Latest / Stuff You Should Know / We Got to Sesame Street

Transcript

We Got to Sesame Street · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is Sesame Street edition,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: which this has been a long time coming.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Chuck. Yeah, and I don't know if you plan this
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: or not, but our selects episode like the week before
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: this comes out, I believe is Jim Henson.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I did not plan it. What No, I really didn't.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, amazing.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: That's Kermit, I mean Kismet cursemet, right, that's really cool.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you haven't listened to those, I mean, really,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of our greatest episodes ever in Stuff you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Should Know Lore are our Muppet episodes and our Jim
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Henson up. So those are good primers if you haven't
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: heard those yet.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because this definitely touches on Jim Henson, because Jim
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Henson was a huge driver for Sesame Street initially, as
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: we'll see. Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit about
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Sesame Street.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We should say what it is.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Probably, Yeah, although I would be really surprised if basically
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: everyone listening wasn't at least familiar. But for those of
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: you who aren't, that's fine. Sesame Street is a long
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: running children's television educational program that started way back in
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, was season one, and has spread all
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: over the world. I think it's in one hundred and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred and seventy countries, depending on who
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you ask, amazing, and even more than that, in thirty
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of those countries at least, there are what are called
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: co productions where they have basically taken the ball and said,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: we're going to make our own version of Sesame Street
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in conjunction with the people who make Sesame Street and
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: just kind of adapt it to local customs and culture.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: More so, it's a global juggernaut, and it's basically globally
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: beloved too.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean not by everyone. I'm sure some people
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: hate it.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I hope you're wrong.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was just kidding, Okay, good, I think I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: think everyone has a soft spot at least for Sesame Street.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I watched it for sure as a kid, but I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't like, I don't remember years and years and years
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and years of watching it. I moved on to Electric Company,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: which was felt like a little bit older, much more intellectual. Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit. So I moved on to that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly. But I did love Sesame Street and the Muppets,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and it was, you know, right in our wheelhouse, even
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: though it was you know, I guess it started just
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: a few years where I was born.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Actually, sadly, yeah, but again, it's it's one of the
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: longest running television shows in the history of the United States.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It's up there with like General Hospital, like it's just
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: been going forever. It's in season fifty five right now.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's been continuous every year since it started, and it
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: is at least in the United States, but I would
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: suspect in a lot of parts of the world it's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: basically a right of early childhood. It's a right of passage.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Like you just kind of grow up on Sesame Street,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and then, like you said, I think as you start
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to age out of it, you move on to other
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: stuff that was also produced by people who produce Sesame Street. Oh.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I hope I don't start saying Semesi Street because that's
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: just not going to work.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: That might be the name of it in some country.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: He never know. As we'll see, they do have some
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: great names for it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should talk a little bit, just out of
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the gate about some of the biggest characters, most iconic characters,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and when they were introduced, because not all of them
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: have been around for the whole run, but from the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: very beginning in the first season, we got Big Bird.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I know we've talked about it, but there's a great
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: documentary on Big Bird that you should watch if you're
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: into that kind of hang Grover was right away, Kermit
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was in season one, although as you learned, Kermit was
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: already on TV and other areas such that people are like,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Kermit's a little I don't know if we're over him,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but maybe a little overexposed. So they actually removed him
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: after season one for a little while, right.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they were concerned that he was too commercialized,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: he was too associated with advertising and halting products that
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: they were like, this doesn't really have a place here.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We also got Burton Ernie in season one, Oscar
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the Grouch, our friend in the trash can, the Cookie Monster,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of years later we got Aloysius
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Snuffaluphagus snuffle Upagus. Excuse me not A nice little factoid
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: for your next dinner party is that he does have
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a first name, and it's Aloysious.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: What about the count seventy two? What about Telly Monster?
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: This was seventy nine. I must not have been watching
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: it that much at at eight years old, because I
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: did not remember Telly Monster.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I remembered him, but he wasn't a big deal to me,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So I don't Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'd
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: cross pads.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Who helped? Was Dave help us with this?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: No? This was doctor claw Oh, well, Laura Clawson.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Laura might have been into Tellymonster, so maybe that's why
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: she listed it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I know he's kind of a big one, but
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I think even more than Telly by far as far
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: as recognition goes, Elmo came along way earlier than I thought.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: He came along in nineteen eighty. Yeah, but he was
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: just kind of a background character. I don't even think
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: he necessarily had a name or any big speaking parts.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But he eventually kind of caught on and became one
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: of the more beloved muppets of all time.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned for X three to learn how that happened. Yeah,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: how about a cliffhanger there, yep.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: And then I guess we'll talk a little bit about
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: the origins. We'll come back to some of the Muppet
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: characters later on.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we should mention the hardware, though, because they have
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: won a staggering two hundred and twenty one Emmy Awards.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to degrade it by saying, well, they're
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: daytime Emmys, but they are daytime Emmys, and you can
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: rack up a lot of those over the years, But
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to twenty one over fifty five seasons, I don't care
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: how you slice it. That's super impressive.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Zero Emmys, as do I which I'm kind of surprised
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: neither one of us has an Emmy for the work
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: that we've done.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Eleven Grammys pretty good, sure, and then a bunch of peabodies.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I believe that the last time they got an Emmy,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the producer accepted it, just yawned on stage, and.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Water just threw it in a big room.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: The rest of them, yeah, on the pile. So we
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: should talk about the origins of all this because Sesame
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Street and the whole idea behind it grew out of
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: two developing things in the mid nineteen sixties. One was
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, which was this ideal
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: policy movement toward ending poverty and inequality, getting rid of crime,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: helping the environment, making a great society. As far as
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: progressives were concerned, that was one thing that was going on.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: So there was much more of an awareness. There was
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: a little like they literally declared a war on poverty,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: so there was much more of an awareness of a
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: difference between the advantage and the disadvantage, especially among children
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: in the United States at the time. And then on
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the other side of the coin, there was this growing
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: awareness among psychologists and other educators that what had been
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: previously neglected and ignored, which was the early childhood years,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: say between three and five, were really crucial to the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: intellectual development of a kid. And so there came this
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: idea to create television programming that was geared toward disadvantaged
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: kids between ages three and five to help them, to
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: give them kind of a leg up before they started schooling.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: That's pretty much the premise of where this whole thing
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: came from.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which I mean talk about a noble cause they
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: were on board from the beginning, and well, as you'll see,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: you know, shortly they really put their money where their
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: mouths were as far as doing actual research and studies
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to make sure they were doing what they intended to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: do precisely as the story goes. In nineteen sixty six,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: as far as origin, a woman named Joan Ganz Cooney
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and a dude named Lloyd Morrissett were at a dinner
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: party and they started talking about TV and like, maybe
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: TV could educate kids. Cooney was in the newspaper biz.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: She started producing TV and then as soon as New
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: York City he got a educational television station. She came
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: on board and started working for them. And I think
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a documentary on a Harlem pre school was her first
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: job and it really just got her hooks, got its
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: hooks center as far as like, hey, TV can do something.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Different, Yeah, she said in a documentary called Street Gang.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I think Colon Howie got to sesame Street. It was
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: from twenty twenty one that she wanted to find out
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: what television would do if it loved people instead of
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: trying to sell the people.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a time where the FCC chair
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty one under JFK, his name was
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Newton Minno. He made a name for himself historically by
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: saying that television was a vast wasteland. And I mean
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: he was kind of right, there was some good stuff
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: on at the time, but also there was some really
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: bad stuff too, And it was I think what he
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: was ultimately saying. Though he wasn't critiquing the smartness of
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the sitcoms at the time, he was basically saying, like,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: there's nothing to be gained from, Like this is all
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: just dumb escapism and advertising essentially is what TV is.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And we hadn't really come a very long way for
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a long time.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Well we haven't. We have it one step forward, two
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: steps back maybe.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Hey man, when they did away with the after school special,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: TV took a nose dive as far as I'm.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Concrete, As far as Morisset goes, he was a VP
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: at the Carnegie Corporation, very smart guy. He had a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: PhD in psychology from Yale, and his sort of lore
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: goes that he was watching his daughter, his young daughter,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: watch TV test patterns before you know broadcast started early
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: one morning and he was like, oh my god, kids
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: like they'll really watch anything if it's on a screen.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: This is not good.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: No, he said to Joan Ganz Cooney. Isn't it ironic,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: don't you think?
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Is he related?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: No? I think she has an e at the end
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: of her name.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: No, I think you're right. I just wondered though, because
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: she was in kids television.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't do that on television.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, Oh, I wonder if there's a
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: tie there, but I guess not.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: She got slimed.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So they started doing a little research, and they got
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a grant through the Carnegie Corporation because Morissette was a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: VP there and he wrote a report about, you know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: using TV is a good thing for preschool kids. They
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: got another grant to develop like a more in depth pitch.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Basically did a lot more research. Again, they weren't just
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: sort of writing from the dome, and in nineteen sixty
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: eight they presented a proposal called Television for Preschool Children,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and again on the premise that like, hey, all we're
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: doing is like trying to sell stuff to people, Like
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: what if TV treated them with respect and love instead?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean TV was a great way to
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: get to kids already by the mid sixties I saw that.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I think, oh, I don't remember what year it was,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: but around the time that these guys were starting, kids
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: were averaging fifty four hours a week in front of
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the television. That's almost eight hours a day. That's a
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: full workday of watching TV for kids. Yeah, so, I
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: mean they were already tuned in. So the idea of
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: like getting to them through the TV in a way
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: that you're like you were trying to help them, to
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: educate them. That I mean it was radical for the time,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: but it also is just totally sensible. But like you said,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: they weren't just going on this idea like of course
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: it's going to work. They tested this inside and out
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: and what became the Children's Television Workshop, which is now
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: called SESAME Workshop. This collaborative of like writer producers, directors
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: for the show, but also child psychologists, sometimes religious leaders,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: educators and also of like different races, ethnicities, all coming
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: together to basically say, like, here are some things we
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: can we like, here's goals we want to achieve in
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: educating kids. We want them to learn cognitively, we want
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: them to learn social graces, and like I think if
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: we try this way or that way, we can actually
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: achieve that. But let's try this way and try that
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: way and test them both and see which works best.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And they they had to get kids
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to watch though, like all of this hard work would
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: be it would be really really sad if kids just
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: didn't tune in because you know, as we'll see, like
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: PBS and its precursor, the National Education Television I guess
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: network was you know, maybe not a lot of people
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: watched it at the time, so they knew they had
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to get eyeballs in front of it. So from their
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: initial eight million dollars in funding from different foundations and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: some from the federal government, they spent nine hundred thousand
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: dollars of that eight million to promote the show, which
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: is a pretty staggering percentage out of the gate, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: they had a bunch of all you know, they went
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to you know, regular media outlets of course, but they
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: also hit head start programs and churches and daycares. I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: think you found out that when like the week before
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the premiere, they hired trucks with like loudspeakers to just
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: drive around you know a lot of urban neighborhoods, you know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: advertising that it was coming on. And like you mentioned
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: it from the onset, mister Jim Henson, coming aboard was
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: also a big part of getting people to watch because
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the Muppets were already a thing.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like we said, Kermit was already so commercialized he
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: basically was removed from the show. But they've been around
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: since the fifties. I think Jim Henson's first puppet gig
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: was out of high schooler during high school, and he
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: developed this stick pretty quickly, but it wasn't it wasn't
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: associated with kids. He would take it on like the
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Steve Allen Show or the Jack Parr Show, like late
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: night TV and do like puppet skits that weren't at
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: all geared toward kids, and very quickly started doing advertising
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: with them as well. They just became a think muppets.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: People knew muppets before there was Sesame Street, so did
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: land Jim Henson. He wasn't like some mega star, you know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: he was no C. C. Deville at the time, but
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: he was well known. So it was kind of like
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: they landed a bit of a whale by getting Jim
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Henson fully involved in developing and executing or I should say,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: producing Sesame Street initially.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You know what, I think I got the poison reference
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: wrong in that episode recently.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: That's why I said that CC.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Deville is a guitarist. Ricky Rockett was a drummer.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: You got that straight finally.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Talk dirty to me.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons why, also, Chuck, it was so
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: big to bring Henson on was because from that research,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and today this seems totally normal, But this grew out
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: of the children's television workshop. Research was that puppets and
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: animation really got kids going. It really jazzed them. You
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: really got their attention. And as we learned from the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: editorial cartoon episode, that's because they're super stimuli. So the
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: jet kids up. And then weirdly, some of the child
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: psychologists involved in the development of the show, we're like, Okay,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that's fine, we need puppets, but the humans and the
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: puppets can never interact, they can never communicate. It will
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: scare the Bejesus out of the children if they do.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: And I guess somebody was like, that's a pretty ridiculous thing,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: and that got thrown away even before the pilot episode ran.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Well, no, they actually tested it with kids and learned
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that the kids were not interested in the adult only sections. Yeah,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: so they actually had real, real data. So they tried
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: it out and it just didn't work.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: No, And they should have known too. I mean, this,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: like Sesame Street, was pretty groundbreaking in that it was
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: an educational show, But there are already kids shows like
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Mister Rogers had been around for a year before it debuted,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Captain Kangaroo had been around since nineteen fifty five. But
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: what made it different is that those shows were generally
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: like anti school and they encourage kids to explore a
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: life of crime, whereas Sesame Street was like, no, let's
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: go to school and be the best kind of people
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: we can.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Now, can we take a break? Yes, all right, great,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about what
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: happened on November tenth, nineteen sixty nine, right after this,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: all right, so I promised a specific date in mind,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: November ten, nineteen sixteen, again a year before, roughly before
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: PBS came out, a show like this would air on
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: something called the National Education Television And that's when it aired, Tada,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and it was a hit right out of the gate,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: almost seven million viewers in season one. Ernie had a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: big hit song with rubber Ducky actually charted at number
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: sixteen on the Billboards in September nineteen seventy and was
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: nominated for a Grammy. And they used to do a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: ton of these episodes. They had one hundred and thirty
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: episodes a season for a while, and then further reduction
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: in funding kind of over the years trimmed it down
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and by the time they hit the two thousands, they
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: were down to thirty episodes a year. But you know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I mentioned test pilots and James Earl Jones was. You know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: it kind of depends on who you talked to. He
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: was in one of those test pilots. So some people
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: say he was the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: but the actual real episode one season one was featured
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: as the first guest.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, and Carol Burnett was laughing while she was counting
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: to ten. James Earl Jones was just staring at the
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: camera doing the alphabet in almost a really creepy way.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Have you seen it? Oh yeah, it's great.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that pilot was called the title of it
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was Gordon introduces Sally to Sesame Street. And the other
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, oddball human that appeared in
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: episode one season one was magician James Randy. Oh really, yeah,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: pretty cool?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: That is cool. Was he just doing magic or teaching
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: kids to be skeptics?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I think he was just doing magic, Okay, I didn't
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: watch the whole episode, but I just thought that was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: kind of fun.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: But the reason James Earl Jones was on there and
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: shortly after Harry Bellefonte and a lot of other black
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: celebrities very early on, was because, again the show initially
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: was geared toward a disadvantage inner city black kids who
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: had just been totally overlooked and forgotten. So they wanted
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: to show people that looked like them on TV and
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: so they could learn from them. So it was really
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: kind of, I don't want to say, like geared toward
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: black kids, but there was way more for the average
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: three or four year old black kid growing up in
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: America at the time that they could find anywhere else
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: on TV. The thing is it was also designed for everybody,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: for every kid, so any kid could come along and
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: enjoy it, and that was actually seen. Apparently Sesame Street
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: is based on Harlem, I guess, And they originally had
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: one name for it, which was I think was it
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: one two three B Street or b Avenue? No, No,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: I think it was, And so people were like, that
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: sounds really New York and it's going to turn off
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: everybody outside in New York. Everyone in New York will
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: love it. But you know, so they expanded it to
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Sesame Street eventually so that everybody could could appreciate it more.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and part of the racial diversity was a problem
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in some places in the United States at the time.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Their human characters, Gordon and Susan were a black couple,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and the state of Mississippi said, not in my state,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that's not going to be on television. And because it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is a you know, PBS is a public thing, the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: state kind of shut that down. The State Commission did
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and banned it. It only took twenty two days for
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that to be reversed. But take heart that a local
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: NBC affiliate stepped up during that three weeks and aired
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: those episodes even in Mississippi.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's so cool, man, Yeah, that's great.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the first the original human cast were Gordon and Susan,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: a black couple, and then mister Hooper and Bob, both
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: of them were white, and mister Hooper ran the store.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Bob was a music teacher, Gordon was a science teacher,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and Susan originally started out as a housewife, developed into
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: a nurse, and then finally became a working mom later on.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It took a couple of years to get Latina
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: representation because initially, in the first couple of seasons, Chicano
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: activists and Puerto Rican activists were like, hey, where are
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: we in this show? And so by season three we
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: got Maria and Luis. You did mention Gordon. Originally that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: was a guy named Matt Robinson, but he left the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: show kind of co created this character with Jim Henson
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: named Roosevelt Franklin, and he was purple, but he was
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: sort of a black coated muppet because he spoke using
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: African American vernacular English. And while some people was like, no,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: this is great as a role model and it's real,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: other people were like, no, that's a negative stereotype. You know.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I think it would be different today, but for the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: time that didn't go over so well.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: No, and the fans of Arrested Development will probably recognize
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Franklin Joe Blust's puppet. He was based on Roosevelt Franklin.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: And because of that, I was when I started to
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: watch clips of Roosevelt Franklin, the origin the muppet, I
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: was like, this is gonna be awful. It was not.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It's actually quite ridiculous that they got rid of him
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: because he was a really well developed black character. Yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: it's just perplexing that they cave to that because he
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: was a good character.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you say Job or gob Bluth? Oh?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I said Job. Didn't I go just stop the
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: listener mails right now. No, it's Job.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I thought it was Gob No no, or Is that
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: just one of the jokes.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because his his that's it's an acronym, George
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: something Bluth.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, I thought there was a joke on there at
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: some point about gob, but I might just be wrong
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: It's been a man, It has been a while, so
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: you could be right too.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Don Music was another character they got rid of that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: was a Don Music was a composer. It would get
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: frustrated and bang his head on the piano keys and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: parents are like, hey, my kid is banging their head
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: on piano keys and stuff, and we got to get
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: this character out of there. So they got rid of
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Don Music pretty early on a hiss way.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Well poor Don. Yeah, so there's as this is like
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: nothing unusual for Sesame Street. They started doing that from
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the outset right like they started like there. It started
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: off with a black and white cast, and I mean
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: that was still kind of strange or unusual for TV
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: in America, but they keep doing it. And what's kind
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: of saddening is every time they do it, it's like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I can't believe how great this is
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: that they're including this character. And then there's another segment
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: of the public who's like, I can't believe they're including
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: that character. It's just sad either way. I think it's
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: both kind of sad because what they're doing. What Sesame
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Street does is they say there's a group of people
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: out there who are being neglected, that kids that were
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: talking to interact with, and we need to bring them
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: on just to normalize and because they're just normal people
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and we need to show that. So they've they've introduced
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: a number of characters that proved to be controversial over
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the years. What I like about Sesame Street, with the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: exception of Roosevelt Franklin, they basically just stay mute on
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: it and they're like, you guys, sort it out. We're
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: going to just do our thing over here.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And this is you know, pretty early
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: on too. In nineteen seventy eight, they had a character
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: with down syndrome who was in Preschool's name was Jason
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Kingsley and was the son of a writer, Emily Kingsley
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: for Sesame Street, and so all of a sudden they
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: started having more kids with you know, challenges and disabilities.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: They've had kids that are hearing impair, They've had kids
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: in wheelchairs. Over the years, recently they've kind of brought
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it into the modern age for you know, issues that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: kids face sadly more and more of these days. One
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: character had food insecurity and eventually homelessness.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Lily.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And another whose father was in prison, and then
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: another kid who was in foster care because her mother
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: is battling opioid addiction. So they're I mean, they've never
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: been afraid to bite off some really really tough stuff
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: that sadly, kids have to deal with, and they know
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: they have to deal with this stuff, so they're not
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: backing away from it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things that Susame Street does
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: when it introduces like a muppet like this is shine
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: a light on the fact that this is an actual thing,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Like they're not like what obscure terrible situation can we
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: find and base them uppet on. Apparently in the United States,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: two point five million children are homeless at any given time,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: two point six one million children have a father or
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: a parent who's in prison, and another one point four
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: million have a parent addicted to opioids. So it's not
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: like these are niche topics that niche puppets are built on.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: These are real challenges that a lot of little kids
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: in the United States face, Whether yeah, you consider it
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: tasteful or not.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, we mentioned that they put
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: their money where their mouth is as far as continuing
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to do research and study about you know, its effect
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: on kids and potential outcomes, because that was, you know,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: that was the mission statement from the very beginning. So
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: they couldn't just be like, we're doing a great job,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: so we're good. They got into Educational Test the Educational
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Testing Service to do a study after just season one,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and they sampled nine hundred and forty three kids from
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: urban areas and then one rural area. And the kids
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: there were, you know, disadvantaged kids in urban areas and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: rural areas. There were Spanish speaking kids, there were advantage
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: suburban kids in this study, and they found that kids
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: really did learn from the show, and that the more
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you watch the more they learned and the more they knew,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: which was pretty great.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was season one, right. Yeah, so
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: they went back and said, let's figure out if this worked.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: There was a twenty thirteen study that kind of recreated
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: it intentionally or otherwise, but rather than looking at the
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: United States, they took it on an international scale, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: it was a meta analysis of twenty four studies that
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: had been on the effects of Sesame Street and all combined.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: This meta analysis looked at ten thousand children in fifteen
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: different countries, so it was a pretty robust study, and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: they found the same thing, that there were significant positives
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: associated with kids watching Sesame Street, and that kids who
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: watched more perform better in school, and that this effect
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: carried no matter the income level of the country, low income,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: middle income, high income country, doesn't matter. The effects were
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the same, and it hit three different outcomes cognitive outcomes,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: learning about the world, and social reasoning, and basically it
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: just turned every single one of these ten thousand children
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: into a superchild.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one, well, just why they have the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: s on their.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Chest right Testame Street Superchild.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Another study. I thought this one was pretty striking to
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: me because they could actually do a fairly direct ab comparison.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: The American Economic Journal, for Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: did at because they were like, hey, wait a minute.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: In those early years, there were UHF stations in VHF stations,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and some areas had some, and then you know, a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: couple of neighborhoods over another, you know they may not
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: have the same access. So they could literally compare districts
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: in elementary schools and outcomes with people who did not
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: have the show at all and people who had it,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and they found it the show actually did improve outcomes,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and that the positive effect of the show was particularly
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: pronounced for boys and black, non Hispanic children and children
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: who grew up in other counties who had economic disadvantage.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So it was literally helping and targeting the kids that
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: they were hoping to target while also being good for
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: everyone overall.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and one specific outcome I saw, just for an example,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and that study was that the kids who watched Systame
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Street were fourteen percent more likely to be in an
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: age appropriate grade in middle school or high school, so
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: they hadn't been held back, or they were fourteen percent
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: likely to have not and held back then kids who
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: didn't watch it.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty great.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's statistically significant.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a pretty good quote too. The New Republic.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Their quote is that Sesame Street was essentially the first
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: MOAK massive online open course, providing educational content to viewers
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: for free, and a twenty fifteen white paper from the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Early Childhood Education Group said it's one of the largest
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and least costly interventions.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you might be like with New Republic, it's
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: a pretty liberal rag of course. Of like sesame Street.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: We found a quote from the National Review, which is
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: about what conservative and the National Review called sesame Street
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the one great thing accomplished by lbj's Great Society, which
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: is a hilarious quote, and that was in twenty twenty one.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Just one thing, right, Hey, it's good for sesame Street though.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was saying. Everybody loves Sesame Street.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: So I guess we'll press on chucking plug into the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: rest of the world, because, like we said, shows up
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: in one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy countries,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and there's at least thirty co productions around the world,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: and it turns out they're really fun to read. About
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: and talk.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: About they really are, because, like you said, you know,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: depending on the country, they're going to tailor it for
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: their country and have characters that reflect things kids might recognize.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So if you go to Israel and watch Oscar the Grouch,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: you'll see that Oscar's name Moisha Ufnik. Pretty good name.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It means grouch and Hebrew.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you probably won't see Oscar the Grouch or
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Count von Count in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has its own co
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: production called My Best Attempt is boch E Simpson, and
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: they have cultural taboos against trash and vampirism. So Oscar
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: and the Count don't really translate to the Afghani version
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: of Sesame.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Street the simsims right, I wonder if that's the theme.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the sesame in Arabic or Arabic like languages
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: or Arabic related languages, simpsim or sumsum has it seems
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: to be what sesame is.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: So if you ever run across a trivia question that
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: says what is sesame and Arabic, you'd better say simsim.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sims i am if spelling counts one word. If
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: you go to the UK, and you said cookie monster,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: they'd say, I think you mean biscuit monster, of course,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: because biscuits are cookies over there. And if you go
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to Latin America, you might not see Big Bird, but
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you might see Abe Lardo, who is Big Bird's cousin.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It's a giant parrot.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you've got like different characters or the same
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: characters with different names, or characters that just don't show up.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: But there's also characters that are just totally new, and
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: they kind of follow the original Sesame Street's program of like,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: let's include people who are stigmatized or left out. And
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: so the South African version of Sesame Street Takalani. Yeah,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know why I had trouble saying that. Takilani
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: sesame delicious. Yeah. They included a character named Kami. Kami
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: is based on the word kamogello, which means acceptance in
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: some South African indigenous languages like Zulu. And the reason
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: they did that is because Kami is an HIV positive
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: orphan of a mother with aides who died. And this
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: is a muppet who is basically playing with other muppets
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to show little kids that you don't have to be
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: fearful of having a friend who is HIV positive. It's
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: not dangerous to play with them. And in South Africa
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: that was very controversial because a lot of people have
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: HIV in South Africa, but it's still very stigmatized. So
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: of course Sesame Street in South Africa was like, let's
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: get Kami in there.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: They could probably have an American version of that same character,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: or at least in the eighties they could.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: I read that there was a letter written by a
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: small panel of Congress people to PBS basically saying, don't
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: even think about it. Oh boy.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Since ninety eight there was a there's been an Israeli
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Palestinian co production which is super unique obviously called Rekoff
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: some some oh yeah, or Shars Simson, like you said,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and this is pretty great. It's Israelian Palestine Palestinian kids
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: together and we they're from separate streets, but they get
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: together and hang out and play and talk. And when
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: they do, the language, you know, either Hebrew or Arabic,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: has translated in subtitles into the other language. And they
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: weren't just like, oh, we'll just pat ourselves on the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: back for this. They were trying to accomplish something. So
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: they measured outcomes again and did studies, and they found
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that watching the show made kids in that area more
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: likely to use positive terms to describe kids on the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: other side of that conflict.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And Sesame Street, we should just say that after every
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: every great thing we talk about them.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, actually there's a quote that kind
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of goes along with that. Andrew S. Nazios, who led
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: us AID under George W. Bush, he said the Arabic
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: language version of the show was the quote biggest weapon
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: against al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought about that too, that like, you're using
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Sesame Street to spread essentially global good, basic human values
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: in places where those are sometimes in short supply. You know, Yeah,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I think that's cool. And then that one, the Arabic
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: version you just mentioned it, it's called Alain Simpson. They
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: use that in Syrian refugee camps because little kids in
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Syrian refugee camps schools were canceled because the government dropped
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: chemical weapons on their town. But they're still getting to
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: watch this Arabic version of Sesame Street to make sure
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: that they're not left behind.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, since we're here, before we break.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: We might as well mention that the Sesame Workshop is
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit that gets part of their funding through the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: US federal government through the USAID program, and just I
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: think a couple of months ago, the current administration announced
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: that obviously Usaid and by the way, episode coming up
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: on that soon on, that organization is being cut at
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the behest of the Department of Government Efficiency. So Sesame
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Street is going to lose a lot of funding. And
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the current president said the Arabic language version was part
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. But the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: good news is is that it accounts for only four
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: percent of their total funding. So hopefully, I mean, they
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: were pretty much called off guard and are scrambling a bit,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: but hopefully that it's not like the end of Sesame Street.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: No. I saw it as in real dollars, about five
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: million dollars. But the problem is that's still a significant
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Like they're operating at a deficit, so they basically need
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: every dollar they can get, so it's still hitting them
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: four Yeah, So I think in March twenty twenty five,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: they announced that they were having to lay off employees,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: which is not something that happens all the time at
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Sesame Street, although I'm sure they've tackled it plenty of times.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe there was an episode about it.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Probably should we take a break. I just want to
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: throw out one more. We talked about the Afghani version
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: of Sesame Street. In twenty sixteen, they have featured they
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: debut a girl mupet named Zari who goes to school
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: wearing a h job. Yeah pretty great, yep, take that Taliban.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: All right, Well we're gonna take that second break, and
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap it up here right after this fish.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: So chuck. Before we broke, I was talking about how
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Sesame Street probably has tackled the episode of being fired
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: parent being fired right. The reason why is because they
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: have a long history of tackling tough topics that date
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: back pretty far. I think in nineteen eighty two. That's
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: usually where people trace the origin of Sesame Street, just
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: taking on very adult themed episodes that kids sometimes have
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: to deal with head on. With the death of mister
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Hooper who brand Hooper's.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Store, Yeah, I mean I have a hard time even
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: talking about this one. It was nineteen eighty two. Actor
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Willie who played mister Hooper passed away in irl, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: they were like, let's not replace him, Let's use this
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: as an opportunity to teach kids about death and grief
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and Big Bird. They aired it on Thanksgiving, so parents,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: you know, were more likely to be home. They got
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: together like with again, they weren't just like, hey, let's
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just the white writers whip something up. They got together
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: with religious leaders and child psychologists kind of figure out
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the best way to do this, and they decided on
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Big Bird kind of taking the lead in saying very sadly,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I want to give mister Hooper a picture that I
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: drew when he comes back. And that's when they're like,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: big Bird, I've got some bad news for you, my friend.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Gordon famously rolled his eyes.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not coming back. Death is permanent. And it
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: was a huge, huge deal for not just Sesame Street,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: but just how we talk to kids about this kind
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of thing, you know.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it took kids seriously, as you know, thinking
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: feeling individuals, because they taught they discussed replacing him with
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: a new mister Hooper and just pretending like it wasn't
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: a different actor, or saying mister Hooper retired and he's
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: not coming back, but he's retired, not dead, and they're like, no,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: let's use this opportunity. It is really tear jerking to watch.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen eighty five, another big lesson came along.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: When you know, if you haven't seen the show, mister
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Snuffalopagus is this sort of big I don't even know
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: what you call it, kind of a big, long haired
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: monstery thing.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: But it got to touch a bully mammoth I think.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But big Bird, Snuffalupagus was Big Bird's imaginary friend,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and the adults like, couldn't see this imaginary friend. And
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: in that episode he was seen by the rest of
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the cast and they were like, hey, maybe this can
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: inspire kids who are maybe child abuse victims that you
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: don't need to fear that adults won't believe you if
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: you reveal something to them. And so, you know, they
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: tackled it through Snuffalopagus all of a sudden becoming a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: real thing to the adults on the show.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because he always had been real, but anytime Big
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Bird tried to introduce some people, he would just not
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: be there for some reason or another. So he was
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: real and when they apologized to him, I think Bob
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the music teacher said, we'll believe you whenever you tell
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: us something. From now on Big Bird, Like they really
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: kind of drove it home, beat the little kids over
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the head with this.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: They also tackled nine to eleven, not in a direct
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: way by like talking about the Pentagon and the Twin Towers,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: but it was a show very clearly centered around kids
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, dealing with like a big sort of
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: shared tragedy and how they might go about that.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, let's see what else. Another part of that too
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: is there was a fire at Hooper's store. They didn't
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: show the fires just offscreen. They mentioned it, they referenced
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: it happening, and some firefires show up to put it out,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: and Elmo is just freaked out by this. So the
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: firefighters stop and like comfort him and tell them it's okay,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: and they helped deal with that kind of I don't know.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: I think the message was listen to firefighters because they're all.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, great message. Kids left fire trucks anyway, so
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: they're halfway there, right. They also dealt with like kids
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: who have parents in the military that are off at war.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: At one point, they've had episodes on hurricanes and like
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: dealing with a natural disaster like that. And they even
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: dealt with the COVID nineteen pandemic in twenty twenty because
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: kids were at home watching a lot of TV, and
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you know, their parents are pretty stressed out. So they
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: had a special episode all about COVID.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, including when the vaccines came out. Big Bird and
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I think everybody else got vaccinated. Big Bird had a
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: band aid on his wings, So my wing hurts a
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: little bit. But other than that, I'm okay. Yeah.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned the problems with the funding. It started
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: in the mid eighties. They had reports that expenses were
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: going to outpace revenues. Perhaps they do a lot of licensing.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I think about two thirds of their revenue comes from
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: lining licensing to like books and toys and things. The
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Monster at the end of this book is a classic
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: children's book with Grover as the center character.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: My favorite Grover book. One of my favorite books growing
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: up was Grover and the Everything in the World Museum.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Did you ever that one?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Uh uh?
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: It might have been after your time, but I love
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: that book. It's drawing in there is so great, and
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: it's just it's all Grover.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They've been talking about, you know, the recent cuts
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: are one thing, but they've been talking about, you know,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: reducing funding and have funding somewhat over the years for
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a long time, though I believe twenty fifteen they were
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: operating at a loss, maybe for the first time, and
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: so HBO stepped up and said, hey, you know what,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: if you give us a jump on PBS, we'll pay
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you some pretty good money. So they got the episodes
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: nine months before PBS. But in December of last year
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, Warner Brothers Discovery said, you know what,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: We're not gonna We're not gonna do that deal anymore.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: We can license back episodes still, or we want to still,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: but the deal has concluded, and I think that also
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: put them in a bit of a money bind.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess HBO Max agreed to take season
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: twenty or six season fifty five, which is currently out now,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: but they're not taking season fifty six and the Sesame workshops, like, well,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: we're still going to make a season fifty six. Who
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: wants to buy new episodes, brand new episodes of Sesame Street?
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: So it's up for up for auction right now. I
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: didn't see any interested buyers, but I mean the idea
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: of Sesame Street is going away because no one's going
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: to put it on the air. Is mind bogglingly sad
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: to me, and I just don't think it's going to happen.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: The stuff you should know production there you go.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Do you have pool or money together?
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: One hundred million bucks or something? What would that cost?
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'll bet we could get it
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: out of Jerry. I don't know. I don't think it's
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: going to be one hundred million bucks because that's like
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: all of their operating costs for a year. And I
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: mean they get a lot of their money from licensing
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: toys and pajamas and all that stuff. So when you
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: buy those things, you're actually directly helping Sesame Street.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: That's where I get my pajamas.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet we could get it for twenty million
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: right now. The problem, Mischuck is we don't have anywhere
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: to show it. I think that's a big obstacle we
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: would have to overcome as well.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, we could cut a deal.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well god knows how much that's going to cost us,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: but we can. We'll figure it out.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should finish up with some sort of random
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: sort of factoids that you might want to share with
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: your friends. Here's a pretty fun stat The characters on
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Sesame Street are some of the most recognizable in the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: world and certainly in the US. Seventy five percent of
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: people under fifty five told a Yuga poll that they
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: even have a favorite character.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Do you want to know the top ten in order? Sure? Yes,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: who's your favorite? We never said who our favorites were?
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, I don't remember. I used to like the Count.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was great. Oooh that's a good count. Cookie
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Monsters number one, yeah, almost number two, Big Birds number three,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I guess makes sense. Grover number four. Grover is my favorite,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: The Count, mister stuffle up against Ernie, and then Bert
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: and then Abby, which is a newer character. I think
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure when she came along, and then the
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: last one. Number ten is other.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: My favorite. So the title, if you're wondering where that
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: came from, it was from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Open Sesame. Cooney is on record saying that that was
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: probably the least bad title, and we thought, you know,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: open Sesame. We felt like we were opening children to
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: knowledge and education. So it's kind of a kind of
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: a weird little origin, but it just I can't think
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: of it as anything else.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and lucky for them, it translates pretty well in Arabic.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Simpson, what was the what was the Mexican version called
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: that had a great.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Name, Plaza Sesimo? I love that? Yeah, I do too.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me how to get there?
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Though? Well that I'm glad you brought that up. I
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: was looking up stuff about the theme song. It turns
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: out there's not much interesting about it other than it
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: debuted on the first episode and has been you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: toyed with or altered here there over the years. But
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: it's the same theme song in every episode of Sesame Street. Yeah,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: ten million episodes.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: We got a shout out the writers, the music by
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Joe Riposo and lyrics by Riposo and Johnstone and Bruce Hart.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Nice. Pretty nice of you. And then did we talk
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: about Tickle Me Elmo?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Well, no, this is the third actor reveal.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about Elmo by suddenly becoming very famous.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: The reason why is because in nineteen ninety six the
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Tickle Me Elmo doll became like the must have Christmas toy.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: And I know we've talked about it in one of
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: our Christmas episodes. But let's just briefly mention it again.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean thank you Rosio o donald for this one.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Tickle me Elmo came on Rosio o' donal, and it
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: was a big, big deal. This may have been a
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: black Pridy episode thing too, because trying to buy those
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Elmos at the time was a thing. There was stampeding,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: people went to the hospital. There were people selling them
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: on the black market for like really high prices. So
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Elmo was a overnight sensation, like you know, sixteen years
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: after or I guess twelve years after his debut.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fourteen years ted come it. Also, Elmo is the
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: only non human to testify before Congress. That's right on
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: behalf of music education in school. I got two more things.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Just want to call out Julia, a four year old
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: muppet with autism who's been around since twenty seventeen. And
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: then apparently this year season fifty five, one of the
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: big themes that they're tackling are big feelings and kids
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: dealing with them. And they're even debuting a new muppet
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: who's teaching kids like breathing techniques to call themselves down.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: And then last thing I have is if you want
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: a little dose of nostalgia, go watch the full common
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: compilation of the Pinball count songs. Remember those three four pots, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't remember that.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I came out in seventy six, so yeah, you probably
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: have moved on to Electric Company by then. You're like,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: that's baby stuff. It's great, you should watch it. The
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: animation in it is beautiful, beautifully seventies. It's great.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Anything else.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In two thousand and five, that was a bit
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: of a stir because Cookie Monster, you know, was known
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: for just ravaging cookies and stuffing them in his face
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: and crumbs flying everywhere, and that's the beauty of Cookie Monster.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: But people were like, you know, maybe it's not such
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: a good idea to have a character that's just binge
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: eating sugar, right and sweets and treats. So they use
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Cookie Monster as an impulse control model for moderation, and
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: a cookie became a sometimes food from Cookie Monster, And
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: of course people are going to be like, what are
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: you kidding me? Is this gonna be Veggie Monster next?
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: And there were letter writing campaigns and there was a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: petition and all this stuff and Veggie Monster was never
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: gonna be a thing. They were just I guess they
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: just filed those complaint letters in the circular file and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: it's like settled down, everybody.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I got one more I overlook, do you want to
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: hear it? Sure? This is our Kane. But Telly remember
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Telly Monster we talked about, Yes, but no, Okay, So
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Telly has a hamster named Chucky Sue and he used
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: to have a stuffed animal horse named Clark.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Oh how about that?
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty neat. Huh Yeah, total coincidence too, is from
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: the nineties, both of them.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just like that. Hints and up just coming out.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of Kermit kurs since I said Kursman, of course, everybody.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: That means it's time for listener mail. Yeah.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: This is a little bit on libraries from name reducted. Hey, guys,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: love the many on alternative libraries. I'm a member of
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the board my local library and my wife is a
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: school librarian. I want to salute and celebrate our librarians
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: who are largely thought of as old ladies with buns
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and cat eye glasses, but they are actually on the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: front lines of the fight for the first Amendment in
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: many ways. My local library has a teen room whose
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: librarian is collecting the LGTBQ books discarded by other libraries
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: because of certain bad actors. The librarian at the high
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: school I work has sent red cards telling our heavily
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: immigrant population what to say if ice immigrants show up
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: at their door or stop them on the way to school,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and apparently his wife. The librarian has to really get
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: involved in reference searches these days because of like you know,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: book banning and just getting rid of certain educational proposals.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: So one of our favorite t shirts says, what is
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: more punk than the local library? So thanks guys for
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: all you do and keep it up. And that is
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: from name reducted.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks name redacted. I know we talked about that some
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: in our band on Books episode. Yeah, but yes, you
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: can't say it enough. God bless librarians for making sure
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: that people are educated as we can be for free.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: That's right, perfect fit for this episode.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Two. Yeah, I thought so too. Well, if you want
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: to get in touch of this, like name or d
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: acted did, you can tell us your name or not
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter, We'll clearly protect you. You can send it
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: via email, probably encrypted if you want to Stuff podcast
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.