Celebrating four decades with 5 things about Sesame Street

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of Sesame Street. I love Sesame Street madly and deeply, and have since I was a preschooler. I may have mentioned that once or two dozen times before.

You know who else loves Sesame Street? My kids. Of all the children’s programming we have on DVD and tape, everything from Blues Clues to Looney Tunes to Pingu to Thomas the Tank Engine to the Schoolhouse Rocks series, the two things that Lucas wants to watch are the Muppet Show and “Bird.” Big Bird, that is. We have two old skool Sesame Street DVD collections comprising six disks of 1970s Sesame bliss, and they’re in nearly constant rotation at our place.

In honour of the best children’s program on television, here’s five things about Sesame Street.

1. The same puppeteer, 75-year-old Carroll Spinney, has been playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since Day 1. (Have you ever seen the very first episode, where Big Bird’s head is pointy and Oscar is orange? It’s very, um, disquieting.)
2. In 2005, Cookie Monster went on a health kick and changed his iconic anthem from “C is for Cookie” to “A cookie is a sometimes food.” I think of this, together with the introduction of the inexplicably appealing but unbearably grating Elmo, as the show’s nadir in my own estimation. (Lucas, on the other hand, worships Elmo even though he doesn’t appear in the early episodes we watch on DVD. I saw a four-foot Elmo in the window of Mrs Tiggy Winkles and thought it would make a fun Christmas gift, until I choked on the $179 (!!!) price tag.)
3. In its first season, the show won a Peabody Award, a Grammy and three Emmys, and Big Bird appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Sesame Street now holds the Guiness Record for most Emmy Awards, with an impressive 122. (Do the math — that’s an average of three each year for 40 years!)
4. The guest star on Sesame Street’s first episode was James Earl Jones, long before he was the voice of either Darth Vader or CNN, reciting a very solemn alphabet directly into the camera. Apparently, the show receives more requests for guest-star spots than they can accomodate each season. Here’s the full list of celebrity appearances. And check out this terrific compilation by Musicradar.com of the 11 greatest Sesame Street guest songs – I think my inner indie fan loves the Feist and REM ones the best.
5. The Old School DVD collections carry a disclaimer that says “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” I’m still perplexed by this. Is it the Ladybugs at the Ladybug Picnic discussing fire insurance? Is it the trippy, psychedelic animations? Is it the obvious Snuffleupagus-ism? Hell, I’d rather have the boys watching vintage Sesame Street than (insert name of any show produced by Nickleodeon or Disney here) any day.

And one bonus item: have you been watching the Sesame Street doodles on Google? If you’ve missed them, the Huffington Post has a slide show with all seven of them. The one with The Count is my favourite, I think.

(Hat tip to Shannon Proudfoot and her fun articles in the Ottawa Citizen this weekend, from which I filched some of the content for this post!)

Happy birthday, Sesame Street. 40 rocks!

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