22 Facts About Sesame Street

1.

Sesame Street is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry.

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2.

Sesame Street was by then the 15th-highest-rated children's television show in the United States.

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3.

Sesame Street was conceived in 1966 during discussions between television producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Carnegie Foundation vice president Lloyd Morrisett.

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4.

At its 50th anniversary in 2019, Sesame Street had produced over 4, 500 episodes, two feature-length movies, 35 TV specials, 200 home videos, and 180 albums.

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5.

From its first episode, Sesame Street's format has utilized "a strong visual style, fast-moving action, humor, and music, " as well as animation and live-action short films.

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6.

Author Malcolm Gladwell said that "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them.

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7.

Sesame Street was the first children's show to structure each episode, and the segments within them, to capture children's attention, and to make, as Gladwell put it, "small but critical adjustments" to keep it.

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8.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who had previously appeared on Sesame Street, called for a boycott of the show, saying that the CTW was "exploiting impressionable children.

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9.

In November 2019, Sesame Street announced a family friendly augmented reality application produced by Weyo in partnership with Sesame Workshop in honor of the show's 50th anniversary.

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10.

Sesame Street 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.

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11.

Director Jon Stone, talking about the music of Sesame Street, said: "There was no other sound like it on television.

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12.

Sesame Street used animations and short films commissioned from outside studios, interspersed throughout each episode, to help teach their viewers basic concepts like numbers and letters.

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13.

Shortly after Sesame Street debuted in the United States, the CTW was approached independently by producers from several countries to produce versions of the show at home.

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14.

Sesame Street's was one of the first female executives in American television.

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15.

Jim Henson and the Muppets' involvement in Sesame Street began when he and Cooney met at one of the curriculum planning seminars in Boston.

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16.

Sesame Street agreed to waive his performance fee for full ownership of the Sesame Street Muppets and to split any revenue they generated with the CTW.

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17.

Sesame Street is best known for the creative geniuses it attracted, people like Jim Henson and Joe Raposo and Frank Oz, who intuitively grasped what it takes to get through to children.

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18.

Sesame Street did not audition actors until Spring 1969, a few weeks before the five test shows were due to be filmed.

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19.

Sesame Street [is] perhaps the most vigorously researched, vetted, and fretted-over program on the planet.

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20.

The creators of Blue's Clues were influenced by Sesame Street, but wanted to use research conducted in the 30 years since its debut.

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21.

In 1970, Sesame Street won twenty awards, including a Peabody Award, three Emmys, an award from the Public Relations Society of America, a Clio, and a Prix Jeunesse.

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22.

In 2002, Sesame Street was ranked number 27 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

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