How did Sesame Street Change TV Forever?

a good guess, and they've definitely seen those movies. But actually, Penny Rose immediately started singing a cheese is a person in your neighborhood, honestly so, and then William joined in, so both she and William recognized him from that ridiculous role that cameo that he made as the cheese on Sesame.

It really isn't. And what's wild is when you stop to think about all the great songs from Sesame Street over the years, and just how my kids and George and I all know every word to these songs, and I know there are millions of others who could sing right along with us. There's a song for every emotion. In every situation you think about Oscars, I love Trash or my favorite, the snuffle Lullaby You've got kurmits it's not easy being green, or one of these things is

not like the other one. I mean, the list goes on and on, and of course I don't want to forget the song with the most ridiculous roster of cameos ever, and that's put down the Ducky. I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous, but do you remember the time, like you and I and some of the people tried to name all the cameos of the people who are in this It's such a ridiculous list, and it felt like we named a ton and yet I don't even think

we got halfway there. Just looking at the list again, there was Gladys Night, James Taylor, John Candy, Pee Wee Herman, Patty LaBelle, Martina ne Rattle, Loba. I mean, the list goes on and on, but I think one of my favorite things about it is just how all over the place this list was. I know, and you almost get the feeling like people were flattered to be asked to be in it, right totally. I mean, can you imagine that be like the highlight of a career to be

part of this song. But it's hard to believe that Sesame Street will turn fifty next year. And there's no telling how many kids have learned something from the show over the years. And you know, we did that episode about Mr Rogers a few months back and both of us just had a blast doing it, So it seemed time to do the same thing with Sesame Street. So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part

Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass putting the finishing touches on his own homemade muppet, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now, I don't want to hurt any feelings. I do have to say it was a noble effort, but it's still kind of looks like a mop with

a pair of googly eyes slapped on it. I don't know how you feel about it, I mean, to be fair, that's kind of what a muffet is, right Like, I actually remember this old Simpsons gag where Lisa asked what a muppet is, and Homer says, well, it's not quite a mop, and uh, it's not quite a puppet. So to answer your question, I don't know. Well he wasn't alone and not knowing, and in fact, even Muppet creator

Jim Henson wasn't so sure. Early in his career, Henson said the word muppet was this combination of the words marionette and puppet that would make a lot of sense. But later interviews found Henson refuting that earlier claim and instead insisting that it was just a fun, made up word with no deeper meaning. But you know, the word itself might not mean much, but the Muppets in the world's they inhabit mean quite a lot to millions of

children and adults alike. So today we're going to celebrate the impact by exploring the muppets original stomping grounds, which of course is Sesame Street. Now we'll get a sense for how the Landmark show got its start, as well as what it's like to work behind in this case, below the scenes, and along the way we'll learn a little bit more about the humans and the Muppets who

call Sesame Street home. Yeah, but I almost feel like we're getting a little ahead of ourselves with all his muppet talk, because the way to Sesame Street wasn't actually paid with felt puppets, but with a posh Manhattan dinner party.

And it sounds strange, But in nineteen sixty six, there was this executive for the Carnegie Foundation whose name is Lloyd Morrissett, and Lloyd struck up this conversation with this friend of this, this public television producer named Joan Cooney, and Morrissett told her that his daughter loved TV so much that she'd actually memorized all her favorite commercials, like she memorized the jingle she woke up early to watch TV. She'd even wake up so early that she'd watched the

test patterns before the broadcast started. It's amazing. That's a concept that I don't think kids that they could even understand it all as like having to wait for some of them. That's dedication. But the story kicked off this lengthy conversation between Morrissett and Cooney, and they started talking about how TV could be aid both entertaining and educational

for young kids. So they wondered if those same flashy techniques that were getting used to make ads for serial and toys if those could also be used in educational ways, you know, for things like, I guess, teaching the alphabet or accounting numbers or whatever. And the two kept their conversation going for about three years, and at the heart of this conversation was this one guiding question, quote, what if educational content went down more like ice cream than spinach? Right?

So this is where they were asking themselves over and over, and to help answer this, Cooney actually wrote this paper for the Carnegie Foundation in nineteen sixty seven. It was titled the Potential Uses of TV and Preschool Education, and the paper actually detailed a small amount of research that had been done on the subject up until then, and it also included Cooney's own thoughts from interviews with educators and child psychologists about I guess what an educational program

for young kids could look like? So, so what kind of stuff did the experts recommend? So I've actually got a quote here, So Cooney wrote, nearly everyone I met like the you have a daily hour long program, Almost all of them one of the letters of the alphabet

and their sounds as well as numbers included. So they took this feedback and they coupled it with this warm response from the Carnegie Foundation, and all of this inspired Cooney and Morrisset to co found the Children's Television Workshop, and this was in Obviously later this gets renamed the Sesame Workshop. But one thing Cooney's research hadn't helped with was how exactly to convey that traditionally dry material in

this exciting way that they were talking about. So she actually turned to this researcher, this children's researcher at University of Michigan named Edward Palmer, and it was his insights that helped shape how the show would eventually be structured. So think about things like um, his findings showed that kids loved music, they loved us slapstick comedy, they loved watching animals and other children, but they also disliked unkind characters,

which was this new finding. And they were also board stiff by talking adults, which you know, it sounds obvious in hindsight, but in the nineteen sixties, nobody would actually put that thought into like what kids would or wouldn't respond to on TV, or much less spelled it all out for them. Yeah, I mean, looking back, Sesame Street really was a pioneer in that regard, and it's pretty clear how those findings would push the producers towards this

idea of using puppets. But actually read that at first, Jim Henson wasn't even keen on the idea of doing television for children at all. Yeah, that's right. So this producer and writer named John Stone actually recommended Henson for the project. He'd worked earlier on this Cinderella adaptation that I guess never made it to air, But like you said, Henson wasn't interested. So he'd actually found success already using his puppets on everything from like national commercials to the

Ed Sullivan Show and even a stint on SNL. Actually, this is American Masters about Jim Henson that I've watched, i'd say honestly, like a hundred times. And there's a bit in it where he and his friends talk about how they learned to write comedy from these old vaudeville

and cat skill comedians, from shows like Ed Sullivan. And there's this great scene it's like Rolf where he's boxing and he's boxing this bag and he's getting ready for a fight, and he reveals his plans about how he's going to tackle the fight, and he goes right cross, left cross, right cross, left cross, right cross, left cross, and he's just getting worked up, right, and then the host goes for ralf what if he hits you and raw flicks with the camera and goes red cross, blue cross.

I mean, it's such a catskill joke. But obviously, like Jim Henson is starting to get better and better at writing for adults and writing comedy, and making the switch to show aimed strictly at children kind of felt like a step back from him. It's interesting to think about it being that way. You know, I've actually sometimes heard Jim Henson described as the Walt Disney of puppets or or maybe of public television, And you know, that strong drive to elevate the public perception of their art form

is probably another point of overlap. Do you remember that story about Disney hating the idea of animation being pigeonholed as you know, just children's entertainment. Of course, that's the big reason why we have something like Fantasia in the first place. And it kind of sounds like Hinson had that same kind of chip on his shoulder, So I

know what you're saying. But that's actually really funny because I love Fantasia, and I've read that Disney couldn't stay awake during the screenings of it as much to it. But you're right. In nine, shortly after taking the job on Sesame Street, hence and actually told her reporter what I'm against is people's thinking puppets are exclusively four children. We've directed or work mostly towards adults, and historically puppets have often been for adults. It's only fairly recently that

puppets have been pushed into strictly children's areas. As a theater form, puppetry can do virtually anything, So I'm curious what changed his mind about all of this. I mean a lot of it was the pressure and pleading from Cooney and the rest of the team there, and uh Cuney was eventually able to win him over kind of by pointing out that if Sesame Street became a success, it could be leveraged into like securing funding for other projects. So she actually told him, trust me, Jim, it's just

around the corner. You're not going to be stuck in Little Kitty Entertainment. And she actually kept her promise like less than a decade after Sesame Street premiered, Henson was actually able to launch his own edgier project, a little something called The Muffett Show. But back to Sesame So the show actually launched with the preview episode called This Way to Sesame Street, which aired on NBC on Saturday, November eight at five pm. And this was in nine.

What you said this was? This was on NBC. I know, it's crazy, right, So the series didn't air on PBS until that following Monday, but the preview on Network TV actually helped introduce the idea of the show to parents, so they know when to tune in for regular episodes. And this was actually a smart idea considering all the

stuff happening in the world at the time. So this is back in November nine, so the moon landing had just happened a few months earlier, Nixon was finishing his first year in office, and the Zodiac Killer was dominating national headlines. So it's almost easy to imagine the premiere of a kid's show being lost in all the scuffle. But thankfully, like the producers realized what a loss it would have been, and they actually took measures to make sure Sesame Street got a fair shop, and actually they

weren't the only ones like that. The end of that premiere episode actually featured in appearance by the U S Commissioner of Education, and he told the audience Sesame Street represents both the historic step forward by the medium of TV and an equally significant innovation in mass education. In plain words, there never has been before a nationwide TV program designed especially to prepare young children for school. Next

week there will be. Yeah, that's why. And it really wasn't an overstatement, and I hadn't really thought about it before. But you know, Mr Rogers was on the air at that point, but his show was never really aimed at preparing kids for school, and it didn't follow any kind of research based curriculum. You know, you look at something like Sesame Street, where every episode is focused around one piece of curriculum, and Mr Rogers was obviously grounded more

in psychology and emotions. And that's not a knock at all against Mr Rogers. We've said before, we're huge fans and both shows are super beneficial in their own right. Absolutely, and speaking of iconic I I do want to talk a little bit about some of the show's more famous aspects. So for starters, there's the name itself. Apparently, the team went through quite a few names before settling on the right one. Some of the early contenders included one to

three Avenue B and incredibly generic Fund Street. The first one was actually in the running, but it got taken out because you know, Alphabet City, there's a real address in New York that's one to three Avenue B and produces where that it would have limited the appeal outside of the city. Well, not to mention, you probably get kids making pilgrimages to that address trying to find Big Bird or their other favorite characters, and they're just being

devastated when they find like a laundrymat or something. Yeah, I mean that's a good point. So it is lucky for everyone that this woman Virginia shown was on staff at the time and she's the one who suggested the word sesame. She'd come across the phrase open sesame, you know, from the Arabian Nights and Sinbad Sale, and uh, the word kind of strucker as being evocative of these adventures in generals. So the team coupled that with the show's

urban setting and obviously came to Sesame Street. The odd part is that they made the decision to like change that to the title at the very last minute, and obviously we're happy they did. Yeah, I'm glad they got that straightened out. But you know, one of the most iconic parts of the show to me has always been its theme song, Can You Tell Me How to Get

to Sesame Street? And it's kind of upbeat and whistful at the same time, and I guess it's really like a lot of the music from the sixties and seventies, but it's also got what his hands down, one of the best uses of harmonica I have ever heard, and I'm not joking. It may sounded like maybe, okay, maybe it's a little bit of an exaggeration, but it was still pretty awesome Top ten at least. Then it's performed by this jazz and blues legend named Jane Toots Feelman's.

You know, he had this great career playing with all the grades everybody from I was just looking at the list, You're like Miles Davis, Ella Fantzgerald, Charlie Parker, and it's just pretty incredible to see who all he played with. But despite all that success, two, it's always had this soft spot for his work on Sesame Street. He was interviewed back in two thousand and eight and he said about it, my playing on the Sesame Street theme has

always been an important reward on my lapel. That's awesome. But you know someone who doesn't look back at the song quite so finally, that's Jon Stone. He's that same producer we talked about earlier who helped Jim Henson get on board here. But uh, Stone actually co wrote the theme song with Bruce Hart and this composer Joe Raposa. He'd wanted the song to capture that sense of running, happily tumbling, playing along the way, but always intent on

getting to Sesame Street. And you know, I mean that's what I think of when I think of the song, and I think about like those old versions of Barkley romping along and them all running and uh, you know, I I'd say the song was a huge success, but looking back, Stone was actually pretty unhappy with the trio's work, or at least the lyrics, which he co wrote. He's actually gone on records saying that the lyrics are trite and thoughtless, full of happy little cliches like the lions

sunny day sweeping the clouds away. All Right. I mean, maybe that's a little bit cliche, but I feel like that's a little harsh. It's it's not exactly Shakespeare. But I don't feel like it's bad. I know. But my favorite of his criticisms was that some of the references would eventually feel dated. Like apparently he scoffed at the phrase everything's a okay because he considered it quote astronauts

slang slang. What's the guy against astronaut? Alright, alright, well, since we're taking a backstage look at Sesame Street, we should definitely talk about the talented puppeteers who helped bring the show's most colorful stars to life. But before we get to that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the story

of how we got to Sesame Street. All right, Mago, so let's take a few minutes to highlight the humble muppeteer that that's the unseen men and women who bring these muppets to life. Yeah. So, one thing I and thought about before doing the research this week is just how much of those characters personalities only exist because of the puppeteers, Like it isn't just that they control the characters movements. Puppeteers on Sesame Street also provide the voices

for all of their characters. Yeah, that's right. I mean the way that it works in most cases is that you have a puppeteer crouched on the floor out of shot, of course, and their arms are above their heads to be able to control the limbs and the mouth flaps of you know, whatever character they're performing. I meanwhile, the

puppeteers also speaking all of their lines in character. They're interacting with the adults and the children who are in the scene, and many of those are not even trained actors, so they're having to hit all their choreograph movements, they're having to keep track of where the cameras pointed. I mean, it's an insane amount of work just to bring one

of these muppet characters to life. And then something you don't really think about is that, in addition to all of these characters, you've got these puppeteers that have to avoid bumping into each other. I mean, it's it's twice as many as you see on screen there, and so it's it's it's a lot of ordered chaos as they're organizing all of this. It is really impressive, and I mean in some cases it's even more complicated than what you just described. Actually, before we go into that, I

wanted to tell you about this time. I was in San Francisco a few years ago and I was with my kid cousin and I saw that Brian Henson was doing this like adults Muffets show, and so I dragged my cousin along and it was great. But at the end of it there was this huge finale and it was wonderful where all the muppets like sang in unison and then they decided to do an encore and the muppeteers took the puppets off and did it all again with their bare hands, and uh, it was really incredible.

Like I can't tell you how amazing was to watch these hands like basically communicating all this emotion and singing and you were just looking at fingers and it was almost like, uh, I know you know this, but like Eddie Izzard and dressed to kill, Like when when he does this show in English and then for an encore he does the same show in French. I mean you're almost like more amazed by watching him reenact it and like how you were laughing at this act that's now

in this like different language. I mean, that was one of my favorite things to watch. I love that. It really is incredible. But back to the puppet. So Gabe basically pulled a veil on this for me. And there's three different kinds of puppets on Sesame Street. So the first two are rod puppets, and these are like Almo and Kermit, and then arm puppets like Cookie Monster, which

worked the way you said. So with the rod puppet, the performer has one of their hands inside the character to control its head, and their free hand controls a rod that's attached to the character's arms. And with an arm puppet, it's one hand inside the head and one hand inside the character's arms. So of course this works best with puppets that have thicker arms, like a Cookie Monster or Ernie. But then there's also a third kind

of puppet, and that's a totally different level. Like that's the wearable ones where performer actually has to like climb inside a body suit. All right, so you're talking about characters like Big Bird or for instance, one of my favorites Snuphilopagus exactly. So Big Bird's an interesting case because

he's actually a hybrid wearable arm puppet. So the performer puts on Big Bird's legs like a pair of pants, and then the body's lowered over him, and one hand goes straight up through the neck to control the head, and the other hand goes into one of Big Bird's wings. And believe it or not, it was just one guy, Carol Spinney, who did all of Big Birds puppeteering and voice work for over forty five years. And today it's one of his former students, this guy named Matt Vogel,

who wears the big yellow suit. That is pretty amazing. He did that character for forty five years. And you know, it's a credit to the performers for making those characters seem so real. I mean so much so that even as an adult now it does feel a little bit strange to think about real people inside those characters. I know I feel that way too. But why don't we leave the puppeteers for a second and uh focus on

the characters themselves. So to start off, I I do want to read this quote from this fantastic book on Sesame Street history called Street Gang. It's by Michael Davis, but in this part he's talking about what Henson and his muppets brought to the show and what made it all work. So Davis writes, quote, considering that most muppets start out as bath mats with applicase, it's fairly miraculous that they seem to have more dimensionality to their personalities

than do most human characters on TV. Henson understood that viewers would suspend their sense of disbelief if they saw pieces of themselves and the characters so forgetful Jones had a foible, and he was therefore funny and as recognizable as the elderly neighbor who always seems surprised when the paperboy came to collect on Fridays. The count had an obsessive need, and who doesn't, Telly fretted, Oscar cvetched, Ernie teased for it was anal and Grover, like most of us, was,

if not always the superhero, certainly above average. And I like that, And I guess they're pretty true to life in a lot of ways, if if not somewhat exaggerated. Like one character Davis mentioned there, telling Monster, he actually reminds me of that girl you mentioned earlier, you know,

Morrisset's daughter who watched the test patterns. You see, Telly was originally supposed to be the television Monster, and he debuted in nineteen seventy nine as this character, and he was a TV junkie and his eyes would get all swirly whenever he looked at one and he was being hypnotized or something, and so this idea played for a while, But then the producers started to think about this and they got nervous about what kind of message they were

sending to their younger viewers. I mean, that makes sense, right, And they were making a TV show and probably wasn't their best move to have a character who gets all zombified like the kids might when they're watching. So from then on, telling Monster was just portrayed as this chronic worrier instead, you know, because that's that's such a big improvement,

I guess, I don't know. Well, speaking of hypnotism, did you know that Count von Count had the power to hypnotize people when he first appeared on the show, and this was back in nineteen seventy two. Apparently he was much more menacing vampire back then. But he became more and more friendly over time, eventually dropping the whole villain part. You know, I was actually always a little bit unclear on this because I'm curious is Count actually a vampire?

You know, He's obviously patterned after Bella Leghost, he's take on Tracula, but he does seem pretty preoccupied with numbers for this creature who's supposedly driven by blood loss. Know, I mean, the official line is that the Count is not a vampire, but there have also been like times when he was referred to as like a number friendly vampire, or once he was called a numerical vampire. So here's

the funniest part, right. In some takes on vampire folklore, vampires are actually set to suffer from arith romania, which is the overwhelming urge to count the things in front of you a rith romania? Is that what you said? Is that? Is this a real thing? Apparently it is, and and they're even some old European and even like Chinese folk tales where people are advised to ward off an attacking vampire by throwing a bunch of rice, millet,

wheat or red lentils at it. Like it's very specific list, But the idea is that the vampire would feel so compelled to count up all the grains that I guess you can slip away as they're obsessed with us. Well, I like the idea that it has to be red lentils, like, don't even try with the brown ones. That definitely has to be red ones. But I do kind of like that the count is totally aligned with this vampire lore.

But you know what, while we're on the subject of monster puppets, I do feel like we need to set the record straight about another famous one, and that's Cookie Monster. And yes, that is still his name, because despite what you may have heard, Cookie Monster did not trade in his cookies for fresh fruits and vegetables. And that was a rumor that got started back in two thousand five.

And that's because Sesame Street had featured a new song and it was called a Cookie is Sometimes Food, And so people quickly assumed that the PC police were tinkering with everything, and they decided to change this beloved character and all his defining traits were going to be stripped away. But I mean, here's the thing. The Cookie Moderation song wasn't even sung by Cookie Monster. I don't know if

you remember this. It was sung by Hoots the Owl and yeah yeah, And actually the scene ends with Cookie Monsters scarfing down a plate of cookies and declaring, now is sometimes which I just love that idea. And but nonetheless, like the the ugly rumors persisted, and so much so in two thousand and seven, Cookie Monster had to have a sit down interview you and address these rumors head on. So he talked with Matt Lauer and when asked if he had given up the cookies, the Monster said, you

members of media blow story way out of proportion. Me still likes cookies. I love that. And and really, Cookie Monster is kind of right right, like they were blowing it out of proportion. The idea was never that he ate nothing but cookies on Sesame Street. For example, back in nineteen seventy four, he actually appeared in an ad for the Nutrition Council where he's seen eating meat, vegetables, fruit, milk, and a whistle for dessert, which he claimed would give

him strong lungs. A whistle like a whistle that you blow. Yeah, So that this was a campaign to get kids to eat fewer cookies and more whistles. I'm not sure. I mean, I guess it was a little misguided on the front, but I think their hearts were in the right place. Yeah, they probably were. Actually. By the way, did you know that Cookie Monster used to go by a couple of different names? And this is because the puppet was actually recycled from earlier Henson ventures And this included a commerce

herschel for It was for this wheel shaped snack. It was made by General Foods. And this blue monster comes along and he's known as the wheel Steeler. And then you find during a two thousand four episode of Sesame Street, Cookie Muster revealed to the world that prior to his cookie eating days, he was simply known as Sid. I know his mom didn't call him Cookie Monster. He called him Sid. But let's take a quick break and then we can talk about some of the finest non puppet

characters to ever visit Sesame Street. Okay, well, so muffets are great and all, but sometimes you just need a human touch. And thankfully, Sesame Street has had more than a share of celebrity guests over the years, including its first guest I've had forgotten. This was James Earl Jones. Uh and he read this surprisingly ten reading of the

alphabet back in the show's first season. But uh, probably one of the most bizarre appearances ever goes to Ralph Nader, who I didn't realize this, but he appeared on this Pledge drive in and the segment showed this chorus sing the song the people in your Neighborhood, and Ralph joined to sing in the line, A consumer advocate is a person in your neighborhood. So chilly. I can't even imagine how many kids turned to their parents were like, what

is a consumer advocate? But but you know they need to know that's a pillar of every community, right up there with policeman and a firefighter and of course the cheese exactly and a friendly. Nader actually refused to even sing the song at first because he wanted the lyrics change from the people that you meet in your neighborhood to the people whom you meet in your neighborhood. It

would be more grammatically correct. Is crazy? I'm sure he was such a pleasure to have on the show, But anyway, for for my money, the pinnacle of celebrity appearances really has to be when C three P O and R two D two landed on Sesame Street back in nine. Um, I I believe the song they sang was a protocol droid as a person in your neighborhood, right, makes as much sense as a consumer advocate, I guess, But I'm

afraid they didn't say that. Actually, the storyline was that the duo had come to deliver this holographic message to Oscar, and the message was from a distant relative name Lowthar the ground. Of course, this super important, top secret message in the end was just get lost, which I just yeah. But the droids actually ended up hanging around for I think it was a couple of episodes, and and during one of those episodes, things really took a turn for

the strange. I don't know if you remember this what happened. Well, for one thing, R two D two inexplicably falls in love with a fire high Yeah, fire hyd I mean does that feel like love? Well, like I said, it was a really weird episode, and so here's what happened. Three Po eventually has to break the bad news to his clueless body, and he does this by saying, are two that's a fire hydrant? Fireman come along attached their hoses to it. Turn it on and water comes out,

and then, of course are two speeds off. He's beeping sullenly to himself, and three po tries to comfort him with this real gym of a line, so he says, oh, are two don't be sad? You know what they say, It's better to have loved a fire hydrant than to have never loved at all. Oh man, But I mean, I guess that's his lesson that like, kids have to

learn sooner or later, right, I guess so. But anyways, speaking of learning lessons, I do want to make sure we spent some time on the educational impact of Sesame Street, because, you know, going back to its original mission statement, the show was always meant to and here here's the quote from it promote the intellectual and social growth of preschoolers, particularly disadvantaged ones. So with the show coming up on its fiftieth birthday next year, I kind of wanted to

see whether or not it had hit its stated goal. So, I mean, I obviously love that idea, but how can you even measure something like that, I mean, like measuring how media effects intelligence or social qualities like tolerance doesn't seem like it would be super easy or straightforward. Well, it definitely isn't, but but that hasn't stopped a ton

of folks from trying. I mean, if you think about it, Joan Cooney was conducting research on Sesame Street before the show even aired, and since her initial paper there have been more than a thousand studies that we're trying to find out about the show's efficacy. So what's the verdict. Well, according to Sesame Workshop, preschoolers who watched Sesame Street do significantly better on a whole range of cognitive outcomes than those who don't, And most of the research I've read

really does bear that out. For example, the National Bureau of Economic Research put out a study a few years ago, and they were focusing on the very first generation of kids to grow up with the show, so this would have been back in the nineties seventies, and amazingly, the researchers found that kids who had access to the show performed better in elementary school than those who lived in areas where it wasn't broadcast, and the preschoolers who were

able to watch, we're more likely to start school on time and progress through grade levels of what was considered to be the appropriate speed. And then best of all, children who were raised in economically disadvantaged situations, they seem to be the ones who got the biggest boost from the show. And this was a ton of kids were talking about because you know, in Sesame Street first debuted, it actually had a wider reach than formal preschool services.

In fact, only nineteen percent of four year olds in nineteen seventy attended preschool, but by nineteen seventy, as many as thirty six percent of preschool as children in the US were watching Sesame Street. So these findings were telling enough that the Bureau ultimately concluded that Sesame Street was the largest and least costly early childhood intervention that's ever

been implemented. You know, so while an early childhood education program like Headstart cost I want to say, it's something like eight thousand dollars per child per year, the annual cost of Sesame Street today is about five bucks. I mean, that's incredible, But I mean, I I know Sesame Street

is now an HBO. Do you want to talk about how that changes affected the show and perhaps the disadvantaged kids the show once was supposed to help, Right, So you're talking about the deal that sess me workshop made with HBO. I think this was back in two thousand fifteen, and it basically secured financing for the show through its fiftieth season, so that was definitely a shocking turn of events.

But it's worth remembering that the deal only grants HBO first run, right, so you know it's it's something like nine months after each episode's HBO premier, the show airs on PBS as they always have, so basically, new episodes are still free for everybody as long as you're willing to wait a season to get them, which is obviously better than nothing. But to be clear, I do love HBO, but why the show moved to premium cable It actually seems like out of character for what has to be

like the poster child for public broadcasting. Well, it was really one of those do or die decisions that that pretty much had to be made to keep the show afloat. There was a New York Times article in two thousand and fifteen that they did a pretty good job of explaining the situation, and so here's how they put it. Historically, less than ten percent of the funding for Sesame Street episodes came from PBS, with the rest finance through licensing

revenues such as DVD sales. Sesames business has struggled in recent years because of the rapid rise of streaming and on demand viewing and the sharp decline in licensing income. About two thirds of children now watch Sesame Street on demand and do not tune into PBS to watch the show. I mean that that is interesting, and I guess when PBS wasn't able to cover the difference, the producers had

to look elsewhere for funding. But I guess the show was always depended on wealthier benefactors to help finance the show for everybody else. I mean, you think about like viewer donations or merchandise sales, but I mean, to me, the HBO deal feels like an even bigger step in that direction. Like it's harder to say the show is

made particularly to help disadvantage preschoolers when it airs on HBO. First, I mean, I get that, but if you think about it, I'm not sure preschoolers would really share that sense of being slided. You know, as adults, we can pick apart the implication of deals like this and you know, point out all the ironies, the potential drawbacks, but in the end, a new generation of kids get these new episodes of Sesame Street to watch, and from where I'm sitting, that

seems like a clear win for everybody. No, it definitely is. Now we just need to start a petition to get Tristan's muppet added to the show, you know, for the kids. Yeah. I don't know how much luck we'll have with that, but we'll give it a shot. I do think we need to keep one thing in mind. I don't think he even used the clean mop when he made this, But anyway, why why don't we just re channel that

energy into the fact off. You know, one of the things I love about Sesame Street is how they translate their characters in other countries. And did you know that in Nigeria they refer to Cookie Monster as Zobee the Yam Monster. No, of course, Nigerian kids, I guess, don't eat cookies the way Americans do. So the show runners wanted to make sure the show was promoting a staple crop that everybody could eat, so Zobie's cat phrases me

eat yam. I mean, if you're talking about how characters translated, I've got to mention Oscar the Grouch because I love that grouchy people are just so universal that every country's got one, of course. Yeah, so Pakistan has a guy named Aktar. He lives in an oil barrel. In Turkey he goes by Kerpick and for some reason he lives in a basket. And in Israel, I think we've runa mentioned this before, but they've outsourced the job to Oscar's

cousin in moshif Nick. And apparently mosh has got his own style because he lives in an old car instead of a trash can, and according to Metal Floss, he's also an observant Jew. He celebrates Rashashana by dipping apples into sardine Greece for an extra slimy New Year. All right, well, here's a character I wish we had that comes from the Dutch Sesame Street. It's a daredevil chicken named stunt Kip.

Stunt Kip is a relatively new bird, but apparently in every episode she does something super daring while a frightened rabbit interviews her about the feet. But you've got to

listen to these death defying tricks. So stunt Kip has gone on an escalator by herself, used a bathroom without flushing herself down the toilet, checked her under a bed for monsters, introduced herself the new kids at the playground, and perhaps bravest of all, she told her aunt that she didn't want seconds of Brussels sprouts after eating all of her Brussels sprouts. I write a lot of stunt kip, but uh so, you know, Jim Henson is one of

my heroes. And I always think of Jim Henson as like kind of a quiet and sweet fellow, but you can actually forget that he could be a little showy too. In college, he started this puppet show called Salmon Friends that aired on TV and he made some money off it, so he used that money to buy a Rolls Royce just so you could drive himself to his college graduation. In its hilarious. There's so many things about Jim Henson's early life that do feel like almost in contrast to

the rest of his life. But I kind of love that. It's great. All right, Well, here's a cool and did you know that years before she made cameos on Sesame Street and introduced their videos. Of course, Whoopie Goldberg used to work as a babysitter on the show, so she'd watch over the kids while they were waiting to be called onto set. Oh that's amazing. I had no idea. So there actually aren't a lot of shows that have

been taken out of circulation. But have you heard about the Sesame Street where Oscar the garage falls in love with the wicked Witch of the West. No, that's worse than a fire hydrant. Apparently they've reprised the character from the Wizard of Oz and he fell in love with her because of her green face and I guess horrible disposition. But but parents reacted really strongly to the episode. I mean, in test audiences, kids were captivated by her face color

and actually tuned in really closely. But parents mostly wrote in that there were a lot of tears and fears about having to watch a witch on TV, so they pulled the episode from rotation. And also Sesame Street got a letter from at least one wickend about perpetuating negative stereotypes about witches. Well, and it turns out that isn't

the only show that got stuck in the cycle. Apparently there's one about Snuffy's parents getting divorced that never saw the light of day because it was confusing for kids and I know. Of course, one of the things I appreciate about Sesame Street is how they try to tackle some of these really tough topics. But in this episode they got really sad because they thought maybe Snuffy's dad had run away. And it did get revisited a few times later on the show, but not so head on

as it did in that episode. And there's a Kermit the Frog news segment where he interviews a bird whose parents live in separate trees, and then where there's the character Abby Kadabbi and and and her parents have have separated, so they talked about that, but it's not quite the same as as the way they had originally done in the Snuffy episode. Well, on a slightly happier note, did did you realize that Elmo is the only Sesame Street

character who's testified in front of Congress? Elmo claimed he was nervous at the time, and he uh, he testified about music education. I guess then this is some of the transcript which Elmo, I guess did in Elmo's voice. Elmo learned all kinds of things about music, like anyone can make music, the whole world is full of music. Music helped Elmo learned the alphabet. If it wasn't for the ABC song, Elmo would be lost people. Wow, that's

pretty great. All right, Well, here's what I think. It's fascinating. Child psychologists thought it would be too confusing for people if kids watched humans and muppets interacting, so they split up the scenes. It was all humans and then segments with Burton Ernie, the only two characters on the show at that point. But in test, kids basically ignored the adults and turned away, and then they tuned in for

the Muppets. And there's a rumor that at one point the producers thought about cutting all the adults and just making a show about Burton Ernie, which I'm sure it would have been amusing in itself. But when they saw how well Burton Ernie did on the screen, the writers decided to create more characters to build the show around. And of course that's how we got Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Snuphilopoicus and all the others. Even though I know so much about Jim Henson, i'd never heard that

fact before. I really love that. So I'm gonna give you the trophy this week. Oh wow, it's such an honor. Well, there were so many fact that we wanted to include in this episode, and even some other great ones that we weren't able to include. So maybe we'll have to do another Sesame Streed episode sometime. But for any of you that know of some great facts that we might not have included today, we'd love to hear those from you.

You can email us part time genius at how stuff works dot com or hit us up on seven Fact hot Line. That's one eight four PT Genius, and you can always reach us on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening so well. Well, I I am curious do you ever feel akin to any Muppets? Like? Did you feel any sort of closeness to any of them? Now? I mean I love certain characters, but I don't think it was because I felt that I was like them.

But for some reason, honestly, like I was saying, Snuffy was always one of my favorites, and I don't know why. I just found him so fascinating, just amusing. How about you. I loved Fozzy Vera because he just told bad jokes all the time, you know, And I just found his character is so fun And I used to get so annoyed that everyone would tell me I was like Kermit, you know, like I didn't want I didn't want used to be my defining character. You don't want that. You

don't want that. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact

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