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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is Sesame Street edition,

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Speaker 2: which this has been a long time coming.

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Speaker 1: Chuck. Yeah, and I don't know if you plan this

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Speaker 1: or not, but our selects episode like the week before

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Speaker 1: this comes out, I believe is Jim Henson.

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Speaker 2: I did not plan it. What No, I really didn't.

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Speaker 1: Wow, amazing.

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Speaker 2: That's Kermit, I mean Kismet cursemet, right, that's really cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if you haven't listened to those, I mean, really,

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Speaker 1: a couple of our greatest episodes ever in Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know Lore are our Muppet episodes and our Jim

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Speaker 1: Henson up. So those are good primers if you haven't

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Speaker 1: heard those yet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because this definitely touches on Jim Henson, because Jim

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Speaker 2: Henson was a huge driver for Sesame Street initially, as

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Speaker 2: we'll see. Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit about

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Speaker 2: Sesame Street.

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Speaker 1: We should say what it is.

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Speaker 2: Probably, Yeah, although I would be really surprised if basically

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Speaker 2: everyone listening wasn't at least familiar. But for those of

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Speaker 2: you who aren't, that's fine. Sesame Street is a long

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Speaker 2: running children's television educational program that started way back in

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, was season one, and has spread all

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Speaker 2: over the world. I think it's in one hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred and seventy countries, depending on who

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Speaker 2: you ask, amazing, and even more than that, in thirty

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Speaker 2: of those countries at least, there are what are called

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Speaker 2: co productions where they have basically taken the ball and said,

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Speaker 2: we're going to make our own version of Sesame Street

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Speaker 2: in conjunction with the people who make Sesame Street and

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Speaker 2: just kind of adapt it to local customs and culture.

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Speaker 2: More so, it's a global juggernaut, and it's basically globally

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Speaker 2: beloved too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean not by everyone. I'm sure some people

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Speaker 1: hate it.

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Speaker 2: I hope you're wrong.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I was just kidding, Okay, good, I think I

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Speaker 1: think everyone has a soft spot at least for Sesame Street.

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Speaker 1: I watched it for sure as a kid, but I

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Speaker 1: wasn't like, I don't remember years and years and years

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Speaker 1: and years of watching it. I moved on to Electric Company,

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Speaker 1: which was felt like a little bit older, much more intellectual. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit. So I moved on to that

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly. But I did love Sesame Street and the Muppets,

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Speaker 1: and it was, you know, right in our wheelhouse, even

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Speaker 1: though it was you know, I guess it started just

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Speaker 1: a few years where I was born.

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Speaker 2: Actually, sadly, yeah, but again, it's it's one of the

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Speaker 2: longest running television shows in the history of the United States.

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Speaker 2: It's up there with like General Hospital, like it's just

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Speaker 2: been going forever. It's in season fifty five right now.

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Speaker 2: It's been continuous every year since it started, and it

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Speaker 2: is at least in the United States, but I would

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Speaker 2: suspect in a lot of parts of the world it's

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Speaker 2: basically a right of early childhood. It's a right of passage.

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Speaker 2: Like you just kind of grow up on Sesame Street,

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Speaker 2: and then, like you said, I think as you start

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Speaker 2: to age out of it, you move on to other

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Speaker 2: stuff that was also produced by people who produce Sesame Street. Oh.

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Speaker 2: I hope I don't start saying Semesi Street because that's

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Speaker 2: just not going to work.

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Speaker 1: That might be the name of it in some country.

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Speaker 2: He never know. As we'll see, they do have some

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Speaker 2: great names for it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we should talk a little bit, just out of

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Speaker 1: the gate about some of the biggest characters, most iconic characters,

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Speaker 1: and when they were introduced, because not all of them

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Speaker 1: have been around for the whole run, but from the

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Speaker 1: very beginning in the first season, we got Big Bird.

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Speaker 1: I know we've talked about it, but there's a great

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Speaker 1: documentary on Big Bird that you should watch if you're

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Speaker 1: into that kind of hang Grover was right away, Kermit

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Speaker 1: was in season one, although as you learned, Kermit was

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Speaker 1: already on TV and other areas such that people are like,

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Speaker 1: Kermit's a little I don't know if we're over him,

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Speaker 1: but maybe a little overexposed. So they actually removed him

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Speaker 1: after season one for a little while, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they were concerned that he was too commercialized,

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Speaker 2: he was too associated with advertising and halting products that

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Speaker 2: they were like, this doesn't really have a place here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. We also got Burton Ernie in season one, Oscar

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Speaker 1: the Grouch, our friend in the trash can, the Cookie Monster,

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Speaker 1: and then a couple of years later we got Aloysius

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Speaker 1: Snuffaluphagus snuffle Upagus. Excuse me not A nice little factoid

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Speaker 1: for your next dinner party is that he does have

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Speaker 1: a first name, and it's Aloysious.

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Speaker 2: What about the count seventy two? What about Telly Monster?

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Speaker 1: This was seventy nine. I must not have been watching

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Speaker 1: it that much at at eight years old, because I

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Speaker 1: did not remember Telly Monster.

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Speaker 2: I remembered him, but he wasn't a big deal to me,

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Speaker 2: So I don't Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'd

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Speaker 2: cross pads.

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Speaker 1: Who helped? Was Dave help us with this?

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Speaker 2: No? This was doctor claw Oh, well, Laura Clawson.

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Speaker 1: Laura might have been into Tellymonster, so maybe that's why

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Speaker 1: she listed it.

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Speaker 2: Well, I know he's kind of a big one, but

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Speaker 2: I think even more than Telly by far as far

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Speaker 2: as recognition goes, Elmo came along way earlier than I thought.

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Speaker 2: He came along in nineteen eighty. Yeah, but he was

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Speaker 2: just kind of a background character. I don't even think

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Speaker 2: he necessarily had a name or any big speaking parts.

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Speaker 2: But he eventually kind of caught on and became one

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Speaker 2: of the more beloved muppets of all time.

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Speaker 1: Stay tuned for X three to learn how that happened. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how about a cliffhanger there, yep.

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Speaker 2: And then I guess we'll talk a little bit about

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Speaker 2: the origins. We'll come back to some of the Muppet

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Speaker 2: characters later on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we should mention the hardware, though, because they have

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Speaker 1: won a staggering two hundred and twenty one Emmy Awards.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to degrade it by saying, well, they're

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Speaker 1: daytime Emmys, but they are daytime Emmys, and you can

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Speaker 1: rack up a lot of those over the years, But

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Speaker 1: to twenty one over fifty five seasons, I don't care

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Speaker 1: how you slice it. That's super impressive.

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Speaker 2: Zero Emmys, as do I which I'm kind of surprised

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Speaker 2: neither one of us has an Emmy for the work

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Speaker 2: that we've done.

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Speaker 1: Eleven Grammys pretty good, sure, and then a bunch of peabodies.

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Speaker 2: I believe that the last time they got an Emmy,

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Speaker 2: the producer accepted it, just yawned on stage, and.

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Speaker 1: Water just threw it in a big room.

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Speaker 2: The rest of them, yeah, on the pile. So we

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Speaker 2: should talk about the origins of all this because Sesame

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Speaker 2: Street and the whole idea behind it grew out of

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Speaker 2: two developing things in the mid nineteen sixties. One was

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Speaker 2: President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, which was this ideal

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Speaker 2: policy movement toward ending poverty and inequality, getting rid of crime,

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Speaker 2: helping the environment, making a great society. As far as

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Speaker 2: progressives were concerned, that was one thing that was going on.

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Speaker 2: So there was much more of an awareness. There was

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Speaker 2: a little like they literally declared a war on poverty,

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Speaker 2: so there was much more of an awareness of a

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Speaker 2: difference between the advantage and the disadvantage, especially among children

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Speaker 2: in the United States at the time. And then on

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Speaker 2: the other side of the coin, there was this growing

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Speaker 2: awareness among psychologists and other educators that what had been

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Speaker 2: previously neglected and ignored, which was the early childhood years,

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Speaker 2: say between three and five, were really crucial to the

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Speaker 2: intellectual development of a kid. And so there came this

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Speaker 2: idea to create television programming that was geared toward disadvantaged

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Speaker 2: kids between ages three and five to help them, to

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Speaker 2: give them kind of a leg up before they started schooling.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty much the premise of where this whole thing

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Speaker 2: came from.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which I mean talk about a noble cause they

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Speaker 1: were on board from the beginning, and well, as you'll see,

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Speaker 1: you know, shortly they really put their money where their

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Speaker 1: mouths were as far as doing actual research and studies

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Speaker 1: to make sure they were doing what they intended to

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Speaker 1: do precisely as the story goes. In nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: as far as origin, a woman named Joan Ganz Cooney

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Speaker 1: and a dude named Lloyd Morrissett were at a dinner

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Speaker 1: party and they started talking about TV and like, maybe

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Speaker 1: TV could educate kids. Cooney was in the newspaper biz.

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Speaker 1: She started producing TV and then as soon as New

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Speaker 1: York City he got a educational television station. She came

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Speaker 1: on board and started working for them. And I think

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Speaker 1: a documentary on a Harlem pre school was her first

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Speaker 1: job and it really just got her hooks, got its

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Speaker 1: hooks center as far as like, hey, TV can do something.

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Speaker 2: Different, Yeah, she said in a documentary called Street Gang.

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Speaker 2: I think Colon Howie got to sesame Street. It was

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Speaker 2: from twenty twenty one that she wanted to find out

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Speaker 2: what television would do if it loved people instead of

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Speaker 2: trying to sell the people.

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Speaker 1: Amazing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a time where the FCC chair

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty one under JFK, his name was

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Speaker 2: Newton Minno. He made a name for himself historically by

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Speaker 2: saying that television was a vast wasteland. And I mean

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Speaker 2: he was kind of right, there was some good stuff

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Speaker 2: on at the time, but also there was some really

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Speaker 2: bad stuff too, And it was I think what he

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Speaker 2: was ultimately saying. Though he wasn't critiquing the smartness of

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Speaker 2: the sitcoms at the time, he was basically saying, like,

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Speaker 2: there's nothing to be gained from, Like this is all

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Speaker 2: just dumb escapism and advertising essentially is what TV is.

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Speaker 2: And we hadn't really come a very long way for

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Speaker 2: a long time.

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Speaker 1: Well we haven't. We have it one step forward, two

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Speaker 1: steps back maybe.

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Speaker 2: Hey man, when they did away with the after school special,

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Speaker 2: TV took a nose dive as far as I'm.

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Speaker 1: Concrete, As far as Morisset goes, he was a VP

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Speaker 1: at the Carnegie Corporation, very smart guy. He had a

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Speaker 1: PhD in psychology from Yale, and his sort of lore

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Speaker 1: goes that he was watching his daughter, his young daughter,

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Speaker 1: watch TV test patterns before you know broadcast started early

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Speaker 1: one morning and he was like, oh my god, kids

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Speaker 1: like they'll really watch anything if it's on a screen.

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Speaker 1: This is not good.

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Speaker 2: No, he said to Joan Ganz Cooney. Isn't it ironic,

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Speaker 2: don't you think?

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Speaker 1: Is he related?

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Speaker 2: No? I think she has an e at the end

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Speaker 2: of her name.

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Speaker 1: No, I think you're right. I just wondered though, because

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Speaker 1: she was in kids television.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't do that on television.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, Oh, I wonder if there's a

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Speaker 1: tie there, but I guess not.

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Speaker 2: She got slimed.

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Speaker 1: So they started doing a little research, and they got

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Speaker 1: a grant through the Carnegie Corporation because Morissette was a

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Speaker 1: VP there and he wrote a report about, you know,

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Speaker 1: using TV is a good thing for preschool kids. They

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Speaker 1: got another grant to develop like a more in depth pitch.

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Speaker 1: Basically did a lot more research. Again, they weren't just

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Speaker 1: sort of writing from the dome, and in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 1: eight they presented a proposal called Television for Preschool Children,

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Speaker 1: and again on the premise that like, hey, all we're

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Speaker 1: doing is like trying to sell stuff to people, Like

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Speaker 1: what if TV treated them with respect and love instead?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean TV was a great way to

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Speaker 2: get to kids already by the mid sixties I saw that.

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Speaker 2: I think, oh, I don't remember what year it was,

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Speaker 2: but around the time that these guys were starting, kids

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Speaker 2: were averaging fifty four hours a week in front of

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Speaker 2: the television. That's almost eight hours a day. That's a

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Speaker 2: full workday of watching TV for kids. Yeah, so, I

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Speaker 2: mean they were already tuned in. So the idea of

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Speaker 2: like getting to them through the TV in a way

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Speaker 2: that you're like you were trying to help them, to

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Speaker 2: educate them. That I mean it was radical for the time,

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Speaker 2: but it also is just totally sensible. But like you said,

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Speaker 2: they weren't just going on this idea like of course

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Speaker 2: it's going to work. They tested this inside and out

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Speaker 2: and what became the Children's Television Workshop, which is now

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Speaker 2: called SESAME Workshop. This collaborative of like writer producers, directors

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Speaker 2: for the show, but also child psychologists, sometimes religious leaders,

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Speaker 2: educators and also of like different races, ethnicities, all coming

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Speaker 2: together to basically say, like, here are some things we

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Speaker 2: can we like, here's goals we want to achieve in

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Speaker 2: educating kids. We want them to learn cognitively, we want

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Speaker 2: them to learn social graces, and like I think if

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Speaker 2: we try this way or that way, we can actually

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Speaker 2: achieve that. But let's try this way and try that

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Speaker 2: way and test them both and see which works best.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, And they they had to get kids

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Speaker 1: to watch though, like all of this hard work would

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Speaker 1: be it would be really really sad if kids just

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Speaker 1: didn't tune in because you know, as we'll see, like

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Speaker 1: PBS and its precursor, the National Education Television I guess

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Speaker 1: network was you know, maybe not a lot of people

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Speaker 1: watched it at the time, so they knew they had

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Speaker 1: to get eyeballs in front of it. So from their

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Speaker 1: initial eight million dollars in funding from different foundations and

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Speaker 1: some from the federal government, they spent nine hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars of that eight million to promote the show, which

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Speaker 1: is a pretty staggering percentage out of the gate, and

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Speaker 1: they had a bunch of all you know, they went

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Speaker 1: to you know, regular media outlets of course, but they

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Speaker 1: also hit head start programs and churches and daycares. I

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Speaker 1: think you found out that when like the week before

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Speaker 1: the premiere, they hired trucks with like loudspeakers to just

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Speaker 1: drive around you know a lot of urban neighborhoods, you know,

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Speaker 1: advertising that it was coming on. And like you mentioned

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Speaker 1: it from the onset, mister Jim Henson, coming aboard was

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Speaker 1: also a big part of getting people to watch because

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Speaker 1: the Muppets were already a thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like we said, Kermit was already so commercialized he

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Speaker 2: basically was removed from the show. But they've been around

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Speaker 2: since the fifties. I think Jim Henson's first puppet gig

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Speaker 2: was out of high schooler during high school, and he

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Speaker 2: developed this stick pretty quickly, but it wasn't it wasn't

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Speaker 2: associated with kids. He would take it on like the

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Speaker 2: Steve Allen Show or the Jack Parr Show, like late

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Speaker 2: night TV and do like puppet skits that weren't at

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Speaker 2: all geared toward kids, and very quickly started doing advertising

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Speaker 2: with them as well. They just became a think muppets.

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Speaker 2: People knew muppets before there was Sesame Street, so did

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Speaker 2: land Jim Henson. He wasn't like some mega star, you know,

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Speaker 2: he was no C. C. Deville at the time, but

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Speaker 2: he was well known. So it was kind of like

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Speaker 2: they landed a bit of a whale by getting Jim

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Speaker 2: Henson fully involved in developing and executing or I should say,

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Speaker 2: producing Sesame Street initially.

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Speaker 1: You know what, I think I got the poison reference

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Speaker 1: wrong in that episode recently.

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Speaker 2: That's why I said that CC.

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Speaker 1: Deville is a guitarist. Ricky Rockett was a drummer.

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Speaker 2: You got that straight finally.

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Speaker 1: Talk dirty to me.

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Speaker 2: One of the reasons why, also, Chuck, it was so

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Speaker 2: big to bring Henson on was because from that research,

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Speaker 2: and today this seems totally normal, But this grew out

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Speaker 2: of the children's television workshop. Research was that puppets and

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Speaker 2: animation really got kids going. It really jazzed them. You

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Speaker 2: really got their attention. And as we learned from the

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Speaker 2: editorial cartoon episode, that's because they're super stimuli. So the

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Speaker 2: jet kids up. And then weirdly, some of the child

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Speaker 2: psychologists involved in the development of the show, we're like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: that's fine, we need puppets, but the humans and the

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Speaker 2: puppets can never interact, they can never communicate. It will

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Speaker 2: scare the Bejesus out of the children if they do.

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Speaker 2: And I guess somebody was like, that's a pretty ridiculous thing,

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Speaker 2: and that got thrown away even before the pilot episode ran.

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Speaker 1: Well, no, they actually tested it with kids and learned

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Speaker 1: that the kids were not interested in the adult only sections. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so they actually had real, real data. So they tried

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Speaker 1: it out and it just didn't work.

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Speaker 2: No, And they should have known too. I mean, this,

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Speaker 2: like Sesame Street, was pretty groundbreaking in that it was

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Speaker 2: an educational show, But there are already kids shows like

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Speaker 2: Mister Rogers had been around for a year before it debuted,

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Speaker 2: Captain Kangaroo had been around since nineteen fifty five. But

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Speaker 2: what made it different is that those shows were generally

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Speaker 2: like anti school and they encourage kids to explore a

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Speaker 2: life of crime, whereas Sesame Street was like, no, let's

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Speaker 2: go to school and be the best kind of people

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Speaker 2: we can.

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Speaker 1: Now, can we take a break? Yes, all right, great,

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Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about what

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Speaker 1: happened on November tenth, nineteen sixty nine, right after this,

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Speaker 1: all right, so I promised a specific date in mind,

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Speaker 1: November ten, nineteen sixteen, again a year before, roughly before

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Speaker 1: PBS came out, a show like this would air on

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Speaker 1: something called the National Education Television And that's when it aired, Tada,

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Speaker 1: and it was a hit right out of the gate,

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Speaker 1: almost seven million viewers in season one. Ernie had a

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Speaker 1: big hit song with rubber Ducky actually charted at number

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Speaker 1: sixteen on the Billboards in September nineteen seventy and was

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Speaker 1: nominated for a Grammy. And they used to do a

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Speaker 1: ton of these episodes. They had one hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: episodes a season for a while, and then further reduction

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Speaker 1: in funding kind of over the years trimmed it down

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Speaker 1: and by the time they hit the two thousands, they

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Speaker 1: were down to thirty episodes a year. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned test pilots and James Earl Jones was. You know,

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Speaker 1: it kind of depends on who you talked to. He

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Speaker 1: was in one of those test pilots. So some people

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Speaker 1: say he was the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street,

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Speaker 1: but the actual real episode one season one was featured

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Speaker 1: as the first guest.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and Carol Burnett was laughing while she was counting

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Speaker 2: to ten. James Earl Jones was just staring at the

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Speaker 2: camera doing the alphabet in almost a really creepy way.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen it? Oh yeah, it's great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And that pilot was called the title of it

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Speaker 1: was Gordon introduces Sally to Sesame Street. And the other

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Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, oddball human that appeared in

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Speaker 1: episode one season one was magician James Randy. Oh really, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty cool?

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Speaker 2: That is cool. Was he just doing magic or teaching

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Speaker 2: kids to be skeptics?

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Speaker 1: I think he was just doing magic, Okay, I didn't

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Speaker 1: watch the whole episode, but I just thought that was

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Speaker 1: kind of fun.

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Speaker 2: But the reason James Earl Jones was on there and

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Speaker 2: shortly after Harry Bellefonte and a lot of other black

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Speaker 2: celebrities very early on, was because, again the show initially

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Speaker 2: was geared toward a disadvantage inner city black kids who

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Speaker 2: had just been totally overlooked and forgotten. So they wanted

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Speaker 2: to show people that looked like them on TV and

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Speaker 2: so they could learn from them. So it was really

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Speaker 2: kind of, I don't want to say, like geared toward

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Speaker 2: black kids, but there was way more for the average

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Speaker 2: three or four year old black kid growing up in

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Speaker 2: America at the time that they could find anywhere else

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Speaker 2: on TV. The thing is it was also designed for everybody,

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Speaker 2: for every kid, so any kid could come along and

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Speaker 2: enjoy it, and that was actually seen. Apparently Sesame Street

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Speaker 2: is based on Harlem, I guess, And they originally had

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Speaker 2: one name for it, which was I think was it

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Speaker 2: one two three B Street or b Avenue? No, No,

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Speaker 2: I think it was, And so people were like, that

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Speaker 2: sounds really New York and it's going to turn off

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Speaker 2: everybody outside in New York. Everyone in New York will

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Speaker 2: love it. But you know, so they expanded it to

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Speaker 2: Sesame Street eventually so that everybody could could appreciate it more.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and part of the racial diversity was a problem

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Speaker 1: in some places in the United States at the time.

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Speaker 1: Their human characters, Gordon and Susan were a black couple,

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Speaker 1: and the state of Mississippi said, not in my state,

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Speaker 1: that's not going to be on television. And because it

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Speaker 1: is a you know, PBS is a public thing, the

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Speaker 1: state kind of shut that down. The State Commission did

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Speaker 1: and banned it. It only took twenty two days for

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Speaker 1: that to be reversed. But take heart that a local

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Speaker 1: NBC affiliate stepped up during that three weeks and aired

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Speaker 1: those episodes even in Mississippi.

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Speaker 2: I think that's so cool, man, Yeah, that's great.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the first the original human cast were Gordon and Susan,

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Speaker 2: a black couple, and then mister Hooper and Bob, both

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Speaker 2: of them were white, and mister Hooper ran the store.

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Speaker 2: Bob was a music teacher, Gordon was a science teacher,

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Speaker 2: and Susan originally started out as a housewife, developed into

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Speaker 2: a nurse, and then finally became a working mom later on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, It took a couple of years to get Latina

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Speaker 1: representation because initially, in the first couple of seasons, Chicano

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Speaker 1: activists and Puerto Rican activists were like, hey, where are

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Speaker 1: we in this show? And so by season three we

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Speaker 1: got Maria and Luis. You did mention Gordon. Originally that

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Speaker 1: was a guy named Matt Robinson, but he left the

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Speaker 1: show kind of co created this character with Jim Henson

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Speaker 1: named Roosevelt Franklin, and he was purple, but he was

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Speaker 1: sort of a black coated muppet because he spoke using

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Speaker 1: African American vernacular English. And while some people was like, no,

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Speaker 1: this is great as a role model and it's real,

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Speaker 1: other people were like, no, that's a negative stereotype. You know.

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Speaker 1: I think it would be different today, but for the

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Speaker 1: time that didn't go over so well.

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Speaker 2: No, and the fans of Arrested Development will probably recognize

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Speaker 2: Franklin Joe Blust's puppet. He was based on Roosevelt Franklin.

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Speaker 2: And because of that, I was when I started to

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Speaker 2: watch clips of Roosevelt Franklin, the origin the muppet, I

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Speaker 2: was like, this is gonna be awful. It was not.

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Speaker 2: It's actually quite ridiculous that they got rid of him

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Speaker 2: because he was a really well developed black character. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's just perplexing that they cave to that because he

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Speaker 2: was a good character.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, did you say Job or gob Bluth? Oh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I said Job. Didn't I go just stop the

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Speaker 2: listener mails right now. No, it's Job.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was Gob No no, or Is that

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Speaker 1: just one of the jokes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because his his that's it's an acronym, George

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Speaker 2: something Bluth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I thought there was a joke on there at

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Speaker 1: some point about gob, but I might just be wrong

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Speaker 1: on that.

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Speaker 2: It's been a man, It has been a while, so

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Speaker 2: you could be right too.

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Speaker 1: Don Music was another character they got rid of that

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Speaker 1: was a Don Music was a composer. It would get

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Speaker 1: frustrated and bang his head on the piano keys and

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Speaker 1: parents are like, hey, my kid is banging their head

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Speaker 1: on piano keys and stuff, and we got to get

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Speaker 1: this character out of there. So they got rid of

436
00:22:58,680 --> 00:22:59,959
Speaker 1: Don Music pretty early on a hiss way.

437
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 2: Well poor Don. Yeah, so there's as this is like

438
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 2: nothing unusual for Sesame Street. They started doing that from

439
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 2: the outset right like they started like there. It started

440
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 2: off with a black and white cast, and I mean

441
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 2: that was still kind of strange or unusual for TV

442
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 2: in America, but they keep doing it. And what's kind

443
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 2: of saddening is every time they do it, it's like,

444
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:26,679
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I can't believe how great this is

445
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,440
Speaker 2: that they're including this character. And then there's another segment

446
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:33,400
Speaker 2: of the public who's like, I can't believe they're including

447
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 2: that character. It's just sad either way. I think it's

448
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:39,920
Speaker 2: both kind of sad because what they're doing. What Sesame

449
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 2: Street does is they say there's a group of people

450
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:45,719
Speaker 2: out there who are being neglected, that kids that were

451
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 2: talking to interact with, and we need to bring them

452
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,119
Speaker 2: on just to normalize and because they're just normal people

453
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 2: and we need to show that. So they've they've introduced

454
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 2: a number of characters that proved to be controversial over

455
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 2: the years. What I like about Sesame Street, with the

456
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 2: exception of Roosevelt Franklin, they basically just stay mute on

457
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 2: it and they're like, you guys, sort it out. We're

458
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 2: going to just do our thing over here.

459
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And this is you know, pretty early

460
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 1: on too. In nineteen seventy eight, they had a character

461
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: with down syndrome who was in Preschool's name was Jason

462
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 1: Kingsley and was the son of a writer, Emily Kingsley

463
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 1: for Sesame Street, and so all of a sudden they

464
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: started having more kids with you know, challenges and disabilities.

465
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: They've had kids that are hearing impair, They've had kids

466
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: in wheelchairs. Over the years, recently they've kind of brought

467
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 1: it into the modern age for you know, issues that

468
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: kids face sadly more and more of these days. One

469
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: character had food insecurity and eventually homelessness.

470
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's Lily.

471
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. And another whose father was in prison, and then

472
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: another kid who was in foster care because her mother

473
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 1: is battling opioid addiction. So they're I mean, they've never

474
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: been afraid to bite off some really really tough stuff

475
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: that sadly, kids have to deal with, and they know

476
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: they have to deal with this stuff, so they're not

477
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: backing away from it.

478
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things that Susame Street does

479
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 2: when it introduces like a muppet like this is shine

480
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 2: a light on the fact that this is an actual thing,

481
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 2: Like they're not like what obscure terrible situation can we

482
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 2: find and base them uppet on. Apparently in the United States,

483
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 2: two point five million children are homeless at any given time,

484
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: two point six one million children have a father or

485
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 2: a parent who's in prison, and another one point four

486
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 2: million have a parent addicted to opioids. So it's not

487
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 2: like these are niche topics that niche puppets are built on.

488
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 2: These are real challenges that a lot of little kids

489
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 2: in the United States face, Whether yeah, you consider it

490
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 2: tasteful or not.

491
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, we mentioned that they put

492
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: their money where their mouth is as far as continuing

493
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: to do research and study about you know, its effect

494
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: on kids and potential outcomes, because that was, you know,

495
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: that was the mission statement from the very beginning. So

496
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,120
Speaker 1: they couldn't just be like, we're doing a great job,

497
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: so we're good. They got into Educational Test the Educational

498
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: Testing Service to do a study after just season one,

499
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: and they sampled nine hundred and forty three kids from

500
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: urban areas and then one rural area. And the kids

501
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: there were, you know, disadvantaged kids in urban areas and

502
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,360
Speaker 1: rural areas. There were Spanish speaking kids, there were advantage

503
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: suburban kids in this study, and they found that kids

504
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: really did learn from the show, and that the more

505
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,880
Speaker 1: you watch the more they learned and the more they knew,

506
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 1: which was pretty great.

507
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was season one, right. Yeah, so

508
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 2: they went back and said, let's figure out if this worked.

509
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 2: There was a twenty thirteen study that kind of recreated

510
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 2: it intentionally or otherwise, but rather than looking at the

511
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 2: United States, they took it on an international scale, and

512
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 2: it was a meta analysis of twenty four studies that

513
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: had been on the effects of Sesame Street and all combined.

514
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 2: This meta analysis looked at ten thousand children in fifteen

515
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: different countries, so it was a pretty robust study, and

516
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 2: they found the same thing, that there were significant positives

517
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 2: associated with kids watching Sesame Street, and that kids who

518
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: watched more perform better in school, and that this effect

519
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 2: carried no matter the income level of the country, low income,

520
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 2: middle income, high income country, doesn't matter. The effects were

521
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 2: the same, and it hit three different outcomes cognitive outcomes,

522
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 2: learning about the world, and social reasoning, and basically it

523
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 2: just turned every single one of these ten thousand children

524
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 2: into a superchild.

525
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was one, well, just why they have the

526
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: s on their.

527
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 2: Chest right Testame Street Superchild.

528
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: Another study. I thought this one was pretty striking to

529
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: me because they could actually do a fairly direct ab comparison.

530
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 1: The American Economic Journal, for Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine

531
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: did at because they were like, hey, wait a minute.

532
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: In those early years, there were UHF stations in VHF stations,

533
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: and some areas had some, and then you know, a

534
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: couple of neighborhoods over another, you know they may not

535
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: have the same access. So they could literally compare districts

536
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: in elementary schools and outcomes with people who did not

537
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: have the show at all and people who had it,

538
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: and they found it the show actually did improve outcomes,

539
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: and that the positive effect of the show was particularly

540
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: pronounced for boys and black, non Hispanic children and children

541
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: who grew up in other counties who had economic disadvantage.

542
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: So it was literally helping and targeting the kids that

543
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: they were hoping to target while also being good for

544
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: everyone overall.

545
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one specific outcome I saw, just for an example,

546
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 2: and that study was that the kids who watched Systame

547
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 2: Street were fourteen percent more likely to be in an

548
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: age appropriate grade in middle school or high school, so

549
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 2: they hadn't been held back, or they were fourteen percent

550
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 2: likely to have not and held back then kids who

551
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 2: didn't watch it.

552
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty great.

553
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's statistically significant.

554
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a pretty good quote too. The New Republic.

555
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: Their quote is that Sesame Street was essentially the first

556
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: MOAK massive online open course, providing educational content to viewers

557
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: for free, and a twenty fifteen white paper from the

558
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: Early Childhood Education Group said it's one of the largest

559
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: and least costly interventions.

560
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you might be like with New Republic, it's

561
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 2: a pretty liberal rag of course. Of like sesame Street.

562
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: We found a quote from the National Review, which is

563
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 2: about what conservative and the National Review called sesame Street

564
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 2: the one great thing accomplished by lbj's Great Society, which

565
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: is a hilarious quote, and that was in twenty twenty one.

566
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: Just one thing, right, Hey, it's good for sesame Street though.

567
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I was saying. Everybody loves Sesame Street.

568
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 2: So I guess we'll press on chucking plug into the

569
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 2: rest of the world, because, like we said, shows up

570
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 2: in one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy countries,

571
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: and there's at least thirty co productions around the world,

572
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 2: and it turns out they're really fun to read. About

573
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 2: and talk.

574
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: About they really are, because, like you said, you know,

575
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: depending on the country, they're going to tailor it for

576
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: their country and have characters that reflect things kids might recognize.

577
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: So if you go to Israel and watch Oscar the Grouch,

578
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: you'll see that Oscar's name Moisha Ufnik. Pretty good name.

579
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: It means grouch and Hebrew.

580
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you probably won't see Oscar the Grouch or

581
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 2: Count von Count in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has its own co

582
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: production called My Best Attempt is boch E Simpson, and

583
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 2: they have cultural taboos against trash and vampirism. So Oscar

584
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 2: and the Count don't really translate to the Afghani version

585
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 2: of Sesame.

586
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: Street the simsims right, I wonder if that's the theme.

587
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the sesame in Arabic or Arabic like languages

588
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 2: or Arabic related languages, simpsim or sumsum has it seems

589
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 2: to be what sesame is.

590
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.

591
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 2: So if you ever run across a trivia question that

592
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 2: says what is sesame and Arabic, you'd better say simsim.

593
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, sims i am if spelling counts one word. If

594
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: you go to the UK, and you said cookie monster,

595
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: they'd say, I think you mean biscuit monster, of course,

596
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: because biscuits are cookies over there. And if you go

597
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: to Latin America, you might not see Big Bird, but

598
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: you might see Abe Lardo, who is Big Bird's cousin.

599
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: It's a giant parrot.

600
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you've got like different characters or the same

601
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 2: characters with different names, or characters that just don't show up.

602
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 2: But there's also characters that are just totally new, and

603
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 2: they kind of follow the original Sesame Street's program of like,

604
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 2: let's include people who are stigmatized or left out. And

605
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 2: so the South African version of Sesame Street Takalani. Yeah,

606
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 2: I don't know why I had trouble saying that. Takilani

607
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 2: sesame delicious. Yeah. They included a character named Kami. Kami

608
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 2: is based on the word kamogello, which means acceptance in

609
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 2: some South African indigenous languages like Zulu. And the reason

610
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 2: they did that is because Kami is an HIV positive

611
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 2: orphan of a mother with aides who died. And this

612
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 2: is a muppet who is basically playing with other muppets

613
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: to show little kids that you don't have to be

614
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 2: fearful of having a friend who is HIV positive. It's

615
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 2: not dangerous to play with them. And in South Africa

616
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 2: that was very controversial because a lot of people have

617
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: HIV in South Africa, but it's still very stigmatized. So

618
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 2: of course Sesame Street in South Africa was like, let's

619
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 2: get Kami in there.

620
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: They could probably have an American version of that same character,

621
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: or at least in the eighties they could.

622
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 2: I read that there was a letter written by a

623
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 2: small panel of Congress people to PBS basically saying, don't

624
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 2: even think about it. Oh boy.

625
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: Since ninety eight there was a there's been an Israeli

626
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: Palestinian co production which is super unique obviously called Rekoff

627
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: some some oh yeah, or Shars Simson, like you said,

628
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: and this is pretty great. It's Israelian Palestine Palestinian kids

629
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: together and we they're from separate streets, but they get

630
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: together and hang out and play and talk. And when

631
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: they do, the language, you know, either Hebrew or Arabic,

632
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: has translated in subtitles into the other language. And they

633
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: weren't just like, oh, we'll just pat ourselves on the

634
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: back for this. They were trying to accomplish something. So

635
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: they measured outcomes again and did studies, and they found

636
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: that watching the show made kids in that area more

637
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: likely to use positive terms to describe kids on the

638
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: other side of that conflict.

639
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 2: And Sesame Street, we should just say that after every

640
00:33:58,520 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: every great thing we talk about them.

641
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, actually there's a quote that kind

642
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: of goes along with that. Andrew S. Nazios, who led

643
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: us AID under George W. Bush, he said the Arabic

644
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,240
Speaker 1: language version of the show was the quote biggest weapon

645
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 1: against al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.

646
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought about that too, that like, you're using

647
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 2: Sesame Street to spread essentially global good, basic human values

648
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 2: in places where those are sometimes in short supply. You know, Yeah,

649
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 2: I think that's cool. And then that one, the Arabic

650
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 2: version you just mentioned it, it's called Alain Simpson. They

651
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: use that in Syrian refugee camps because little kids in

652
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 2: Syrian refugee camps schools were canceled because the government dropped

653
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: chemical weapons on their town. But they're still getting to

654
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 2: watch this Arabic version of Sesame Street to make sure

655
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: that they're not left behind.

656
00:34:57,680 --> 00:34:59,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, since we're here, before we break.

657
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 1: We might as well mention that the Sesame Workshop is

658
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: a nonprofit that gets part of their funding through the

659
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: US federal government through the USAID program, and just I

660
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: think a couple of months ago, the current administration announced

661
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: that obviously Usaid and by the way, episode coming up

662
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: on that soon on, that organization is being cut at

663
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: the behest of the Department of Government Efficiency. So Sesame

664
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: Street is going to lose a lot of funding. And

665
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 1: the current president said the Arabic language version was part

666
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: of hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. But the

667
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: good news is is that it accounts for only four

668
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 1: percent of their total funding. So hopefully, I mean, they

669
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: were pretty much called off guard and are scrambling a bit,

670
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: but hopefully that it's not like the end of Sesame Street.

671
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 2: No. I saw it as in real dollars, about five

672
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 2: million dollars. But the problem is that's still a significant

673
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 2: Like they're operating at a deficit, so they basically need

674
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 2: every dollar they can get, so it's still hitting them

675
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: four Yeah, So I think in March twenty twenty five,

676
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 2: they announced that they were having to lay off employees,

677
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 2: which is not something that happens all the time at

678
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:18,760
Speaker 2: Sesame Street, although I'm sure they've tackled it plenty of times.

679
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe there was an episode about it.

680
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,880
Speaker 2: Probably should we take a break. I just want to

681
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 2: throw out one more. We talked about the Afghani version

682
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 2: of Sesame Street. In twenty sixteen, they have featured they

683
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 2: debut a girl mupet named Zari who goes to school

684
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:40,280
Speaker 2: wearing a h job. Yeah pretty great, yep, take that Taliban.

685
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: All right, Well we're gonna take that second break, and

686
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap it up here right after this fish.

687
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 2: So chuck. Before we broke, I was talking about how

688
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:12,400
Speaker 2: Sesame Street probably has tackled the episode of being fired

689
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 2: parent being fired right. The reason why is because they

690
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: have a long history of tackling tough topics that date

691
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 2: back pretty far. I think in nineteen eighty two. That's

692
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 2: usually where people trace the origin of Sesame Street, just

693
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 2: taking on very adult themed episodes that kids sometimes have

694
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,760
Speaker 2: to deal with head on. With the death of mister

695
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: Hooper who brand Hooper's.

696
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 1: Store, Yeah, I mean I have a hard time even

697
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: talking about this one. It was nineteen eighty two. Actor

698
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: Willie who played mister Hooper passed away in irl, and

699
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: they were like, let's not replace him, Let's use this

700
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to teach kids about death and grief

701
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: and Big Bird. They aired it on Thanksgiving, so parents,

702
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: you know, were more likely to be home. They got

703
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: together like with again, they weren't just like, hey, let's

704
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: just the white writers whip something up. They got together

705
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 1: with religious leaders and child psychologists kind of figure out

706
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 1: the best way to do this, and they decided on

707
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: Big Bird kind of taking the lead in saying very sadly,

708
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: I want to give mister Hooper a picture that I

709
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: drew when he comes back. And that's when they're like,

710
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: big Bird, I've got some bad news for you, my friend.

711
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gordon famously rolled his eyes.

712
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not coming back. Death is permanent. And it

713
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: was a huge, huge deal for not just Sesame Street,

714
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: but just how we talk to kids about this kind

715
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: of thing, you know.

716
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it took kids seriously, as you know, thinking

717
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 2: feeling individuals, because they taught they discussed replacing him with

718
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 2: a new mister Hooper and just pretending like it wasn't

719
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 2: a different actor, or saying mister Hooper retired and he's

720
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 2: not coming back, but he's retired, not dead, and they're like, no,

721
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 2: let's use this opportunity. It is really tear jerking to watch.

722
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, in nineteen eighty five, another big lesson came along.

723
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: When you know, if you haven't seen the show, mister

724
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: Snuffalopagus is this sort of big I don't even know

725
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: what you call it, kind of a big, long haired

726
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: monstery thing.

727
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 2: But it got to touch a bully mammoth I think.

728
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, But big Bird, Snuffalupagus was Big Bird's imaginary friend,

729
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: and the adults like, couldn't see this imaginary friend. And

730
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: in that episode he was seen by the rest of

731
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 1: the cast and they were like, hey, maybe this can

732
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: inspire kids who are maybe child abuse victims that you

733
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: don't need to fear that adults won't believe you if

734
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: you reveal something to them. And so, you know, they

735
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 1: tackled it through Snuffalopagus all of a sudden becoming a

736
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: real thing to the adults on the show.

737
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he always had been real, but anytime Big

738
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 2: Bird tried to introduce some people, he would just not

739
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: be there for some reason or another. So he was

740
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 2: real and when they apologized to him, I think Bob

741
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,839
Speaker 2: the music teacher said, we'll believe you whenever you tell

742
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 2: us something. From now on Big Bird, Like they really

743
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 2: kind of drove it home, beat the little kids over

744
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 2: the head with this.

745
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: They also tackled nine to eleven, not in a direct

746
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: way by like talking about the Pentagon and the Twin Towers,

747
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: but it was a show very clearly centered around kids

748
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: and you know, dealing with like a big sort of

749
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: shared tragedy and how they might go about that.

750
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 2: Oh, let's see what else. Another part of that too

751
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: is there was a fire at Hooper's store. They didn't

752
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 2: show the fires just offscreen. They mentioned it, they referenced

753
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 2: it happening, and some firefires show up to put it out,

754
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 2: and Elmo is just freaked out by this. So the

755
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 2: firefighters stop and like comfort him and tell them it's okay,

756
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: and they helped deal with that kind of I don't know.

757
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 2: I think the message was listen to firefighters because they're all.

758
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, great message. Kids left fire trucks anyway, so

759
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: they're halfway there, right. They also dealt with like kids

760
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: who have parents in the military that are off at war.

761
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: At one point, they've had episodes on hurricanes and like

762
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: dealing with a natural disaster like that. And they even

763
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: dealt with the COVID nineteen pandemic in twenty twenty because

764
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: kids were at home watching a lot of TV, and

765
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: you know, their parents are pretty stressed out. So they

766
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: had a special episode all about COVID.

767
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, including when the vaccines came out. Big Bird and

768
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 2: I think everybody else got vaccinated. Big Bird had a

769
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 2: band aid on his wings, So my wing hurts a

770
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,439
Speaker 2: little bit. But other than that, I'm okay. Yeah.

771
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the problems with the funding. It started

772
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties. They had reports that expenses were

773
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: going to outpace revenues. Perhaps they do a lot of licensing.

774
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: I think about two thirds of their revenue comes from

775
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: lining licensing to like books and toys and things. The

776
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: Monster at the end of this book is a classic

777
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:54,320
Speaker 1: children's book with Grover as the center character.

778
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 2: My favorite Grover book. One of my favorite books growing

779
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 2: up was Grover and the Everything in the World Museum.

780
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 2: Did you ever that one?

781
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 1: Uh uh?

782
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:03,879
Speaker 2: It might have been after your time, but I love

783
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 2: that book. It's drawing in there is so great, and

784
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 2: it's just it's all Grover.

785
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. They've been talking about, you know, the recent cuts

786
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: are one thing, but they've been talking about, you know,

787
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: reducing funding and have funding somewhat over the years for

788
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: a long time, though I believe twenty fifteen they were

789
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: operating at a loss, maybe for the first time, and

790
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: so HBO stepped up and said, hey, you know what,

791
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: if you give us a jump on PBS, we'll pay

792
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: you some pretty good money. So they got the episodes

793
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: nine months before PBS. But in December of last year

794
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, Warner Brothers Discovery said, you know what,

795
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: We're not gonna We're not gonna do that deal anymore.

796
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: We can license back episodes still, or we want to still,

797
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: but the deal has concluded, and I think that also

798
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: put them in a bit of a money bind.

799
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess HBO Max agreed to take season

800
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: twenty or six season fifty five, which is currently out now,

801
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 2: but they're not taking season fifty six and the Sesame workshops, like, well,

802
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 2: we're still going to make a season fifty six. Who

803
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 2: wants to buy new episodes, brand new episodes of Sesame Street?

804
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 2: So it's up for up for auction right now. I

805
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:21,760
Speaker 2: didn't see any interested buyers, but I mean the idea

806
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: of Sesame Street is going away because no one's going

807
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 2: to put it on the air. Is mind bogglingly sad

808
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 2: to me, and I just don't think it's going to happen.

809
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 1: The stuff you should know production there you go.

810
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 2: Do you have pool or money together?

811
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: One hundred million bucks or something? What would that cost?

812
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'll bet we could get it

813
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 2: out of Jerry. I don't know. I don't think it's

814
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 2: going to be one hundred million bucks because that's like

815
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 2: all of their operating costs for a year. And I

816
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 2: mean they get a lot of their money from licensing

817
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 2: toys and pajamas and all that stuff. So when you

818
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 2: buy those things, you're actually directly helping Sesame Street.

819
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: That's where I get my pajamas.

820
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet we could get it for twenty million

821
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 2: right now. The problem, Mischuck is we don't have anywhere

822
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 2: to show it. I think that's a big obstacle we

823
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 2: would have to overcome as well.

824
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:07,959
Speaker 1: Oh, we could cut a deal.

825
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 2: Okay, Well god knows how much that's going to cost us,

826
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 2: but we can. We'll figure it out.

827
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: Maybe we should finish up with some sort of random

828
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: sort of factoids that you might want to share with

829
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 1: your friends. Here's a pretty fun stat The characters on

830
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: Sesame Street are some of the most recognizable in the

831
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: world and certainly in the US. Seventy five percent of

832
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: people under fifty five told a Yuga poll that they

833
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: even have a favorite character.

834
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 2: Do you want to know the top ten in order? Sure? Yes,

835
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 2: who's your favorite? We never said who our favorites were?

836
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: Uh, I don't remember. I used to like the Count.

837
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was great. Oooh that's a good count. Cookie

838
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:58,879
Speaker 2: Monsters number one, yeah, almost number two, Big Birds number three,

839
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 2: I guess makes sense. Grover number four. Grover is my favorite,

840
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 2: The Count, mister stuffle up against Ernie, and then Bert

841
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 2: and then Abby, which is a newer character. I think

842
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 2: I'm not sure when she came along, and then the

843
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 2: last one. Number ten is other.

844
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: My favorite. So the title, if you're wondering where that

845
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: came from, it was from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,

846
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: Open Sesame. Cooney is on record saying that that was

847
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: probably the least bad title, and we thought, you know,

848
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: open Sesame. We felt like we were opening children to

849
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: knowledge and education. So it's kind of a kind of

850
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: a weird little origin, but it just I can't think

851
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: of it as anything else.

852
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and lucky for them, it translates pretty well in Arabic.

853
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 1: Simpson, what was the what was the Mexican version called

854
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: that had a great.

855
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 2: Name, Plaza Sesimo? I love that? Yeah, I do too.

856
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how to get there?

857
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 2: Though? Well that I'm glad you brought that up. I

858
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,479
Speaker 2: was looking up stuff about the theme song. It turns

859
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 2: out there's not much interesting about it other than it

860
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 2: debuted on the first episode and has been you know,

861
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 2: toyed with or altered here there over the years. But

862
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 2: it's the same theme song in every episode of Sesame Street. Yeah,

863
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 2: ten million episodes.

864
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: We got a shout out the writers, the music by

865
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: Joe Riposo and lyrics by Riposo and Johnstone and Bruce Hart.

866
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 2: Nice. Pretty nice of you. And then did we talk

867
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:29,240
Speaker 2: about Tickle Me Elmo?

868
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,720
Speaker 1: Well, no, this is the third actor reveal.

869
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about Elmo by suddenly becoming very famous.

870
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 2: The reason why is because in nineteen ninety six the

871
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 2: Tickle Me Elmo doll became like the must have Christmas toy.

872
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 2: And I know we've talked about it in one of

873
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 2: our Christmas episodes. But let's just briefly mention it again.

874
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean thank you Rosio o donald for this one.

875
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: Tickle me Elmo came on Rosio o' donal, and it

876
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: was a big, big deal. This may have been a

877
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: black Pridy episode thing too, because trying to buy those

878
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: Elmos at the time was a thing. There was stampeding,

879
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: people went to the hospital. There were people selling them

880
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: on the black market for like really high prices. So

881
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: Elmo was a overnight sensation, like you know, sixteen years

882
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: after or I guess twelve years after his debut.

883
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, fourteen years ted come it. Also, Elmo is the

884
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: only non human to testify before Congress. That's right on

885
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 2: behalf of music education in school. I got two more things.

886
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: Just want to call out Julia, a four year old

887
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 2: muppet with autism who's been around since twenty seventeen. And

888
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 2: then apparently this year season fifty five, one of the

889
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 2: big themes that they're tackling are big feelings and kids

890
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: dealing with them. And they're even debuting a new muppet

891
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 2: who's teaching kids like breathing techniques to call themselves down.

892
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 1: That's great.

893
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 2: And then last thing I have is if you want

894
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 2: a little dose of nostalgia, go watch the full common

895
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 2: compilation of the Pinball count songs. Remember those three four pots, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

896
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: Well, I don't remember that.

897
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:13,280
Speaker 2: I came out in seventy six, so yeah, you probably

898
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 2: have moved on to Electric Company by then. You're like,

899
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 2: that's baby stuff. It's great, you should watch it. The

900
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 2: animation in it is beautiful, beautifully seventies. It's great.

901
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.

902
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 2: Anything else.

903
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. In two thousand and five, that was a bit

904
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 1: of a stir because Cookie Monster, you know, was known

905
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: for just ravaging cookies and stuffing them in his face

906
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: and crumbs flying everywhere, and that's the beauty of Cookie Monster.

907
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: But people were like, you know, maybe it's not such

908
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: a good idea to have a character that's just binge

909
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: eating sugar, right and sweets and treats. So they use

910
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 1: Cookie Monster as an impulse control model for moderation, and

911
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: a cookie became a sometimes food from Cookie Monster, And

912
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: of course people are going to be like, what are

913
00:48:57,320 --> 00:48:59,760
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Is this gonna be Veggie Monster next?

914
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: And there were letter writing campaigns and there was a

915
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 1: petition and all this stuff and Veggie Monster was never

916
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: gonna be a thing. They were just I guess they

917
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: just filed those complaint letters in the circular file and

918
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: it's like settled down, everybody.

919
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 2: I got one more I overlook, do you want to

920
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 2: hear it? Sure? This is our Kane. But Telly remember

921
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 2: Telly Monster we talked about, Yes, but no, Okay, So

922
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 2: Telly has a hamster named Chucky Sue and he used

923
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: to have a stuffed animal horse named Clark.

924
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: Oh how about that?

925
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty neat. Huh Yeah, total coincidence too, is from

926
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 2: the nineties, both of them.

927
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like that. Hints and up just coming out.

928
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of Kermit kurs since I said Kursman, of course, everybody.

929
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 2: That means it's time for listener mail. Yeah.

930
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 1: This is a little bit on libraries from name reducted. Hey, guys,

931
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: love the many on alternative libraries. I'm a member of

932
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: the board my local library and my wife is a

933
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: school librarian. I want to salute and celebrate our librarians

934
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: who are largely thought of as old ladies with buns

935
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: and cat eye glasses, but they are actually on the

936
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: front lines of the fight for the first Amendment in

937
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 1: many ways. My local library has a teen room whose

938
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: librarian is collecting the LGTBQ books discarded by other libraries

939
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: because of certain bad actors. The librarian at the high

940
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 1: school I work has sent red cards telling our heavily

941
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:32,880
Speaker 1: immigrant population what to say if ice immigrants show up

942
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: at their door or stop them on the way to school,

943
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: and apparently his wife. The librarian has to really get

944
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: involved in reference searches these days because of like you know,

945
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: book banning and just getting rid of certain educational proposals.

946
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 1: So one of our favorite t shirts says, what is

947
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: more punk than the local library? So thanks guys for

948
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: all you do and keep it up. And that is

949
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 1: from name reducted.

950
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 2: Thanks name redacted. I know we talked about that some

951
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 2: in our band on Books episode. Yeah, but yes, you

952
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 2: can't say it enough. God bless librarians for making sure

953
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 2: that people are educated as we can be for free.

954
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:11,760
Speaker 1: That's right, perfect fit for this episode.

955
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 2: Two. Yeah, I thought so too. Well, if you want

956
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 2: to get in touch of this, like name or d

957
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 2: acted did, you can tell us your name or not

958
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, We'll clearly protect you. You can send it

959
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 2: via email, probably encrypted if you want to Stuff podcast

960
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,919
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.

961
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

962
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

963
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.