We may not be able to tell you exactly how to get there, but since 1969, kids have been spending plenty of time on Sesame Street.  For many of us, it’s an indelible part of our childhood experience, and even that of our own children – and we’ll never lose our fondness for Ernie and Bert, Big Bird and Snuffy, Oscar and Cookie Monster.  They’re some of the most widely recognized and best-loved television characters ever to appear on the small screen. 

Sesame Street has been captivating audiences for well over thirty years – that’s almost four thousand episodes.  Since its first airing on November 10th, 1969 …

• The show airs in more than 140 countries worldwide, and actually has local “spin-offs” in nineteen different countries.
• It has been host to more than 250 celebrity guests: among them, Barbara Walters, Noah Wyle, Bo Jackson, Phil Donahue, Queen Latifah, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Jodie Foster, Susan Sarandon, Bill Cosby, Jim Carrey, and Rosie O’Donnell … just to name a few.
• It has won over a hundred awards: eight Grammys, two George Foster Peabody Awards, four Parents’ Choice Awards, one Clio Award, the Prix Jeunesse International, an Action for Children’s Television Special Achievement Award, and a whopping seventy-one Emmys (more than any other show ever in history).
• It is watched at least once a week by seventy-seven percent of American preschool-aged kids.  In an average week, over eleven million people – both kids and adults – tune in to watch the show.
• It is shown daily, several times, on over 300 PBS stations in the United States.
• There have been more than 600 Sesame Street books published by The Children’s Television Workshop, and six magazines with a monthly readership of over twelve million.

Pretty impressive for a show that, in the beginning, was basically an experiment.  It was the brainchild of a young television documentary producer named Joan Ganz Cooney, who had never worked on either children’s or educational programming; she was used to focusing on the political and social issues of the day.  Her idea was to create a children’s television show that would teach kids while keeping them entertained – an educational comedy show.  The concept of the show’s format was inspired by TV commercials, and Cooney would later explain this concept to the New York Times: “Traditional educators may not be nuts about this, but we’re going to clip along at a much faster pace than anyone’s used to in children’s programs.  Kids like commercials and banana-peel humor and avant-garde video and audio techniques … We have to infuse our content into forms children find accessible.”  It was from this notion that one of the most successful children’s shows in the history of television was born.

Ms. Cooney’s cronies …

• Dave Connell, the vice president and executive producer
• Samuel Gibbon, producer of the show
• Jon Stone, producer and director for over twenty-six years, and responsible for the style of the show.  He proposed that the show should be set in a place kids could identify with: a real street, populated with real people.
• Jeff Moss, head writer, who told the other writers, “You’ve got two jobs.  One is to do a television show that a four-year-old wants to watch.  The second is to do a show that you want to watch.”
• Jim Henson, probably the most famous Sesame Street associate, the inventor of the Muppets.
• Joe Raposo, a musician and composer, who would eventually write such beloved songs as Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green.”

Naming the Show

The People in Your Neighborhood …

It wasn’t long before more actors were added to the multicultural cast.  Some of the better-known, longest running cast members include:

• Bob – played by Bob McGrath.  On the show, Bob is a private music teacher and regular guy.  So regular, in fact, that when he asked the director who his character should act like, he was told to act like himself – and that’s exactly what he did. In the early 1960s, before Sesame Street, Bob was a pop-music icon in Japan.  Really!
• Gordon – first played by Matt Robinson (from 1969 to 1971), then by Hal Miller (1971-73), and finally by Roscoe Orman, the most recognizable Gordon, who joined the cast in 1973 and has been there ever since.  When Orman auditioned for the part, he was up against actor Robert Guillaume, who played Benson DuBois on the TV show Benson.
• Susan – played by Loretta Long.  The motherly figure of the show, Susan was initially cast to be a homemaker and traditional wife.  But the show was monitored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), who approached Sesame Street’s directors, producers, and writers with some concerns – they felt that Susan’s character was stereotyping women.  So director Jon Stone suggested giving Susan a career, and she became a public health nurse.  In real life, Long spent the first season of Sesame Street substitute-teaching as a second job.  In 1973, four years after the show began, she received her Ph.D. in Urban Education from the University of Massachusetts.
• Mr. Hooper – played by Will Lee.  On the show, he was the owner of – you guessed it – Hooper’s Store.  His store was the neighborhood meeting place, where Bert could always count on a “Figgy Fizz” soda, Big Bird could always count on a birdseed milkshake, and the humans could count on a chocolate egg-cream.  A first name was never needed until an episode in which he earned his GED for night school attendance; it was in that episode that, while proudly displaying his GED certificate, he became Harold Hooper.      
• Luis – played by Emilio Delgado.  Luis was the first addition to the original cast, and the first Hispanic member.  Together with Maria, he helped teach viewers about Hispanic culture and language.  He owns Sesame Street’s Fix-It Shop, specializing in toaster repair (Robert Redford and Robert DeNiro have both dropped off their broken toasters there over the years).  Before Sesame Street, Delgado starred in Hawaii Five-O.
• Maria – played by Sonia Manzano.  Originally, Maria’s character was a teenager who worked at Sesame Street’s Lending Library.  Over time, she courted and married Luis, and they eventually added a new member to their on-screen family – a daughter, played by her real-life daughter Gabriela.  Contrary to popular belief, Luis and Maria are not married off-screen.  Manzano doesn’t only act for Sesame Street; she also writes for the show, and has earned seven Emmys for her writing.
• David – played by Northern Calloway.  He was Sesame Street’s resident cool guy, a law student until Mr. Hooper’s death, at which time he took over Hooper’s Store.  Calloway attended New York’s High School of the Performing Arts, the same high school where Fame took place (Sonia Manzano was a fellow student).  He was a stage actor, performing both on and off Broadway until he died in 1989.
• Linda – played by Linda Bove.  Linda, Sesame Street’s librarian, is deaf.  Hers is the longest-running role of any physically challenged person in a TV series.  Although she does speak at times, she most often communicates with the Muppets and other cast members through simple signs, teaching children the basics of American Sign Language.  She introduced Barkley, the big, shaggy orange dog, to the show.  Before Sesame Street, Linda had a role as one of the Fonz’s “chicks” on Happy Days.

Through the years, many other cast members have come onto the Street scene: Olivia, Buffy, Willy, Mr. Macintosh, Mr. Handford, Gina, Ruthie, Savion, Uncle Wally, Lillian, and Celina.  The cast still maintains its cultural and ethnic diversity. 

… And the Muppets in Your Neighborhood!

How to Make a Muppet

• Someone comes up with an idea for a new Muppet and presents it to the Muppet art director, Ed Christie.
• Christie draws sketches of the character based on the concepts he’s given, and then gets feedback on the designs from the writers, directors, and Muppeteers.  The selections are narrowed down to one design, which Christie then turns into a finished drawing.
•  Once the drawing has been approved, the Muppet builders sculpt the raw materials into a working puppet.  The puppet, at this point just a raw foam character, is then decorated with faux furs, fabrics, eyes, noses, and any other features – horns, antennae, etc.
• Engineers add any needed mechanisms, such as moving eyebrows or remote-controlled motorized eyes.
• The talented hand of a Muppeteer is added, and voilá!  The Muppet comes to life.

Making Faces … The Secrets of Muppets’ Mugs

• The design of each Muppet’s face is based on a secret formula created by Jim Henson.  It’s called “the magic triangle” and it refers to the relationship between the eyes and the nose.
• The eyes have it:  Muppets’ eyes are made of a toy called “Wacky Stacks,” which were popular for a short time in the 1970s.  They’re white plastic balls that “nest” inside other, bigger white plastic balls of graduating sizes.  Legend says that Jim Henson purchased the entire inventory of Wacky Stacks when the company went under, but no one will either confirm or deny that rumor.
• Muppet designers use different sized pupils depending on the desired “age” of the Muppet.  The smaller the pupil, the more mature the Muppet looks; the larger the pupil, the younger it looks.
• Some of the Muppets’ “ingredients” are far from high-tech or expensive.  For example, Sesame Street resident Zoe has a nose made from a plastic grape covered in fleece!

The Inner Workings of a Muppet

• Two-handed Muppets, such as Ernie and Cookie Monster, require two Muppeteers.  They’re “worn” by the Muppeteer who provides the character’s voice: the Muppet goes over his or her head, with the right hand in the mouth and the left in the Muppet’s left hand.  The other Muppeteer controls the right hand, which does the majority of the actions and handles any props.
• Rod Muppets, such as Bert, Grover, and Kermit, only require one Muppeteer: his or her right hand goes in the Muppet’s mouth, and the left hand works the rods which are attached to the Muppet’s hands or feet.
• Big Bird is a little different.  His Muppeteer, Caroll Spinney, is actually inside the costume.  He puts his right hand into Big Bird’s head to work the mouth and eyes, and his left hand works Bird’s arms.  Bird’s right arm works like a marionette, attached with an invisible wire to a ring in his head.  Spinney has a microphone and monitor inside his costume that allows him to see what he’s doing.  His view is the same view that the audience sees.
• Muppeteers work from the ground, either crouching or sitting or lying down.  Normally, they’re propped on a rolling cushion so that can move quickly and smoothly in and out of frame.
• Muppeteers don’t look up at the Muppets or at each other, but at a monitor that displays the same scene that the viewers see at home.  This way, they can more easily see how well their character is interacting with the others.  They don’t have to memorize their lines, because they work from a script that is taped to the monitor.

Muppet Makeovers

• Turkey feathers are purchased from a company in the United States, then shipped to China, where the spine of each feather is cut in half to make them more supple.
• The feathers are then sent back to the feather company, and bleached and cleaned.  Then they’re dyed: the tips a bright yellow, and the part closest to the body a deeper golden. 
• The feathers are sent to the Muppet Workshop, where they’re separated into grades – A, B, C, D, and E.  Each feather has to be in perfect condition and from eight to nine inches long.  Only the top three grades of feathers (A, B, and C) are used to make Big Bird’s costume; the rest are discarded.
•  Muppet builders then hot-glue the feathers onto the base of the costume.

Sesame Street Goes Global

While the American version of Sesame Street is broadcast in over 140 different countries, some countries have their own versions in their native languages.  While there are some familiar characters in the international versions, each show has its own unique characters that you won’t find on any other Sesame Street.  In Israel’s version, for example, you won’t see Oscar – but you’ll see Moishe Oofnik, an Israeli grouch.  China has Xiao Mei Zi, a bright red monster, much like a female Elmo. Mexico’s version of Big Bird is a huge green, yellow, and red parrot. 

Like American Sesame Street, each country’s respective Muppets help kids deal with the issues that affect them most.  Rechov Sumsum/Shara’s Simsim is the revolutionary Israeli/Palestinian co-production designed to teach children in both territories mutual respect.  And recently, South Africa’s Takalani Sesame introduced Kami, an HIV-positive Muppet.

Here’s what you’ll hear each country call their version (and they thought Sesame Street would be hard to pronounce?):

• Les Amis de Sesame – France
• Barrio Sésamo – Spain
• Iftah Ya Simsim – Kuwait
• Plaza Sesamo – Mexico
• Rechov Sumsum – Israel
• Shara’s Simsim – Palestine
• Rua Sésamo – Portugal
• Sesam Stasjon – Norway
• Sesame Park – Canada
• Sesamstraat – Holland
• Sesamstrasse – Germany
• Susam Sokagi – Turkey
• Ulica Sezamkowa – Poland
• Ulitsa Sezam – Russia
• Zhima Jie – China
• Taman Sesame – Malaysia
• Boneka Sesame – Indonesia
• Takalani Sesame – South Africa
• Sesam Opnist Pû – Iceland
• Sezamé Otevri Se – Czech Republic
• Svenska Sesam – Sweden
• Seesamtie – Finland

Sesame Street is a part of many of us, a place where we learned our earliest lessons, a place we can always come home to.  Since 1969, it has not only taught us the basics, but dealt with major life issues such as birth, death, and love – all in an insightful and sensitive manner.  More than seventy million children so far have grown up, and grown wiser, with the characters we know and love, on the street where every day’s a sunny day – Sesame Street. 

External Links:

• Sesame Workshop - Free printable coloring pages and stories to read.
• PBS Kids' Sesame Street Page - Features materials to complement the show.
• Sesame Place - The Sesame Street Theme Park - Park information and attractions.