Sesame Street (TV)

Identification Children’s television series

Date Debuted in 1969

Called “the largest educational experiment ever,” Sesame Street changed the concept of educational television and children’s programming with its innovative content and style.

Produced by Children’s Television Workshop (which later became Sesame Workshop) and aired on the newly established Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Sesame Street was designed to teach preschool-age children, especially in inner cities, the basic knowledge of letters and numbers as well as social skills. It was a response to political and social concerns regarding a widening gap between the haves and have-nots in American society—a gap that became increasingly visible after the rise of the civil rights movement. In its initial years, the program was primarily funded by the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the US Department of Education.

Prior to Sesame Street, educational television programs were produced on a small and local basis and were shown in classrooms as part of instruction. However, as a product of a close collaboration between educators and television professionals who made up Children’s Television Workshop, Sesame Street proved to be entertaining and high quality and was able to compete with other programs on commercial television.

Sesame Street’s style and content were innovative. The show adopted the “kaleidoscope” approach—a succession of short sequences—that was first used in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and that was becoming popular in comedy and variety programs. In order to attract and keep children’s attention, the show also used a variety of techniques, such as humor, slapstick, animation, and music and sound effects, all of which made segments resemble commercials. Sesame Street’s regular characters included the Muppets, which were puppets created by Jim Henson and given distinctive personalities. The Muppets not only made possible the portrayal of exaggerated roles and functions but also were likable enough to popularize the show. The human characters were also diverse. From the beginning, there were as many African American actors as there were white ones; Latino and Asian characters were later added to the regulars. In the mid-1970s, the show introduced Linda, a deaf librarian played by Linda Bove, a deaf actor. Traditional gender roles were broken by both the human characters and the Muppets.

Various educational groups, including the Educational Testing Service, measured the effectiveness of Sesame Street as a teaching tool and consistently proved that children who were regular viewers scored higher on tests than those who were not. Sesame Street thus broke the stereotype that educational instruction and entertainment were not compatible. By its second year, the program secured its place on a majority of PBS stations across the country and later became one of the few PBS programs that was able to sustain itself through the sale of merchandise and international coproductions, which began in 1971.

Impact

Sesame Street convinced people that educational television did not have to be dull; there were ways to make televised teaching entertaining and effective. It also proved that television could be used as an effective teaching tool. Moreover, Sesame Street changed the popular perception of public broadcasting as “highbrow” fare. Sesame Street has won more than 160 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards. In 2015, with the Sesame Workshop facing shrinking budgets, the Sesame Workshop announced that beginning with the show's forty-sixth season in 2016, first-run episodes of Sesame Street would air on the premium cable channel HBO, which would hold exclusive rights to new episodes for nine months, after which the episodes would air on PBS free of charge.

Over the years, the show has continued to feature diverse characters, several of whom confront real-life issues and scenarios, in an effort to educate audiences and remain relatable. In 2017, the show introduced Julia, a Muppet who has autism. After beginning research and work on the initiative to include an autistic character around 2010, Sesame Workshop first released a digital picture book featuring Julia in 2015 before she appeared on her first episode of the show in 2017. The following year, the organization announced that through online videos and storybooks, the character of Lily, who had initially been introduced in a special dealing with hunger, would be brought back to teach viewers about homelessness as she lives with friends on Sesame Street following the loss of her family's home.

Bibliography

Borgenicht, David. Sesame Street Unpaved: Scripts, Stories, Secrets, and Songs. Hyperion, 1998.

Davis, Michael. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. Penguin Books, 2009.

Howe, Michael J. A. Television and Children. New University Education, 1977.

Kindelan, Katie. "'Sesame Street' Takes on Homelessness with a Muppet Named Lily." ABC News, 12 Dec. 2018, abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/GMA/Culture/sesame-street-takes-homelessness-muppet-named-lily/story?id=59773014. Accessed 5 Feb. 2019.

Palmer, Edward L. Television and America’s Children. Oxford UP, 1988.

Pallotta, Frank, and Brian Stelter. "'Sesame Street' Is Heading to HBO." CNN Money, 13 Aug. 2015, money.cnn.com/2015/08/13/media/sesame-street-hbo/index.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2016.

Suskind, Ron. "Why the Team Behind Sesame Street Created a Character with Autism." Smithsonian.com, Dec. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/team-sesame-street-created-character-autism-180967218/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2019.