Sesame Street

Sesame Street is a long running children’s show presented in multiple acts, called sketches, whose characters are a mixture of muppets and people (however the muppets are the real stars). According to www.sesameworkshop.org, the aim of the show is to “bring critical lessons in literacy & numeracy, emotional wellbeing, health & wellness and respect and understanding to children in 150+ countries.” Each country’s version of Sesame Street is different and locally produced to address the different problems children face from country to country. Sketches focus on lessons like counting, respecting others, sharing, and letter recognition.

Debuting November 10, 1969, Sesame Street is the longest running children’s show in the United States with 43 seasons and counting. It brought intriguing characters to the television world, like Big Bird, Elmo, Bert and Ernie, the Count, Oscar the Grouch, and, best of all, Cookie Monster. Sesame Street paved the way for all children’s shows to follow—it is theorized that if Sesame Street had not existed, we may not have networks Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Sadly, Sesame Street ranked 15¹ in ratings in 2009 behind such shows like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob Squarepants. It has been cut down to around 26 episodes per year now; during its peak of popularity, upwards of 130 episodes of Sesame Street were made each season.

¹"Sesame Street: The Show That Counts." The Daily Beast. Newsweek. Web. 21 Apr. 2012.