Sesame Street

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File:Book Brought to You by . . . Sesame Street
The cover of the book Brought to You by . . . Sesame Street #1! shows several of Sesame Street's puppet characters.

Sesame Street is an educational television program for young children, which led the way for many of the modern "edutainment" shows. It is known for the inclusion of Muppet characters created by the legendary puppeteer Jim Henson. Over 4000 episodes of the show have been produced in 35 seasons, making it one of the longest-running shows in television history. Because of its worldwide reach, with the show shown in over 120 countries, many with adapted regional versions, Sesame Street is considered the world's largest educator.

Sesame Street is produced by Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop or CTW.

Overview

File:Bob with Sesame Street sign.jpg
Bob, a long-time cast member, shows the "Sesame Street" sign in the original closing sequence

Produced in the United States, Sesame Street has millions of viewers worldwide. It premiered on November 10, 1969 on the National Educational Television network, and later that year moved to NET's successor, the Public Broadcasting Service. Sesame Street has received more Emmy Awards than any other program.

The program uses a mixture of puppets, animation and live action to teach young children basic reading and arithmetic, for example, colors, letters, numbers, days of the week. It also has segments focusing on basic life-skills, e.g., how to cross the road safely, the importance of basic hygiene, and so on. Many of the skits and other segments are parodies or copies of standard television formats.

There is also a subtle sense of humor in the show that has appealed to older viewers since it first premiered. A number of spoofs and parodies of popular culture appear on the show, especially ones aimed at the Public Broadcasting Service, the network that airs the show. For example, during the "Me Claudius" segment, the children viewing the show might enjoy watching Cookie Monster and the Muppets, while adults watching the same sequence may enjoy the spoof of the Masterpiece Theatre production of I, Claudius; this series of segments is "Monsterpiece Theater."

Several of the characters on the program are aimed at an older audience, such as the character Flo Bear (Flaubert); Sherlock Hemlock (Sherlock Holmes parody); and H. Ross Parrot (based on Reform Party founder Ross Perot). Hundreds of actual celebrities have made guest appearances on the show. The purpose of sophisticated humor is to encourage parents to watch with their children. By making the show not only something that educates and entertains kids, but keeps adults entertained, the producers hope that more discussion about the concepts on the show will occur.

History of the Show

Main article: History of Sesame Street

The original format of the show called for the humans to be shown in plots on the street, intermixed with the segments of animation, live action shorts and Muppets. These segments were created to be like commercials: quick, catchy and memorable. This format would make the learning seem fun, and were the stepping stones in creating the now common edutainment-based program.

To make sure that this revolutionary new format was going to work, CTW called in test groups to air the program to. The test watchers were entranced when the ad-like segments, especially those with the jovial puppets, but were then seriously disinterested by the street scenes. It was a quick and easy choice for the producers to add the Muppets onto the street. This dose of cartoony characters now let the humans deliver messages to watchers without such viewer dismay.

Sesame Street, along with several other Sesame Workshop produced shows (including The Electric Company) are all taped in New York City. Originally, they were taped at the Teletape Studios at 81st and Broadway in Manhattan until Teletape's parent company Reeves Entertainment went bankrupt. The show was then moved to and remains to this day at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in neighboring Queens.

Broadcast history

Main article: Major characters in international versions

The show is broadcast worldwide; in addition to the U.S. version, many countries have locally-produced versions adapted to local needs, some with their own characters, and in a variety of different languages. Broadcasts in Australia began in 1971. In Canada, 15-minute segments called Canada's Sesame Street were broadcast starting in 1970 and eventually grew to a full program called Sesame Park in 1995. From there, 120 countries eventually have aired the show, many partnering with Sesame Workshop to create local versions.

In recent years, Sesame Street has made monumental advances in their international versions. In the late-1990s, versions popped up in China and Russia, as the countries shifted away from communism. There is also a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian project, called Sesame Stories, created with the goal of cultural understanding.

The show has also spawned the spin-off series Play with Me Sesame, classics show Sesame Street Unpaved, and segment only series Open Sesame.

Ratings

As a result of creating a revolution in children's television standards, Sesame Street has helped contract its own audience share. According to PBS Research, the show has gone from a 2.0 average on Nielsen Media Research's "people meters" in 1995-96 to a 1.3 average in 2000-01. Even with this decrease, Sesame Street's viewership on an average week comes from roughly 5.6 million households with 7.5 million viewers.

This places Sesame at 8th place in the overall kids' charts, as of 2002. It is actually the second-most-watched children's television series for mothers aged 18-49 with children under 3.

A format change has recently helped the show's ratings, boosting them up 31% in February 2002 among children aged 2 to 5, in comparison to last year's ratings.

Regional variations of the show

Sesame Street currently airs 23 locally produced adaptations, including:

Other versions have included Canada's Sesame Park. Other countries include Greece (on ERT, later to a private network), Poland and Mexico.

Characters

File:TV sesame street kitten-bird-cow.jpg
Gabby, Elmo, and some kids sing the Kitten-Bird-Cow song, in front of 123 Sesame Street.
Main article: List of Sesame Street characters

Sesame Street has a strong multicultural element and is inclusive in its casting, incorporating roles for disabled people, young people, senior citizens, Hispanic actors, black actors, and others. While some of the puppets look like people, others are animal or "monster" puppets of different sizes and colors. It encourages children to believe that people come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and that no one physical 'type' is any better than another.

Each of the puppet characters have been designed to represent a specific stage or element of early childhood, and the scripts are written so that these characters reflect the developmental age level of a child that age. This helps the show address not only the learning objectives of different age levels, but also the concerns, fears, and interests of children of different age levels.

The Muppets

File:Tv sesame street the street we live on.jpg
The Street We Live On DVD cover depicts (counter-clockwise from left) Elmo, Zoe, Grover, and Ernie.

The humans

Famous guest stars and various children from New York schools and day care centers are a constantly changing part of the cast. Minor puppets also have come and gone over the years.

Controversy

Occasionally, the international version of the show airs segments that might not be considered acceptable by American audiences. In 2002, Sesame Workshop announced that an HIV-positive character, would be introduced to Takalani Sesame, the South African version of the show. This idea was considered crucial for an area where AIDS is an epidemic. The matter was not presented clearly by the media, whose reports gave many the impression that this character was proposed for the American version of the program. Some right-wing activist organizations vigorously opposed the idea, and several politicians and program affiliates also became concerned. The character named Kami was introduced in late September 2002; the name is derived from the Tswana word for "acceptance."

Merchandising

Sesame Street is known for its merchandising, including many books, magazines, video and audio media, toys, and the "Tickle Me Elmo" craze. There are also a live touring show, Sesame Street LIVE! and a theme park in Langhorne, Pennsylvania near Philadelphia (USA), Sesame Place.

Trivia

  • The Sesame Street theme song is "(Can you tell me how to get to, how to get to) Sesame Street". Harmonica legend Toots Thielemans plays the song as a solo is some version of the sequence.

See also

Sesame Street, Season 35, The Annual Sesame Street Cookie Baking Contest

Movies, videos, and specials (incomplete): A Special Sesame Street Christmas, Big Bird's Birthday Celebration, Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Elmo in Grouchland, Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird, Three Bears and a Baby

Direct and in-direct parodies: Avenue Q broadway musical, Bert is Evil parody website

Lists: List of Sesame Street animators, Bibliography of fictional works based on the show, Sesame Street discography, List of Sesame Street puppeteers

Lists relating to characters: characters, characters, exclusively in books, movies, characters ordered by date of debut, characters ordered by last known appearance, characters from international versions, grouch characters, guest celebrities, monster characters, Muppet characters

References

  • David Borgenicht, Sesame Street Unpaved: Scripts, Stories, Secrets, and Songs, 1998, ASIN 0786864605
  • Caroll Spinney, J. Milligan, The Wisdom of Big Bird: (And the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) : Lessons from a Life in Feathers, 2003, ISBN 0375507817
  • Christopher Finch, Jim Henson: The Works - The Art, the Magic, the Imagination, 1993, ISBN 0679412034
  • Shalom M. Fisch, Rosemarie T. Truglio, "G" Is for Growing: 30 Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, 2000, ISBN 0805833951

External links

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