"The long and winding road." Sesame Street

I’ve just finished reading Sesame Street: A Celebration, 40 Years on the Street, and what a flood of memories it released. Muppets, characters, sketches, jokes and animations I had forgotten but which delighted me in childhood, and thanks to YouTube, do so now.

But this is not just a book for reminiscing people of a certain age. This gives us the story of Sesame Street from one remarkable woman’s idea of how to turn the wasteland of 1960s television into a tool that could teach children, to the multi-national, multi-generational, still delightful, imaginative and fun institution that it is today.

From the beginning, the show was backed with research and time spent with children, and this process still goes on today. If today, we of a certain age lament the changes on Sesame Street, these changes are geared to make the show as fun and useful to today’s child as it was to us. Mr Hooper’s store looks more like part of a chain because that’s what kids see on their streets. The episodes are now shorter, with a stronger through-line because it keeps the kids’ attention better. They don’t necessarily want forty-something year olds watching, unless they are watching it with their children. Mind you, that doesn't mean you shouldn't: it's still fun and the jokes aimed at the Mums and Dads are still there too.

The show was never short of role models. From the start it had a mixed cast, which quickly became even more diverse, and was set in a New York street in a poor neighborhood, because that was their main demographic, poor American urban kids who never saw their world on TV. While the Muppets were originally going to be a stand-alone element, testing proved the kids switched off when only humans were onscreen, so the Muppets took to the street. Big Bird showed them even big people could make mistakes, Oscar that it was OK to be grouchy sometimes. The humans grew older, got married, had children, changed jobs, or moved away.

The show has taken on some big themes. There are two pages dedicated to the episode when Mr Hooper, who had died in real life, died on the show, and Big Bird trying to comprehend what death means. They’ve made shows about 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, made specials for children whose parents are in Iraq or Afghanistan, and even, until funding ran out, had an outreach program for children whose parents were in jail. The scope of what the Sesame Workshop, formerly the Children’s Television Workshop, does is quite staggering. It also goes to show you can help children comprehend the real world without mindlessly exposing them to the harshness and the ugliness of the world, as some want to do. Life can be tough, but it can be wonderful – all at the same time.

The book is big, colourful and generously illustrated, and invites browsing as well as a detailed read. The Muppet characters are so alive, it seems to make no difference that you can see the people operating them. Half an Ernie is still the fellow you love. You get a big insight into Muppet world from this book. I was encouraged to know they have younger replacements for the Muppeteers. While the death of Jim Henson (Sweet Jim Henson, as Custard once called him) took everyone by surprise, they now have trained operators for all the favourite Muppets, while still developing new characters as needed.  Some of the sketches that made me laugh while I watched it with my nephews and nieces I now realise were with these new Muppeteers. I didn’t notice, and I’m a bit of a Muppet tragic.

Children are still their main target and drive the changes to the show, as it should be. But their reactions can still surprise. Animation by Maurice Sendak, of ‘Where the wild things are’ fame, was taken off when it frightened children. Children at home imitated Don Music, a Muppet pianist who used to head butt the keyboard in frustration, so he disappeared. Apparently many kids were confused when the actor playing Gordon was replaced. I just remember wondering why Gordon had suddenly gone bald. But children are always ready to suspend disbelief. One child on the set seeing Caroll Spinney undressing as Big Bird said to his mother ‘Does Big Bird know he’s got a man inside him?’ Sometimes, when we become adults, we should keep childish things with us.