November 10, 1969
Sesame Street premiered.
The longest running children's program on television. The show is produced by the non-profit organization Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), founded by Joan Ganz Cooney and Ralph Rogers.
As a result of its extensive influence, Sesame Street is one of the
most highly regarded, and most watched, educational shows for children in the
world. The original series has been televised in more than 120 countries, and
25 independent versions have been produced. The show has been called
"perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over
program". As of 2009, the series has received 118 Emmy Awards,
more than any other television series. An estimated 77 million Americans
watched the series as children.
Sesame Street uses a combination of animation, puppets, and live actors to
stimulate young children's minds, improve their letter and word recognition,
basic arithmetic,
geometric forms, classification, simple problem solving, and socialization by
showing children or people in their everyday lives. Since the show's inception,
other instructional goals have been basic life skills, such as how to cross the
street safely, proper hygiene, healthy eating habits, and social skills; in
addition, real-world situations are taught, such as death, divorce, pregnancy and
birth, adoption, and even all of the human emotions such as happiness, love,
anger, and hatred. Also, recently, the Sesame Street Muppets discussed
the late-2000s recession with their latest
prime-time special Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times.
The series has made many published lists, including greatest all-time show
compilations by TV
Guide and Entertainment Weekly. A 1996 survey
found that 95% of American preschoolers have watched the show by the time they
are three years old.
Sesame Street will celebrate its 40th anniversary and will include a segment
with First Lady Michelle Obama interacting with the Muppets.
Jon Stone was responsible for hiring the first cast of Sesame Street.
He did not audition actors until Spring 1969, a few weeks before the five test
shows were due to be filmed. He 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
Long, 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". It was Stone's goal
to cast white actors in the minority. 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. Stone also hired Bob McGrath
to play Bob, Will
Lee to play Mr. Hooper, and Matt Robinson to play Gordon.
Sesame Street's cast became more diverse in the 1970s. The cast
members who joined the show during this time were Sonia
Manzano (Maria), Northern Calloway (David), Emilio
Delgado (Luis), Linda Bove (Linda), and Buffy
Saint-Marie (Buffy). Roscoe Orman succeeded Matt Robinson, the original Gordon, and Hal Miller, in
1975.
International
co-productions
Some countries
have co-produced their own unique versions of Sesame Street, in which
the characters and segments represent their country's cultures. Other countries
simply air a dubbed version of Sesame Street, or a dubbed version of Open Sesame. Among various
other countries, Australia has and still does broadcast the American version on
the ABC and the UK had broadcast the American show,
on Channel 4 until 2001 when it was replaced
with Henson production The Hoobs.
Dubbed versions include Seesamtie in Finnish, Boneka Sesame in
Indonesian, Sesam Opnist Þú in Icelandic, Sezame otevři se in
Czech, Sesamo Apriti in Italian, Sezame, otevři se in Czech, and Taman
Sesame in Malay. In 2004, one Japanese network cancelled the dubbed
American Sesame, while another created a local version. In New Zealand,
locally produced segments entitled "Korero Māori" (in
English: "let's speak Māori") were inserted into episodes to educate
children in the Māori language. Likewise, in Canada the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
substituted locally-produced French
language segments in place of the Spanish
language portions of the US version. Spanish program La
Cometa Blanca also includes segments from Sesame Street.
Locally produced adaptations of Sesame
Street include:
- 1972:
Vila Sésamo, Brazil
- 1972:
Plaza Sésamo, Mexico
- 1973:
Sesamstraße, Germany
- 1973:
Canadian Sesame Street, Canada (reformatted as Sesame Park in the 1990s)
- 1976:
Sesamstraat, Netherlands
- 1978:
1, rue Sesame, France
- 1979:
Iftah Ya Simsim, Arab World
(in classical Arabic)
- 1979:
Barrio Sésamo, Spain
- 1981:
Svenska Sesam, Sweden
- 1983:
Rechov Sumsum, Israel
- 1984:
Sesame! (Batibot), Philippines
- 1986:
Susam Sokağı, Turkey
- 1989:
Rua Sésamo, Portugal
- 1991:
Sesam Stasjon, Norway
- 1996:
Ulitsa Sezam, Russia
- 1996:
Ulica Sezamkowa, Poland
- 1998:
Rechov Sumsum and Shara'a Simsim, Israel and Palestinian Territories
- 1998:
Zhima Jie, China
- 1999:
Sesame English, China, Italy, Poland, Taiwan
- 2000:
Takalani Sesame, South Africa
- 2000:
Alam Simsim, Egypt (using the local dialect)
- 2002:
Play with Me
Sesame, United Kingdom
- 2003:
Open
Sesame, Australia
- 2004:
Koche Sesame, Afghanistan
- 2004:
Sesame
Street, Japan
- 2005:
Sisimpur, Bangladesh
- 2005:
5, Rue Sésame, France
- 2005:
Sabai Sabai
Sesame, Cambodia
- 2006:
Galli Galli
Sim Sim, India
- 2007:
Jalan Sesama Indonesia
- 2007:
Tar ag
Spraoi Sesame Republic of
Ireland, Irish language dub of Play With Me Sesame
- 2008:
Sesame Tree, Northern Ireland
- 2009:
Sesamgade,
Denmark
- Note
that dates solely refer to the year production on the series began.
See also: List of characters from international versions of Sesame Street
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