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Sesame Street is an educational television program for young children, which lead the way for many of the modern edutainment style shows.
It is produced in America, and has millions of viewers worldwide. It premiered in 1969 on the National Educational Television network, and later that year moved to NET's successor, the Public Broadcasting System. 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, colours, 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 sly, 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 PBS, the network that airs the show. For example, during a segment entitled "Me Claudius", 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; and H. Ross Parrot (based on Reform Party founder Ross Perot). Also to attract adult viewer, hundreds of actual celebrities have made guest appearances on the show over the years. (See Sesame Street/Celebrities.)
The purpose of such elements of adult humor are 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.
Sesame Street has a strong multi-cultural element and tries to be inclusive in its casting, incorporating roles for disabled people, young people, senior citizens, Hispanic actors, African-American actors, and others. While some of the puppets look like people, others are animal or "monster" puppets of arbitrary sizes and colors. It encourages children to realise that people come in all different shapes, sizes, and colours, 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.
Broadcast History
The show is broadcast worldwide; in addition to the American 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 commenced in 1971. In Canada, 15-minute segments called Sesame Street Canada were broadcast starting in 1970 and eventually grew to a full program called Sesame Park in 1995. Separate programs exist in Germany, the Netherlands, and Mexico, and there are plans for a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian project. International characters include: in Canada, Basil, a polar bear and Louis, a French speaking otter; in Germany, Rumpell, an Oscar-like character that lives in a rainbarrel; in the Netherlands, Pino, a blue Big Bird; in Israel, Kippi Kipod, a hedgehog.
Controversy faced by the show
Occasionally, the international version of the show airs segments that might not be considered acceptable to North American audiences. In 2002, Sesame Workshop announced that an HIV-positive character would be introduced to the South African version of the show, Takalani Sesame. AIDS is an epidemic in South Africa, so creating an upbeat so this fun and happy character, not downhearted by her ailment,
This idea is considered crucial for an area where AIDS is an epidemic. The matter was partially distorted by the media, whose reports gave naïve citizens the impression that this character, later named Kami, was to be added to their version of the program. Program affiliates and the Internet sparked heated uproar, which was then furthered by politicians, who sparked controversy about public funding for such a controversial matter. The
for this was met with hostility from program affiliates in the United States. The character named Kami was introduced in late September 2002, the name is derived from the Tswana word for "acceptance".
Primary puppet characters, many of which were Muppets designed by Jim Henson, include:
- Bert (Sesame Street)
- Ernie (Sesame Street)
- Big Bird
- Oscar the Grouch
- Cookie Monster
- Count von Count ("The Count")
- Grover
- Aloysius Snuffleupagus
- Kermit the Frog
- Natasha, Humphrey and Ingrid
- Elmo
- Benny Rabbit
- Rosita, la Monstrua de las Cuevas
- Baby Bear
- Telly Monster
- Zoe (Sesame Street)
Primary human characters (alphabetically):
- Alan
- Bob and his Uncle Wally
- Carlo
- Celina
- David and his grandmother Clarice
- Dr. Gina Jefferson
- Linda
- Mr. Handford
- Mr. Hooper
- Mr. Noodle and Mr. Noodle's Brother, Mr. Noodle
- Ruthie
- The Robinsons: Susan, Gordon, and son Miles; also Gordon's sister Olivia
- The Rodriguezes: Maria, Luis, and daughter Gabby
- Wanda the Word Fairy
Secondary human characters:
- ABC Rapper
- Buffy, her husband Sheldon and child Koty
- Jamal and Angela, and their children Kayla and Tarah
- Keshia
- Larry
- Larry and Phyllis
- Maya
- Molly, the Mail Lady
- The Number Painter and his victim
- Wally and Ralph
- Willy
- Mr. Macintosh
- Hiroshi
- Lillian
- Various lesser used, nineteen-seventies characters: Antonio, Miguel, Tom, Judy, Rafael, Kim Raver, Billy
- Real Life Kids: John-John, Fanny
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.
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 near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), Sesame Park.
Sesame Street discography, Sesame Street fiction bibliography
Sesame Street is produced by Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop or CTW.
History of the Show
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.
Snuffy- A lesson in perseverance
Since the first formative years of the show, Big Bird had an invisible friend, Mr. Snuffulupagus. Big Bird constantly claimed that the creature, reminiscent of an ear-less elephant or wooly mammoth was real, but the cabbage-loving creature only showed up when the humans left. When the humans came back, Snuffy had vanished, often leaving Big Bird assigned with the blame for something Snuffy did (i.e. eating all of the truffles).
But in the mid-70s, the humans were terribly shocked to see that around a decade worth of presumed fibs on the yellow canary's behalf, were indeed truthful realities, as Snuffy finally stayed around long enough for the humans to see him. The producers chose to do this, not to end a repetitive plot cycle, which may have haltered the writer's creative freedom, but in the effort to combat pedophilia. By letting kids see that adult can believe what you say is real, the educators hoped to encourage abused children to feel confident telling adults about their abuse.
Theft of artifacts
In February 1996, the original Ernie and Bert puppets were stolen from a museum in Germany. In addition to a large man hunt, Snuffy was shown pleading on German national television for their eventual safe return.
Osama and Evil Bert
A photograph of a protest rally in Bangladesh supporting Osama bin Laden showed a poster of Osama bin Laden with a small but clearly identifiable images of Bert, a Muppet from the children's television show Sesame Street, over his right shoulder. (Another smaller image of bin Laden is immediately to the right of Bert's image.) The photo is from Reuters, and was not doctored. In fact, the image of Osama and Bert had been created (using an image editing tool) by a humorist earlier and placed on a website, and the person who made the poster must have copied it from the World Wide Web, leaving the image of Evil Bert in.
As a response to this, the creator of the "Bert is Evil" website has taken down the site and posted a note explaining the decision. "I am doing this because I feel this has gotten too close to reality," he says, "and I choose to be responsible enough to stop it right here." For full message text, see . For a detailed account of the use of the image, in the Mideast as well as by Western news agencies, see . (The latter also argues against the notion that inclusion of the Bert image of the photo is some kind of coded communication.)