaching—relationships, ethics, and positive and negative emotions. Many of the show's storylines were taken from the experiences of its writing staff, cast, and crew. In 1982, Will Lee, who had played Mr. Hooper since the show's premiere, died. For the 1983 season, the show's producers and research staff decided that instead of recasting the role, they would explain Mr. Hooper's death to their preschool audience. They also decided to honor Lee's memory, who, as the episode's writer Norman Stiles stated, was "a man we respected and loved". They convened a group of psychologists, religious leaders, and other experts in the field of grief, loss, and separation. The research team conducted a series of studies before the episode aired to ascertain if children were able to understand the messages they wanted to convey about Mr. Hooper's death; the research showed that most children did. Parents' reactions to the episode were, according to CTW's own reports, "overwhelmingly positive". The episode aired on Thanksgiving Day in 1983 so that parents could be home to discuss it with their children. Author David Borgenicht called the episode "poignant"; Davis called it "a landmark broadcast" and "a truly memorable episode, one of the show's best". Carroll Spinney, who played Big Bird and who drew the caricatures prominently used in the episode, reported that the cast and crew were moved to tears during filming.

"To look back at that period [the 1980s] is to appreciate the profound effect that life-cycle events had on the show, offstage and on. There was birth and death, love and loss, courtship and calamity, pain and pleasure, all from a little show whose aims at first were simply to test television's ability to stimulate the brain. That it would also touch the heart was not its original intention, but as each year passed, Sesame Street became as much an emotional pathway for children as an intellectual one".

-Michael Davis, Street Gang, p. 277

In the mid '80s, Americans were becoming more aware of the prevalence of child abuse, so Sesame Street's researchers and producers decided to "reveal" Big Bird's friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus, to the adults on the show in 1985. They were concerned about the message being sent to children; "If children saw that the adults didn't believe what Big Bird said (even though it was true), they would be afraid to talk to adults about dramatic or disturbing things that happened to them".

Sesame Street's producers and writers began to use their cast member's personal lives and real-life experiences to cover issues they wanted to address on the show. For the 1988 and 1989 seasons, the topics of love, marriage, and childbirth were addressed when they created a storyline in which the characters Luis and Maria fall in love, marry, and have a child named Gabi. Sonia Manzano, the actress who played Maria, had married and become pregnant; according to the book Sesame Street Unpaved, published after the show's thirtieth anniversary in 1999, Manzano's real-life experiences gave the show's writers and producers the idea. Before writing began, research was done to gain an understanding of what previous studies had revealed about preschoolers' understanding of love, marriage, and family. The show's staff found that at the time, there was very little relevant research done about children's understanding of these topics, and no books for children had been written about them. Studies done after the episodes about Maria's pregnancy aired showed that as a result of watching these episodes, children's understanding of pregnancy increased.

1990s

Davis said "the nineties were a time of transition on Sesame Street". Several people involved in the show from its beginnings died during this period: Jim Henson in 1990 at the age of 53 "from a runaway strep infection gone stubbornly, foolishly untreated"; songwriter Joe Raposo from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma fifteen months earlier; long-time cast member Northern Calloway of cardiac arrest in January 1990; puppeteer Richard Hunt of AIDS in early 1992; CTW founder and producer David Connell of bladder cancer in 1995; director Jon Stone of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1997; and writer Jeff Moss of colon cancer in 1998.

By the early 1990s, Sesame Street was, as Davis put it, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of preschool television". Entertainment Weekly reported in 1991 that the show's music had been honored with eight Grammys. The show's dominance was challenged by another PBS television show for preschoolers, Barney & Friends, and Sesame Street's ratings declined. The producers of Sesame Street responded, at the show's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1993, by expanding and redesigning the show's set, calling it "Around the Corner". New human and Muppet characters were introduced, including Zoe (performed by Fran Brill), baby Natasha and her parents Ingrid and Humphrey, and Ruthie (played by comedian Ruth Buzzi). The character Zoe was created to include another female Muppet on the show and to break female stereotypes. According to Michael Davis, she was the first character created on the show by marketing and product development specialists, who worked with the researchers at CTW. (The quest for a "break-out" female Muppet character continued into 2006 with the creation of Abby Cadabby, who was created after nine months of research.) The "Around the Corner" set was dismantled in 1997. For the first time in the show's history, Sesame Street pursued funding by accepting corporate sponsorship in 1998. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who had been a guest on the show, urged parents to protest the move by boycotting the show.

Michael Jeter (in 1992), who played "Mr. Noodle's brother Mr. Noodle" in live-action parts of the "Elmo's World" segment of Sesame Street

For Sesame Street's 30th anniversary in 1999, its producers researched the reasons for the show's lower ratings. For the first time since the show debuted, the producers and a team of researchers analyzed Sesame Street's content and structure during a series of two-week-long workshops. They also studied how children's viewing habits had changed in the past thirty years. They found that although the show was produced for those between the ages of three and five, children began watching it at a younger age. Preschool television had become more competitive, and research now showed that the traditional magazine format was not the best way to attract young children's attention. The growth of home videos during the '80s and the increase of thirty-minute children's shows on cable had demonstrated that children's attention could be sustained for longer periods of time, but the CTW's researchers found that their viewers, especially the younger ones, lost attention in Sesame Street after 40–45 minutes. A new 15-minute segment shown at the end of each episode, "Elmo's World", used traditional elements (animation, Muppets, music, and live-action film), but had a more sustained narrative. "Elmo's World" followed the same structure each episode, and depended heavily on repetition. Unlike the realism of the rest of the show, the segment took place in a stylized crayon-drawing universe as conceived by its host.

Elmo, who represented the three-to-four year-old child, was chosen as the host of the closing segment because he had always tested well with this segment of their audience. He was created in 1979 and was performed by various puppeteers, including Richard Hunt, but did not become what his eventual portrayer, Kevin Clash, called a "phenomenon" until Clash took over the role in 1983. Eventually, Elmo became, as Davis reported, "the embodiment" of Sesame Street, and "the marketing wonder of our age" when 5 million "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls were sold in 1996. Clash believes that the "Tickle Me Elmo" phenomenon made Elmo a household name and led to the "Elmo's World" segment.

2000s

A red Muppet, Elmo, standing with his arms outstretched, in the midst of a brightly-colored, crayon-drawn room.

The Muppet Elmo, as shown in his crayon-created "Elmo's World", 2007

In 2002, Sesame Street's producers went further in changing the show to reflect its younger demographic, fundamentally changing the show's structure, which had relied on "Street scenes" interrupted by live-action videos and animation. The target age for Sesame Street shifted downward, from four years to three years, after the show's 33rd season. The producers expanded upon the "Elmo's World" concept by doing what San Francisco Chronicle television critic Tim Goodman called "deconstructing" the show. They changed from a magazine format to a narrative format, and made the show easier for young children to navigate. Arlene Sherman, a co-executive producer for 25 years, called the show's new look "startlingly different". Following its tradition of addressing emotionally difficult topics, Sesame Street's producers chose to address the attacks of 9/11 during this season on its premiere episode, which aired on February 4, 2002. This episode, as well as a series of four episodes that aired after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, were used in Sesame Workshop's Community Outreach program.

In 2006, the United States Department of State called Sesame Street "the most widely viewed children's television show in the world". Over half of the show's international co-productions were made after 2001; according to the 2006 documentary The World According to Sesame Street, the events of 9/11 inspired the producers of these co-productions. In 2003, Takalani Sesame, a South African co-production, elicited criticism in the United States when its producers created Kami. The first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami was created with the hope of educating children in South Africa about the epidemic of AIDS. The controversy, which surprised the Sesame Workshop, was short-lived and died down after Kofi Anan and Jerry Falwell praised the Workshop's efforts. By 2006, Sesame Street had won more Emmys than any other children's show, including winning the outstanding children's series award twelve times, each year of its presentation. In 2009, the show had won 118 Emmys throughout its history, and was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Emmy for its 40 years on the air.

By Sesame Street's 40th anniversary, it was ranked the fifteenth most popular children's show on television. When the show premiered in 1969, 130 episodes a year were produced; in 2009, because of rising costs, twenty-six episodes were made. In 2009, the Children's Television Workshop, which had changed its name to the Sesame Workshop (SW) in 2000, launched a website with a library of free video clips and free podcasts from throughout the show's history.

The 2008–2009 recession, which injured many nonprofit arts organizations, affected Sesame Street; in the spring of 2009, the SW had to lay off twenty percent of its staff. Sesame Street's 40th anniversary was commemorated by the 2008 publication of Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, by Michael Davis, which has been called "the definitive statement" about the history of the show.

References

• Borgenicht, David (1998). Sesame Street Unpaved. New York: Hyperion Publishing. ISBN 0786864605
• Clash, Kevin; Gary Brozek and Louis Henry Mitchell (2006). My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-7679-2375-8
• Davis, Michael (2008). Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 9780670019960
• Finch, Christopher (1993). Jim Henson: The Works: the Art, the Magic, the Imagination. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-6794-1203-4
• Fisch, Shalom M.; Rosemarie T. Truglio, Eds. (2001). "G" is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street. Mahweh, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. ISBN 0-8058-3395-1
  • Cooney, Joan Ganz, "Foreword", pp. xi–xiv.
  • Truglio, Rosemarie T.; Shalom M. Fisch, "Introduction", pp. xv–xxi.
  • Palmer, Edward; Shalom M. Fisch, "The Beginnings of Sesame Street Research", pp. 3–24.
  • Lesser, Gerald S.; Joel Schneider, "Creation and Evolution of the Sesame Street Curriculum", pp. 25–38.
  • Fisch, Shalom M.; Lewis Bernstein, "Formative Research Revealed: Methodological and Process Issues in Formative Research", pp. 39–60.
  • Truglio, Rosemarie T.; et al., "The Varied Role of Formative Research: Case Studies from 30 Years", pp. 61–82.
  • Mielke, Keith W., "A Review of Research on the Educational and Social Impact of Sesame Street", pp. 83–97.
• Gikow, Louise A. (2009). Sesame Street: A Celebration— Forty Years of Life on the Street. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57912-638-4.
• Gladwell, Malcolm (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York: Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0-316-31696-2
• Hellman, Peter. (November 23, 1987). "Street Smart: How Big Bird & Co. Do It". In New York Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 46, pp. 48–53.
• Lesser, Gerald S. (1974). Children and Television: Lessons From Sesame Street. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-3947-1448-2
• Morrow, Robert W. (2006). Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-8230-3
• O'Dell, Cary (1997). Women Pioneers in Television: Biographies of Fifteen Industry Leaders. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0167-2.
• Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th edition. New York: Billboard Books. ISBN 0-8230-7499-4

External links

• Street Gang (2008 book by Michael Davis) website
• 1970 Time Magazine cover (featuring Big Bird)