Today in History: Sesame Street premieres for the first time ever

I don't know how instrumental Sesame Street was in your life or if it really even has an sort of influence anymore. When i visit my friends who have kids I don't really see the influence in their lives that Sesame Street was to me and my friends as youngins.

This show was basically a part of everyone's daily lives back in the 70's and 80's and it was made available for free, to everyone (well, everyone who had a television,) by virtue of being exclusively on public tv (PBS.) It remains on that channel to this day.

The year was 1969

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It's funny to think that the original meeting of the minds that ended up resulting in the creation of the show it was actually said that their objective was to "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them." The first part sounds evil and the second is like, oh, ok, nevermind.

As a child my most mothers would get on our cases for ever watching too much television but there was always an exception made for Sesame Street - parents never really complained about it because it was educational and there were no commercials or advertising of any sort.

I wasn't alive in 1969 but i can only imagine how wonderful it was to be introduced for the first time to iconic characters such as Cookie Monster, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, and Bert and Ernie

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I would choose a favorite out of that lot but I can't, because I loved them all equally: I still do. The one character that I was kind of "meh" about is arguably the most famous and was featured more frequently than many of the others. His / Her (tough to tell a gender here) was "Big Bird." Ol' 6 foot tall chicken thing just never really did it for me and I am not entirely sure why. I think BB just wasn't silly enough and was kind of a "Debbie Downer" whenever he/she/it was on the screen?

SIDE NOTE: If you had to choose, is Big Bird a boy or a girl?

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Obviously, the stars of the show were the whimsical puppets and filming them introduced some complicated set designs that incorporated all the shots being elevated to accommodate Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and their support team to fit under each scene. When they were interacting with human actors, it became even more complicated, as I am sure you can imagine. This is why most of the the time there is some sort of wall or barricade between the humans and the puppets. I suppose this seems evident but 6 year old me had no idea.

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Much of the dialogue that took place involving children was unscripted because the kids were really young. This introduced difficulties such as kids that would start crying because they were afraid of Grover and pals, or they would start mucking about and pointing out the puppeteers. It also took a special type of adult to interact and ad-lib in this situations. It's kind of fun to go back and watch the earlier episodes and see if you can spot how the adult actors are just making everything up as they go along and in the end, it just kind of worked.

According to official records, writing for Sesame Street involved a tremendous amount of people in the process and although it was a friendly and hospitable environment very few writers ever lasted more than one season because it it "isn't easy to find adults who could identify the interest level of a pre-schooler."

They tried employing teachers to write but they weren't funny. They tried employing child psychologists but they were incapable of not being technical (and also not funny.) They had difficulty with comedians because some of them would constantly cross that line between "funny" and "inappropriate."

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On occasion Sesame Street would discuss difficult topics, such as when one of the central human characters, Mr. Hooper died in real life. The team was faced with a difficult decision to make here: Do they just pretend as though Mr. Hooper just for some reason, wasn't on Sesame Street anymore, replace him with someone who looks similar, or be "real" with the audience and use this opportunity to talk about death with an audience comprised almost entirely of little kids?

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It's a particularly tragic episode and while I don't remember watching "Farewell Mr. Hooper" as a child I did rewatch it later in life. I think it is actually more sad to an adult than it would be to a kindergartner.

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This was a really bold move on the part of Sesame Street because as protective as parents are these days, as it turns out they have kind of always been that way (although many would argue to a much higher degree today.) The gamble paid off, so to speak, as Sesame Street was lauded for the episode, winning a Peabody award and an Emmy in the process.

They have gone on to approach other difficult subjects in the future such as divorce, parents who are in jail, the September 11th attack on NYC, and terminal illnesses.

There is a recurring character that is featured more prominently in Africa broadcasts named "Kami" who had HIV and is used as a tool to teach children to not be afraid of those afflicted with the disease.

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Obviously they don't talk about the importance of condoms or the dangers of reusing needles when shooting up heroin but it simply teaches kids to be kind to everyone, no matter what cards they have been dealt in life, and I think this is great.

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While I wasn't alive at the start of Sesame Street, I was close enough that the fact that the show turns 50 today makes me feel a little bit old. The show nearly went bankrupt in 2015 but was rescued by HBO who has promised to not alter the programming and to keep it available for free, even if viewers do not have an HBO subscription although the free episodes will air around 9 months after they debut on the pay service.

Over the years Sesame Street has won more Emmys than any other TV show in history (189) and is routinely rated in the top 50 on lists of the best shows ever, overall. I know it was on in my living room every day after school (back when we couldn't watch just whatever, whenever) and it holds a special little place in my heart and always will.

Homework Discussion

• Was Sesame Street a part of your upbringing? If not, why were your parents such horrible people? :P
• Do you have a favorite character from the show?
• Did you think this article was too long? Sorry if you did but this is a very important part of my childhood and I had a lot to say about it!