Sesame Street

Sesame Street
Genre	Children's television series Educational
Created by	Joan Ganz Cooney Lloyd Morrisett Jon Stone Jim Henson (Muppet characters only)
Theme music composer	Joe Raposo Jon Stone Bruce Hart
Opening theme	"Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?"
Ending theme	"Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?" (instrumental; up until season 45) "Smarter, Stronger, Kinder" (season 46 onwards)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	53
No. of episodes	4666[note 1]
Production
Executive producers	David Connell (1969–72)[1][2] Jon Stone (1972–78)[3][4] Al Hyslop (1978–80) (credited as "producer" in season 10)[5] Dulcy Singer (1980–93)[6][7] Michael Loman (1993–2002)[8][9] Lewis Bernstein (2003–05)[10][11] Carol-Lynn Parente (2006–17)[12] Brown Johnson (2017–19) Benjamin Lehmann (2018–present)
Production locations	Reeves Teletape Studios (1969–92) Unitel Video, Inc. (1987–93) Kaufman Astoria Studios (1993–present)
Running time	60 minutes (1969–2015) 30 minutes (2014–present)
Production company	Sesame Workshop[note 2]
Original release
Network	NET (1969–1970) PBS (1970–present) HBO (2016–2020) Max (2020–present)
Release	November 10, 1969 (1969-11-10) – present

Sesame Street is an American children's television series with many Muppets (puppet characters) and non-Muppet characters (human characters). There are also many animated characters. The show deals with issues like music, song, alphabet, numbers, and teaching children basics in learning, as well as more serious issues like death, divorce, HIV/AIDS, autism, and foster care. Part of the profits, go to an international project for children's schools. 54 seasons to 4,701 episodes.

The show has been on TV since November 10, 1969. Jim Henson made the Muppets and a lot of writers and puppeteers worked together to make the show. The Muppets were used afterwards in a different show called The Muppet Show. Sesame Street has been on TV in 120 countries all over the world. More than 4000 episodes have been made over 50 seasons. One unique feature of the show is that the episode number appears at the start of each episode.

For most of its history, Sesame Street had been shown on PBS. In 2015, new episodes began airing on PBS in January 2016, but those episodes would be shown on PBS nine months. In 2020, Sesame Street aired on PBS for the last time. After five seasons on PBS, the show returns to PBS as its first-run program, for the newer episodes, starting with the 51st season.

The Puppets[change | change source]

• Big Bird is a 8-foot-tall yellow bird-rex. He was the first Muppet to appear on Sesame Street. His best friend is Snuffleupagus who looks like a reddish-brown mammoth-like elephant-creature with no tusks and was assumed to be imaginary by the rest of the cast, until the creators revealed him due to hearing about reports of sexual abuse cases of children. Performed by Caroll Spinney (1969–2018) and Matt Vogel (2009–present).
• Oscar the Grouch is dwelling green alien who lives in a garbage can with his pet worm Slimey and his pet elephant Fluffy. He is always in a bad mood and he loves everything that other people hate: mud, dirt, etc. He has a girlfriend named Grundgetta. Performed by Caroll Spinney (1969–2018) and Matt Vogel (2009–present).
• Bert and Ernie are two roommates. Ernie is more active and always ready to play a game or make a mess. Bert is an often boring grouch who likes to read; he likes things to be clean, neat and loves pigeons. They are rumors that they are gay, which Sesame Workshop has denied.
• Cookie Monster is a blue alien that has a baritone voice, and eats large amounts of cookies. It was rumored that he would be renamed the Veggie Monster in an effort to promote healthy eating, but that turned out to be untrue. He also once had his own skit where he introduced parodies of famous books, movies, plays, and TV shows.^[13] Performed by Frank Oz and Peter Cullen.
• Zoe is a female yellowish-orange alien. She has a rock named Rocco and loves ballet. She is also Elmo's best friend.
• Rosita is a bilingual turquoise female alien who is from Mexico and speaks both English and Spanish. She also plays the guitar. Performed by Carmen Osbahr.
• Grover is a clumsy blue alien. He pretends to be a superhero named Super Grover. Super Grover is his alter ego.
• Count von Count (The Count) is a number-counting lavender vampire.
• Prairie Dawn is methodic and driven young girl who loves to write and direct pageants featuring her friends
• Elmo is a small red alien who has a falsetto voice and lives with his goldfish named Dorothy. He speaks in third person and got his own Sesame Street segment, Elmo's World, in 1998.
• Kermit the Frog is one of the first Muppets designed and built by Jim Henson.^[14] Borgenicht calls Kermit "funny, ironic, and always the voice of reason amidst the insanity around him; the calm in the eye of the storm".^[15] He was a star on Sesame Street until 2001. He had his own skit where he interviewed characters from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and history.

Other muppets for Sesame Street include a girl fairy named Abby Cadabby, Murray, his lamb named Ovajita, Juila, and the Two-Headed Monster. Not only Muppets play in the show but also a diverse cast of human characters who live with the Muppets.

Related pages[change | change source]

• Sesame Workshop

Notes[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

Other websites[change | change source]

• Muppet Central