Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The show's success continued into the 1980s. In 1981, the federal government withdrew its funding, so CTW turned to other sources, including its magazine division, book
royaltiesRoyalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
, product licensing, and foreign income.
Sesame Streets curriculum has expanded to include more affective topics such as relationships, ethics, and emotions. Many of the show's storylines were taken from the experiences of its writing staff, cast, and crew. Most notable of these are the 1982 death of Will LeeWill Lee was an American actor best known for playing the store proprietor Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, from the show's debut in 1969 until his death in 1982.-Early career:...
—who played Mr. HooperHarold Hooper was a character on Sesame Street, played by Will Lee, who was the original proprietor of Mr. Hooper's Store, which still retains his name.-Biography:...
—and the marriage of Luis and Maria in 1988.
In recent decades, Sesame Street
has faced societal and economic challenges, including changes in viewing habits of young children, more competition from other shows, the development of cable television, and a drop in ratings. After the turn of the twenty-first century, Sesame Street made major structural changes; for example, starting in 2002, its format became more narrative and included storylines. Due to the popularity of the Muppet
ElmoElmo is a Muppet character on the children's television show Sesame Street. He is a furry red monster and currently hosts the last full 15 minute segment on Sesame Street, Elmo's World, which is aimed at toddlers. His puppeteer, Kevin Clash, uses falsetto to produce his voice...
, the show also incorporated a popular segment after its thirtieth anniversary in 1999 known as "
Elmo's World"Elmo's World" is a segment of the children's television show Sesame Street featuring Elmo, a small, three and a half year old, bright red monster. It debuted on November 16, 1998. Since then, it has been regularly shown during the last fifteen minutes of every Sesame Street episode...
". With the fortieth anniversary in
2009The 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, August 30, 2009, and were televised live on The CW for the very first time. The nominees were announced on May 14. Vanessa L...
, the show received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy.
Format
Sesame Street
, from its first episode, has structured its format by using "a strong visual style, fast-moving action, humor, and music" as well as animation and live-action short films. When Sesame Street premiered, most researchers assumed that young children did not have long
attention spanAttention span is the amount of time that a person can concentrate on a task without becoming distracted. Most educators and psychologists agree that the ability to focus one's attention on a task is crucial for the achievement of one's goals....
s, so the new show's producers were concerned that an hour-long show would not hold their audience's attention. At first, the show's "street scenes", which referred to the action taking place on its set, consisted of a typical inner-city street and were not story-based. Instead, they consisted of individual segments connected to the curriculum and interrupted by "inserts", or puppet skits, short films, and animations; this structure allowed the producers to use a mixture of styles, paces, and characters. By season 20, research had shown that children were able to follow a story, so the street scenes, interspersed with shorter segments, were changed to depict storylines.
The producers decided, by recommendation of
child psychologistsDevelopmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
, that the show's human actors and Muppets would not interact because they were concerned it would confuse and mislead young children. When the CTW tested the appeal of the new show, they found that although children paid attention to the shows during the Muppet segments, their interest was lost during the "Street" segments. The producers went back and re-shot the Street segments; Henson and his team created Muppets such as
Big BirdBig Bird is a protagonist of the children's television show Sesame Street. Big Bird, like many of the other Sesame Street characters, is a Muppet character. He is sometimes referred to simply as "Bird" by his friends....
and
Oscar the GrouchOscar the Grouch is a Muppet character on the television program Sesame Street. He has a green body , has no nose , and lives in a trash can. His favorite thing in life is trash; evidence for this is the song "I Love Trash". A running theme is his compulsive hoarding of seemingly useless items...
that could interact with the human actors. Sesame Streets format remained intact until the show's later decades, when their audience changed. Its producers responded to these changes by moving to a more narrative format, beginning in 1998 with the creation of the popular segment, "Elmo's World", a fifteen-minute long segment hosted by the Muppet Elmo.
Educational goals
As author
Malcolm GladwellMalcolm Gladwell, CM is a Canadian journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. He is currently based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996...
has stated, "
Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them".
Gerald S. LesserGerald Samuel Lesser was an American psychologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University and was one of the chief advisers to the Children's Television Workshop in the development and content of the educational programming included in Sesame Street, with the goal of making the material...
, the CTW's first advisory board chair, went even further and stated that the effective use of television as an educational tool needed to capture, focus, and sustain children's attention.
Sesame Street was the first children's show that structured each episode and made, as Gladwell put it, "small but critical adjustments" to each segment to capture children's attention. According to CTW researchers Rosemarie Truglio and Shalom Fisch,
Sesame Street was one of the few children's television programs that utilized a detailed and comprehensive educational curriculum, garnered from
formativeFormative assessment is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures employed by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. It typically involves qualitative feedback for both student and teacher that focuses on...
and summative research, in its content.
Sesame Street had both
cognitiveIn science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
and
affectiveAffect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect is a key part of the process of an organism's interaction with stimuli. The word also refers sometimes to affect display, which is "a facial, vocal, or gestural behavior that serves as an indicator of affect" .The affective domain...
goals. Initially, its producers and researchers focused on cognitive goals, while addressing affective goals indirectly, because they believed that focusing on cognitive goals would increase children's
self-esteemSelf-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
and feelings of
competencyA skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...
. One of their initial and primary goals was preparing young children for school, especially children from
low-incomePoverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
families. The show's producers used modeling, repetition, and humor to fulfill their goals. They made changes in the show's content to increase their viewers' attention and to increase its appeal. They encouraged "co-viewing" to entice older children and parents to watch the show by including humor, cultural references, and celebrities.
After
Sesame Streets first season, its critics forced its producers and researchers to address affective goals more overtly. The affective goals they addressed were social competence, tolerance of
diversityCultural diversity is having different cultures respect each other's differences. It could also mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole...
, and nonaggressive ways of
resolving conflictConflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
, which was depicted through interpersonal disputes among its residents. In the 1980s, the show used the real-life experiences of the show's cast and crew, such as the death of
Will LeeWill Lee was an American actor best known for playing the store proprietor Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street, from the show's debut in 1969 until his death in 1982.-Early career:...
(
Mr. HooperHarold Hooper was a character on Sesame Street, played by Will Lee, who was the original proprietor of Mr. Hooper's Store, which still retains his name.-Biography:...
) and the pregnancy of
Sonia ManzanoSonia Manzano is an American actress and writer. She is best known for playing Maria on Sesame Street since 1971. She also licenses her image to promote items of baby clothes and plates in Hispanic America....
(Maria) to address affective concerns. In later seasons,
Sesame Street addressed real-life disasters such as the September 11 terrorist attacks and
Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
.
The show's goals for outreach were addressed through a series of programs that first focused on promotion, and then after the first season, on the development of educational materials used in preschool settings. Innovative programs were developed because their target audience, children and their families in low-income, inner-city homes, did not traditionally watch educational programs on television and because traditional methods of promotion and advertising were not effective with these groups.
Funding
As a result of Cooney's initial proposal in 1968, the Carnegie Institute awarded her an $8 million ($ million in dollars) grant to create a new children's television program and establish the CTW, renamed in 2000 to the
Sesame WorkshopSesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop , is a Worldwide American non-profit organization behind the production of several educational children's programs that have run on public broadcasting around the world...
(SW). Cooney and Morrisett procured additional multi-million-dollar grants from the US federal government,
The Arthur Vining Davis FoundationsThe Arthur Vining Davis Foundations are a group of charitable foundations established by American industrialist Arthur Vining Davis, onetime Alcoa president and Florida land developer.-History:...
CPBThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a non-profit corporation created by an act of the United States Congress, funded by the United States’ federal government to promote public broadcasting...
and the
Ford FoundationThe Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
. Davis reported that Cooney and Morrisett decided that if they did not procure full funding from the beginning, they would drop the idea of producing the show. As Lesser reported, funds gained from a combination of government agencies and private foundations protected them from the economic pressures experienced by commercial broadcast television networks, but caused challenges in procuring future funding.
After
Sesame Streets initial success, its producers began to think about its survival beyond its development and first season and decided to explore other funding sources. From the first season, they understood that the source of their funding, which they considered "seed" money, would need to be replaced. The 1970s were marked by conflicts between the CTW and the federal government; in 1978, the
U.S. Department of EducationThe United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
refused to deliver a $2 million check until the last day of CTW's fiscal year. As a result, the CTW decided to depend upon licensing arrangements with toy companies and other manufacturers, publishing, and international sales for their funding.
In 1998, the CTW accepted corporate sponsorship to raise funds for
Sesame Street and other projects. For the first time, they aired short ads of indoor playground manufacturer
Discovery ZoneDiscovery Zone was a chain of entertainment facilities featuring games and elaborate indoor mazes designed for young children, including slides, climbing play structures and ball pits. The chain was founded by Ronald Matsch, Jim Jorgensen, Mike Geselbracht and Dr. David Schoenstadt in 1989. The...
, their first corporate sponsor, to air before and after each episode. Consumer advocate
Ralph NaderRalph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
, who had previously appeared on
Sesame Street, called for a boycott of the show, saying that the CTW was "exploiting impressionable children".
Research
As Cooney has stated, "Without research, there would be no
Sesame Street". In 1967, when Cooney and her team began to plan the show's development, combining research with television production was, as she put it, "positively heretical". Shortly after creating
Sesame Street, its producers began to develop what came to be called "the CTW model", a system of planning, production, and evaluation that did not fully emerge until the end of the show's first season.
[See Gikow, p. 155, for a visual representation of the CTW model.] According to Morrow, the CTW model consisted of four parts: "the interaction of receptive television producers and
child scienceChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
experts, the creation of a specific and age-appropriate curriculum, research to shape the program directly, and independent measurement of viewers' learning".
Cooney credited the show's high standard in research procedures to Harvard professors
Gerald S. LesserGerald Samuel Lesser was an American psychologist who served on the faculty of Harvard University and was one of the chief advisers to the Children's Television Workshop in the development and content of the educational programming included in Sesame Street, with the goal of making the material...
, whom the CTW hired to design the show's educational objectives, and
Edward L. PalmerDr. Edward L. Palmer was a media educator, researcher, author, and advocate, with extensive international experience in media planning and applications. He is a native of Oregon, holds a Ph.D...
, who was responsible for conducting the show's formative research and for bridging the gap between the show's producers and researchers. The CTW conducted research in two ways: in-house formative research that informed and improved production, and independent summative evaluations, conducted by the
Educational Testing ServiceEducational Testing Service , founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization...
(ETS) during the show's first two seasons, which measuring its educational effectiveness. Cooney stated, "From the beginning, we—the planners of the project—designed the show as an experimental research project with educational advisers, researchers, and television producers collaborating as equal partners". Cooney also described the collaboration as an "arranged marriage".
Writing
Sesame Street has used many writers in its long history. As Dave Connell, one of
Sesame Streets original producers, has stated, it was difficult to find adults who could identify a preschooler's interest level. Fifteen writers a year worked on the show's scripts, but very few lasted longer than one season.
Norman StilesNorman Stiles is a television writer, best known for his work on the show Sesame Street from 1971 until approximately 1995. As part of the Sesame Street writing team, he received eight Daytime Emmy Awards.-External links:*...
, head writer in 1987, reported that most writers would "burn out" after writing about a dozen scripts. According to Gikow,
Sesame Street went against the convention of hiring teachers to write for the show, as most
educational televisionEducational television is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that is often associated with cable television in the United States as Public, educational, and government access ...
programs did at the time. Instead, Cooney and the producers felt that it would be easier to teach writers how to interpret curriculum than to teach educators how to write comedy. As Stone stated, "Writing for children is not so easy". Long-time writer Tony Geiss agreed, stating in 2009, "It's not an easy show to write. You have to know the characters and the format and how to teach and be funny at the same time, which is a big, ambidextrous stunt".
The show's research team developed an annotated document, or "Writer's Notebook", which served as a bridge between the show's curriculum goals and script development. The notebook was a compilation of programming ideas designed to teach specific curriculum points, provided extended definitions of curriculum goals, and assisted the writers and producers in translating the goals into televised material. Suggestions in the notebook were free of references to specific characters and contexts on the show so that they could be implemented as openly and flexibly as possible.
The research team, in a series of meetings with the writers, also developed "a curriculum sheet" that described the show's goals and priorities for each season. After receiving the curriculum focus and goals for the season, the writers met to discuss ideas and story arcs for the characters, and an "assignment sheet" was created that suggested how much time was allotted for each goal and topic. When a script was completed, the show's research team analyzed it to ensure that the goals were met. Then each production department met to determine what each episode needed in terms of costumes, lights, and
setsTheatrical scenery is that which is used as a setting for a theatrical production. Scenery may be just about anything, from a single chair to an elaborately re-created street, no matter how large or how small, whether or not the item was custom-made or is, in fact, the genuine item, appropriated...
. The writers were present during the show's taping, which for the first twenty-four years of the show took place in
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, and after 1992, at the
Kaufman Astoria StudiosThe Kaufman Astoria Studios is an historic movie studio located in the Astoria section of the New York City borough of Queens.-History:It was originally built by Famous Players-Lasky in 1920 to provide the company with a facility close to the Broadway theater district. Many features and short...
in Queens, New York, to make last-minute revisions when necessary.
[Most of the first season was filmed at a studio near Broadway]Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, but a strike forced their move to Teletape StudiosReeves Teletape Studios was a group of American TV studios located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. Owned by Reeves Communications Corp., Teletape was established in 1968, then bankrupt into Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1992.-Studios:...
. In the early days, the set was simple, consisting of four structures (Gikow, pp. 66–67). In 1982, Sesame Street began filming at Unitel Studios on 57th Street, but relocated to Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1993, when the producers decided they needed more space (Gikow, pp. 206–207).
Media
Sesame Street and the CTW, early in their history, began to look for alternative funding sources and turned to creating products and licensing agreements. They became, as Cooney put it, "a multiple-media institution". In 1970, the CTW created a "non-broadcast" division responsible for creating and publishing books and
Sesame Street MagazineSesame Street Magazine is an American monthly magazine based on the children's television series Sesame Street. The magazine features characters from the television series, and emphasizes the educational goals of Sesame Street...
. They decided that all materials their licensing program created would "underscore and amplify" the show's curriculum. In 2004, over 68% of
Sesame Streets revenue came from licenses and products such as toys and clothing. By 2008, the
Sesame Street Muppets accounted for between $15 million and $17 million per year in licensing and merchandising fees, split between the Sesame Workshop and Henson Associates.
Jim HensonJames Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
, as their creators, owned the trademarks to the Muppet characters, and he was reluctant to market them at first. He agreed when the CTW promised that the profits from toys, books, computer games, and other products were to be used exclusively to fund the CTW and its outreach efforts. Even though Cooney and the CTW had very little experience with marketing, they demanded complete control over all products and product decisions. Any product line associated with the show had to be educational, inexpensive, and not advertised during the show's airings. As Davis reported, "Cooney stressed restraint, prudence, and caution" in their marketing and licensing efforts.
Director Jon Stone stated about the music of
Sesame Street: "There was no other sound like it on television". For the first time in children's television, the show's songs fulfilled a specific purpose and supported its curriculum. In order to attract the best composers and lyricists, the CTW allowed songwriters like
Sesame Streets first musical director
Joe RaposoJoseph Guilherme Raposo, OIH was a Portuguese-American composer, songwriter, pianist, television writer and lyricist, best known for his work on the children's television series Sesame Street, for which he wrote the theme song, as well as classic songs such as "Bein' Green" and "C is for Cookie"...
to retain the rights to the songs they wrote. For the first time in children's television, the writers earned lucrative profits, which helped the show sustain public interest. By 1991,
Sesame Street had received eight Grammys.
Sesame Street used animations and short films, interspersed throughout each episode, to help teach their viewers basic concepts like numbers and letters. The CTW commissioned outside studios to create and produce them. Jim Henson was one of the many producers who created short films for the show. Shortly after
Sesame Street debuted in the US, the CTW was approached independently by producers from several countries to produce versions of the show in their countries. These versions came be called "co-productions". By 2006, there were twenty co-productions. In 2001 there were over 120 million viewers of all international versions of
Sesame Street, and by the show's 40th anniversary in 2009, they were seen in more than 140 countries. In 2005, Doreen Carvajal of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that income from the co-productions and international licensing accounted for US$96 million.
Cast, crew, and characters
Shortly after the CTW was created in 1968, Joan Ganz Cooney was named its first executive director. She was one of the first female executives in American television; her appointment was called "one of the most important television developments of the decade". She assembled a team of producers, all of whom had previously worked on
Captain KangarooCaptain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running children's television program of its day...
.
Jon StoneJon Stone is best known for writing and producing Sesame Street, and is credited with helping develop characters such as Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch. He is regarded by many as one of the best children's television writers. He started working for children's programs in 1955...
was responsible for writing, casting, and format;
Dave ConnellDave Connell was an Irish soccer player during the 1970s and 1980s. He is currently the Head Coach of the U19 Republic of Ireland women's national football team and works as a Football In Community Development Officer for the Football Association of Ireland .A classy right back, Connell played for...
took over animation; and Sam Gibbon served as the show's chief liaison between the production staff and the research team. Cameraman Frankie Biondo started working on
Sesame Street from its first episode.
Jim Henson and the Muppets' involvement in
Sesame Street began when he and Cooney met at one of the curriculum planning seminars in Boston. Author Christopher Finch reported that Stone, who had worked with Henson previously, felt that if they could not bring him on board, they should "make do without puppets". Henson was initially reluctant, but he agreed to join
Sesame Street for social goals. He also agreed to waive his performance fee for full ownership of the
Sesame Street Muppets and to split any revenue they generated with the CTW. As Morrow stated, Henson's puppets were a crucial part of the show's popularity and it brought Henson national attention. Davis reported that Henson was able to take "arcane academic goals" and translate them to "effective and pleasurable viewing". In early research, the Muppet segments of the show scored high, and more Muppets were added during the first few seasons. Morrow reported that the Muppets were effective teaching tools because children easily recognized them, they were stereotypical and predictable, and they appealed to adults and older siblings.
Although the producers decided against depending upon a single host for
Sesame Street and to cast a group of ethnically diverse actors, they realized that a children's television program needed to have, as Lesser put it, "a variety of distinctive and reliable personalities", both human and Muppet. Jon Stone, whose goal was to cast white actors in the minority, was responsible for hiring the show's first cast. He did not audition actors until Spring 1969, a few weeks before the five test shows were due to be filmed. Stone videotaped the auditions, and Ed Palmer took them out into the field to test children's reactions. The actors who received the "most enthusiastic thumbs up" were cast. For example,
Loretta LongLoretta Long is an American actress best known for playing Susan Robinson on Sesame Street, having starred on the show since its debut in 1969....
was chosen to play Susan when the children who saw her audition stood up and sang along with her rendition of "
I'm a Little Teapot"The Teapot Song" is a song describing the heating and pouring of a teapot or tea kettle. The song was originally written by George Harold Sanders and Clarence Z...
". As Stone said, casting was the only aspect of the show that was "just completely haphazard". Most of the cast and crew found jobs on
Sesame Street through personal relationships with Stone and the other producers.
According to the CTW's research, children preferred watching and listening to other children more than puppets and adults, so they included children in many scenes. Dave Connell insisted that no child actors were used, so these children were nonprofessionals, unscripted, and spontaneous. Many of their reactions were unpredictable and difficult to control, but the adult cast learned to handle the children cast's spontaneity with their own spontaneity, even when it resulted in departure from the planned script or from the planned lesson. CTW research also revealed that the children's hesitations and on-air mistakes served as models for viewers. According to Morrow, this resulted in the show having a "fresh quality", especially in its early years. Children were also used in the voice-over commentaries of most of live-actions films the CTW produced.
Ratings
When
Sesame Street premiered in 1969, it aired on only 67.6% of American televisions, but it earned a 3.3
NielsenNielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
rating, which totaled 1.9 million households. By the show's tenth anniversary in 1979, 9 million American children under the age of six were watching
Sesame Street daily. According to a 1993 survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, out of the show's 6.6 million viewers, 2.4 million kindergartners regularly watched it. 77% of preschoolers watched it once a week, and 86% of kindergartners and first- and second-grade students had watched it once a week before starting school. The show reached most young children in almost all demographic groups.
The show's ratings significantly decreased in the early 1990s, resulting from changes in children's viewing habits and in the television marketplace. The producers responded to by making large-scale structural changes to the show. By 2006,
Sesame Street had become "the most widely viewed children's television show in the world", with 20 international independent versions and broadcasts in over 120 countries. A 1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by the time they were three years old. In 2008, it was estimated that 77 million Americans had watched the series as children. By the show's 40th anniversary in 2009, it was ranked the fifteenth most popular children's show on television.
Influence
As of 2001, there were over 1,000
researchResearch can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
studies regarding Sesame Streets efficacy, impact, and effect on American culture. The CTW solicited the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to conduct summative research on the show. ETS's two "landmark" summative evaluations, conducted in 1970 and 1971, demonstrated that the show had a significant educational impact on its viewers. These studies have been cited in other studies of the effects of television on young children. Additional studies conducted throughout Sesame Street
s history demonstrated that the show continued to have a positive effect on its young viewers.
Lesser believed that Sesame Street
research "may have conferred a new respectability upon the studies of the effects of visual media upon children". He also believed that the show had the same effect on the prestige in the television industry of producing shows for children. Historian Robert Morrow, in his book Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television
, which chronicled the show's influence on children's television and on the television industry as a whole, reported that many critics of commercial television saw Sesame Street
as a "straightforward illustration for reform". Les Brown, a writer for VarietyVariety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, saw in Sesame Street "a hope for a more substantial future" for television.
Morrow reported that the networks responded by creating more high-quality television programs, but that many critics saw them as "appeasement gestures". According to Morrow, in spite of the CTW Model's effectiveness in creating a popular show, commercial television "made only a limited effort to emulate CTW's methods", and did not use a curriculum or evaluate what children learned from them. By the mid-1970s, commercial television abandoned their experiments with creating better children's programming. Other critics hoped that Sesame Street
, with its depiction of a functioning, multicultural community, would nurture racial tolerance in its young viewers. It was not until the mid-1990s when a children's television educational program, Blue's CluesBlue's Clues is an American children's television show airing on the Nickelodeon family of channels. The show premiered on September 8, 1996 and airs on Nick Jr. and other channels, although production of new episodes ceased by 2006. Versions of the show have been produced in other countries,...
, used the CTW's methods to create and modify their content. The creators of Blue's Clues
were influenced by Sesame Street
, but wanted to use research conducted in the 30 years since its debut. Angela Santomero, one of its producers, said, "We wanted to learn from Sesame Street
and take it one step further".
As critic Richard RoeperRichard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
has stated, perhaps one of the strongest indicators of the influence of Sesame Street
have been the enduring rumors and urban legends surrounding the show and its charactersMany rumors have been started about the American children's television series Sesame Street. A few have been widely propagated and perpetuated over the years.-Bert and Ernie's sexuality:...
, especially about Bert and ErnieBert and Ernie are two muppets on the popular U.S. children's television show Sesame Street. The two appear together in numerous skits, forming a comic duo that is one of the centerpieces of the program. Originated by Frank Oz and Jim Henson, the characters are currently performed by Muppeteers...
.
Critical reception
Sesame Street
was praised from its debut in 1969. Newsday
reported that several newspapers and magazines had written "glowing" reports about the CTW and Cooney. The press overwhelmingly praised the new show; several popular magazines and niche magazines lauded it. In 1970, Sesame Street won twenty awards, including a
Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
, three Emmys, an award from the
Public Relations Society of AmericaThe ' , based in New York City, is the world's largest organization for public relations professionals. The organization has more than 21,000 members, including professionals from public relations agencies, corporations, government, health care institutions, military, professional services firms,...
, a
Cliothumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]In Greek mythology, Clio or Kleio, is the muse of history. Like all the muses, she is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne...
, and a Prix Jeunesse. By 1995, the show had won two Peabody Awards and four
Parents' Choice AwardThe Parents' Choice Award is an award presented by the non-profit Parents' Choice Foundation to recognize "the very best products for children of different ages and backgrounds, and of varied skill and interest levels." It is considered a "prestigious" award among children's products, and has been...
s. In addition, it was the subject of retrospectives at the
Smithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
and the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
Sesame Street
was not without its detractors, however. In May 1970, a state commission in MississippiMississippi Public Broadcasting is the public broadcasting state network in Mississippi, United States. It is owned by the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Mississippi state government that holds the licenses for all of the PBS and NPR member stations in the...
voted to ban Sesame Street
because of its "highly integrated cast of children" which "the commission members felt ... Mississippi was not yet ready for". According to Children and Television
, Lesser's account of the development and early years of Sesame Street
, there was little criticism of the show in the months following its premiere, but it increased at the end of its first season and beginning of the second season. Historian Robert W. Morrow speculated that much of the early criticism, which he called "surprisingly intense", stemmed from cultural and historical reasons in regards to, as he put it, "the place of children in American society and the controversies about television's effects on them".
According to Morrow, the "most important" studies finding negative effects of Sesame Street were conducted by educator Herbert A. Sprigle and psychologist Thomas D. Cook during its first two seasons. Social scientist and Head Start Program founder Urie BronfenbrennerUrie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian American psychologist, known for developing his Ecological Systems Theory, and as a co-founder of the Head Start program in the United States for disadvantaged pre-school children....
criticized the show for being too wholesome. Psychologist Leon EisenbergLeon Eisenberg was a child psychiatrist, social psychiatrist and medical educator who . He was credited with a number of "firsts" in medicine and psychiatry - in child psychiatry, autism, and the controversies around autism, randomized clinical trials , social medicine, global health, affirmative...
saw Sesame Streets urban setting as "superficial" and having little to do with the problems confronted by the inner-city child. Head Start director Edward Zigler was probably Sesame Streets most vocal critic in the show's early years.
In spite of their commitment to multiculturalism, the CTW experienced conflicts with the leadership of minority groups, especially Latino groups and feminists, who objected to Sesame Streets depiction of Latinos and women. The CTW took steps to address their objections. By 1971, the CTW hired HispanicHispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
actors, production staff, and researchers, and by the mid-70s, Morrow reported that "the show included Chicano and Puerto Rican cast members, films about Mexican holidays and foodsMexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
, and cartoons that taught Spanish words". As The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
has stated, creating strong female characters "that make kids laugh, but not...as female stereotypes" has been a challenge for the producers of Sesame Street. According to Morrow, change regarding how women and girls were depicted on Sesame Street occurred slowly. As more female Muppets performers like Fran BrillFrances Joan "Fran" Brill , is an American actress and puppeteer, best known for her roles on Sesame Street.Brill was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Linette and Joseph M. Brill. Her father was a physician...
, Stephanie D'AbruzzoStephanie D'Abruzzo is an American actress and puppeteer.-Early life:D'Abruzzo grew up in McMurray, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb she has described as a "plastic bubble kind of town." She graduated from Peters Township High School, where she was active in the theater program, and attended the...
, and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph were hired and trained, stronger female characters like Abby CadabbyAbby Cadabby is a fictional three-year-old fairy-in-training who lives on Sesame Street. She made her debut in the first episode of Sesame Street’s 37th season, when she moved into the neighborhood and met some of the Street's residents. On the day of her debut, her wand broke; Big Bird told her to...
were created.
In 2002, Sesame Street was ranked #27 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All TimeTV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time is TV Guides list of the 50 most entertaining and influential television series in American pop culture...
. As of 2009, Sesame Street has received 118 Emmy Awards, more than any other television series.
See also
- List of Sesame Street video releases
- List of awards and nominations received by Sesame Street
- Pop culture influenced by Sesame Street
The following info is on Pop culture that has been influenced by Sesame Street.-Works about the show:* Sesame Street was subject of its own A&E Biography....
- Avenue Q
Avenue Q is a musical in two acts, conceived by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who wrote the music and lyrics. The book was written by Jeff Whitty and the show was directed by Jason Moore and produced by Kevin McCollum, Robyn Goodman, and Jeffrey Seller...
Citations
External links