LIFE: Sesame Street: The Life and Lessons of the Show That Changed the World

102 Pages·2019·133.615 MB·English

by  Life Magazine

S ESA M E
ST R E E T
The Life and Lessons
of the Show That
0
5
Changed the World
Y E A R S O F
K I N D N E S S

SESAME
STREET
BIG BIRD, MR. SNUFFLEUPAGUS,
right, and Snuffy’s little sister,
Alice, center, on the Sesame
Street set at Kaufman Astoria
Studios in Queens, New York,
in 1995, two years after the
show moved from its first
home in Manhattan.
CONTENTS
4
INTRODUCTION
HOW DO YOU
GET THERE?
6
SESAME SEEDS
28
A MAN AND
HIS MUPPETS
58
LOVE IS LOVE IS
LOVE IS LOVE . . .
68
THE STARS SHINE ON
SESAME STREET
80
FOREVER
SESAME STREET
96
A MAN AND HIS FROG
2 LIFE SESAME STREET
GROVER TAPED A SCENE IN
1970 at Teletape Studios in
New York City.
Sesame Street
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
DESIGNER Aaron Morales
WRITER Steve Rushin
COPY CHIEF Parlan McGaw
COPY EDITOR Joel Van Liew
PICTURE EDITOR Rachel Hatch
WRITER-REPORTER Tresa McBee
PHOTO ASSISTANT Steph Durante
PRODUCTION DESIGNER Sandra Jurevics
IMAGING SPECIALIST David Swain
MEREDITH SPECIAL INTEREST MEDIA
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ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BRAND MARKETING Bryan Christian
SENIOR BRAND MANAGER Katherine Barnet
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
EDITORIAL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Jamie Roth Major
MANAGER, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Gina Scauzillo
SPECIAL THANKS Brad Beatson, Melissa Frankenberry,
Samantha Lebofsky, Kate Roncinske, Laura Villano
MEREDITH NATIONAL MEDIA GROUP
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PRINTED IN THE USA
Vol. 19, No. 27 • October 11, 2019
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INTRODUCTION
How Do You
Get There?
From its debut at the end of the turbulent ’60s to
now, a half century later, Sesame Street has
transformed entertainment, delivering big laughs,
big letters, and big lessons—all while
imparting a Muppet-aided kindness of its own.
concussed
IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST TUMULTUOUS longer. Fifty years into their run, the
summers in American history, stars of Sesame Street are instantly rec-
with Vietnam, the moon landing, ognizable by people of almost any age,
Chappaquiddick, the Manson mur- virtually anywhere in the world. And
ders, and Woodstock inducing a kind in most of the 150 countries where
of national whiplash. But in the fall some version of the show airs, the chil-
after that summer of 1969, Sesame Street dren there think that the show they’re
came into American homes, bringing watching is exclusively their own.
with it an innocent joy—a sunny day, In its most revolutionary achieve-
sweeping the clouds away. ment, Sesame Street has used televi-
Sesame Street was a one-hour exper- sion—described as “a vast wasteland”
iment in educating children through by the chairman of the Federal
television, and from the very start it Communications Commission only JIM HENSON AND KERMIT
promoted reading in 1988 at
looked and sounded like nothing that eight years before the show’s debut—to
the Manhattan town house
came before it: It was racially diverse; educate children, and also to befriend that Henson bought in 1977
it mixed live actors and puppets; it them, without the ulterior motive of sell- to serve as headquarters for
Henson Associates. The house
was recorded in a studio but also had ing them cereal or plush toys. Yet it does
was known as the Muppet
filmed remote segments; and every- emulate the tropes of Madison Avenue
Workshop, where designers
thing was done with domestic warmth commercials, and there are plush toys, created Muppet characters.
and slapstick humor and a kindness so many plush toys—and thank good-
devoid of treacle. The 8'2" canary and ness, because all those licensed com-
trench-coated frog were offset by a mercial products help to support the
misanthropic green monster living in nonprofit Sesame Workshop. destination, almost mythological, but
a trash can. Oscar the Grouch worked America, unbeknown to itself, one worth the journey.
the room like an insult comic. was longing for Sesame Street, even Stone, by the way, didn’t care for
The show immediately set a new before its debut on November 10, 1969. Hart’s lyrics. He later called the song
standard for children’s entertainment After the show’s musical director, “a musical masterpiece and a lyrical
and for entertainment more broadly, Joe Raposo, composed a theme song, embarrassment.” As Michael Davis
appealing to children and their parents, director Jon Stone commissioned recounts in Street Gang: The Complete
the poor and the middle class, rural and lyrics from one of the show’s writers, History of Sesame Street, Stone particu-
urban alike. No other program has won Bruce Hart. Stone’s primary order to larly loathed the lines about sweeping
as many Emmys as Sesame Street—189 Hart: The recurring theme had to be the clouds away and everything being
and counting as of 2019—and no televi- “Can you tell me how to get to Sesame A-okay, calling such phrases “trite” and
sion ensemble has remained together Street?” Sesame Street was an elusive “kiddie-show” and “clichés.” But as the
4 LIFE SESAME STREET
show’s air date approached, there wasn’t questions of their Muppet heroes, there was just one network television
time to change them. who had become living creatures to show devoted to children—Captain
A children’s choir called the Wee the audience, household names and Kangaroo. Fifty years later there are
Willie Winter Singers, backed by ses- household faces in every conceivable entire networks devoted to 24-hour
sion musicians, including the virtuoso kind of American household. After children’s programming. All of this
jazz harmonicist Toots Thielemans, only 10 years on the air, the Children’s was brought to you by Sesame Street,
recorded the theme in under 90 min- Television Workshop was annually which in turn was brought to you
utes. Like the show it introduced, the receiving hundreds of security blan- not by the letter W and the number 5
song was instantly beloved. kets in the mail from viewers: Thanks but—in the very beginning, at least—
After six months on the air, Sesame to Sesame Street, many children no lon- by a woman in New York who wanted
Street had received 5,000 letters from ger needed them. to improve the lives of city children
children and parents, many asking When Sesame Street began in 1969, living in poverty. l
5
H 1APT
C E
R
SESAME SEEDS
With a commitment to diversity, inclusion, and, without
question, humor, Sesame Street emerged from its prelaunch testing
as a forerunner—and was a hit, and a delight, from the start.
6 LIFE SESAME STREET
HUMAN CAST MEMBERS IN AN
early season included (from
left) Emilio Delgado, Sonia
Manzano, Northern Calloway,
Roscoe Orman, Loretta Long,
and Bob McGrath, seen here
with their Muppet pals.
7
never condescend to preschoolers, and
that would educate and entertain them
in equal measure, so that the learning
and the laughter went hand in hand.
Cooney would eventually be joined
by children’s television producer Dave
Connell, arriving from the popular CBS
children’s show Captain Kangaroo, as
well as by an innovative puppeteer
named Jim Henson, who brought along
an existing creation of his own named
Kermit the Frog, the alpha puppet of a
AT A DINNER PARTY IN 1966 IN THE growing menagerie of “Muppets.”
Manhattan apartment of Joan Ganz The group solicited the advice of
Cooney—a television producer at leading educators and child psychol-
WNDT (now WNET), New York City’s ogists on how to best serve young
educational station—Lloyd Morrisett children through this medium that
of the philanthropic Carnegie bewitched them. The nonprofit
Corporation told Cooney a story: On a Children’s Television Workshop, as
recent Sunday morning, he had found the growing production company
his three-year-old daughter, Sarah, was named, made several test pro-
sitting mesmerized in front of the TV, grams and screened them for kids.
gazing at a test pattern, waiting for the “The children are telling us—verbally
cartoons to come on. Children’s shows, and through tests—what they learned
at the time, were unlikely to teach Sarah and didn’t learn, and what they liked
much of anything, Morrisett knew, and didn’t like, about many of the
beyond novel acts of cartoon mayhem. Sesame Street pieces,” said Cooney.
In the weeks and years to fol- “We believe Sesame Street will be the
low, Cooney—with funding from most researched, tested, and studied
the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford program in television history, and the
Foundation, and the U.S. Department first in which the audience shaped the
of Education—set about creating a program before it went on the air.”
show for children that would also Two months before Sesame Street
appeal to their parents, that would was scheduled to make its debut,
SESAME STREET COFOUNDER
Joan Ganz Cooney and
executive producer David
Connell reviewed material for
the show in September 1969
(left), two months before its
premiere. Cooney shared a
laugh with pals Ernie and Bert,
operated by Jim Henson and
Frank Oz.
8 LIFE SESAME STREET