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

102 Pages·2019·133.615 MB·English
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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 VICE PRESIDENT & GROUP PUBLISHER Scott Mortimer VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Stephen Orr VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING Jeremy Biloon EXECUTIVE ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Doug Stark DIRECTOR, BRAND MARKETING Jean Kennedy SALES DIRECTOR Christi Crowley 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 PRESIDENT, MEREDITH MAGAZINES Doug Olson PRESIDENT, CONSUMER PRODUCTS Tom Witschi PRESIDENT, CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER Catherine Levene CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Michael Brownstein CHIEF MARKETING & DATA OFFICER Alysia Borsa MARKETING & INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS Nancy Weber SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS CONSUMER REVENUE Andy Wilson CORPORATE SALES Brian Kightlinger DIRECT MEDIA Patti Follo RESEARCH SOLUTIONS Britta Cleveland STRATEGIC SOURCING, NEWSSTAND, PRODUCTION Chuck Howell DIGITAL SALES Marla Newman THE FOUNDRY Matt Petersen PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY Justin Law VICE PRESIDENTS FINANCE Chris Susil BUSINESS PLANNING & ANALYSIS Rob Silverstone CONSUMER MARKETING Steve Crowe SHOPPER MARKETING Carol Campbell BRAND LICENSING Steve Grune VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Stephen Orr DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS & FINANCE Greg Kayko MEREDITH CORPORATION PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Tom Harty CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Joseph Ceryanec CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER John Zieser PRESIDENT, MEREDITH LOCAL MEDIA GROUP Patrick McCreery SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES Dina Nathanson CHAIRMAN Stephen M. Lacy VICE CHAIRMAN Mell Meredith Frazier Copyright © 2019 Meredith Corporation 225 Liberty Street • New York, NY 10281 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. For syndication requests or international licensing requests or reprint and reuse permission, e-mail [email protected]. PRINTED IN THE USA Vol. 19, No. 27 • October 11, 2019 LIFE is a registered trademark, registered in the U.S. and other countries. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Suzanne Albert in the Special Sales Department at [email protected]. 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

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