WEBVTT - We Got to Sesame Street 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.440 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.880 Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is Sesame Street edition, 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:20.720 which this has been a long time coming. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.599 Chuck. Yeah, and I don't know if you plan this 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:30.040 or not, but our selects episode like the week before 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:31.800 this comes out, I believe is Jim Henson. 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.479 I did not plan it. What No, I really didn't. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:36.440 Wow, amazing. 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:43.000 That's Kermit, I mean Kismet cursemet, right, that's really cool. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.840 Yeah, if you haven't listened to those, I mean, really, 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.879 a couple of our greatest episodes ever in Stuff you 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:51.479 Should Know Lore are our Muppet episodes and our Jim 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.400 Henson up. So those are good primers if you haven't 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:55.040 heard those yet. 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.840 Yeah, because this definitely touches on Jim Henson, because Jim 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.720 Henson was a huge driver for Sesame Street initially, as 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.600 we'll see. Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit about 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:06.399 Sesame Street. 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:07.920 We should say what it is. 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.720 Probably, Yeah, although I would be really surprised if basically 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.319 everyone listening wasn't at least familiar. But for those of 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.800 you who aren't, that's fine. Sesame Street is a long 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:25.880 running children's television educational program that started way back in 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:32.440 nineteen sixty nine, was season one, and has spread all 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.399 over the world. I think it's in one hundred and 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.000 fifty to one hundred and seventy countries, depending on who 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.880 you ask, amazing, and even more than that, in thirty 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.800 of those countries at least, there are what are called 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.000 co productions where they have basically taken the ball and said, 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.080 we're going to make our own version of Sesame Street 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.520 in conjunction with the people who make Sesame Street and 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.600 just kind of adapt it to local customs and culture. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:02:00.920 More so, it's a global juggernaut, and it's basically globally 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:01.680 beloved too. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.760 Yeah, I mean not by everyone. I'm sure some people 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:05.160 hate it. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:07.080 I hope you're wrong. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.040 Oh, I was just kidding, Okay, good, I think I 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.000 think everyone has a soft spot at least for Sesame Street. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.600 I watched it for sure as a kid, but I 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:20.960 wasn't like, I don't remember years and years and years 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.120 and years of watching it. I moved on to Electric Company, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.800 which was felt like a little bit older, much more intellectual. Yeah, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:29.360 maybe a little bit. So I moved on to that 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:34.280 pretty quickly. But I did love Sesame Street and the Muppets, 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.480 and it was, you know, right in our wheelhouse, even 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:39.440 though it was you know, I guess it started just 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:40.519 a few years where I was born. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.080 Actually, sadly, yeah, but again, it's it's one of the 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.200 longest running television shows in the history of the United States. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.600 It's up there with like General Hospital, like it's just 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.919 been going forever. It's in season fifty five right now. 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.480 It's been continuous every year since it started, and it 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.399 is at least in the United States, but I would 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.639 suspect in a lot of parts of the world it's 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.639 basically a right of early childhood. It's a right of passage. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:07.799 Like you just kind of grow up on Sesame Street, 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:09.399 and then, like you said, I think as you start 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.040 to age out of it, you move on to other 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.919 stuff that was also produced by people who produce Sesame Street. Oh. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.480 I hope I don't start saying Semesi Street because that's 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:19.480 just not going to work. 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:21.639 That might be the name of it in some country. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.840 He never know. As we'll see, they do have some 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:24.720 great names for it. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.000 Maybe we should talk a little bit, just out of 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.880 the gate about some of the biggest characters, most iconic characters, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:31.880 and when they were introduced, because not all of them 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.760 have been around for the whole run, but from the 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:36.920 very beginning in the first season, we got Big Bird. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:39.400 I know we've talked about it, but there's a great 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.560 documentary on Big Bird that you should watch if you're 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.680 into that kind of hang Grover was right away, Kermit 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.440 was in season one, although as you learned, Kermit was 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.440 already on TV and other areas such that people are like, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.800 Kermit's a little I don't know if we're over him, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.760 but maybe a little overexposed. So they actually removed him 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:01.480 after season one for a little while, right. 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.600 Yeah, I think they were concerned that he was too commercialized, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.000 he was too associated with advertising and halting products that 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.920 they were like, this doesn't really have a place here. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.840 Yeah. We also got Burton Ernie in season one, Oscar 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.320 the Grouch, our friend in the trash can, the Cookie Monster, 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.960 and then a couple of years later we got Aloysius 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.719 Snuffaluphagus snuffle Upagus. Excuse me not A nice little factoid 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.800 for your next dinner party is that he does have 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.120 a first name, and it's Aloysious. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.720 What about the count seventy two? What about Telly Monster? 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.839 This was seventy nine. I must not have been watching 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.000 it that much at at eight years old, because I 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:40.560 did not remember Telly Monster. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.280 I remembered him, but he wasn't a big deal to me, 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.880 So I don't Yeah, I don't know. I guess we'd 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:47.560 cross pads. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.920 Who helped? Was Dave help us with this? 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.080 No? This was doctor claw Oh, well, Laura Clawson. 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.760 Laura might have been into Tellymonster, so maybe that's why 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:57.360 she listed it. 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.159 Well, I know he's kind of a big one, but 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.920 I think even more than Telly by far as far 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.559 as recognition goes, Elmo came along way earlier than I thought. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.320 He came along in nineteen eighty. Yeah, but he was 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.400 just kind of a background character. I don't even think 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.880 he necessarily had a name or any big speaking parts. 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.320 But he eventually kind of caught on and became one 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.760 of the more beloved muppets of all time. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.440 Stay tuned for X three to learn how that happened. Yeah, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.280 how about a cliffhanger there, yep. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.440 And then I guess we'll talk a little bit about 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.880 the origins. We'll come back to some of the Muppet 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:39.360 characters later on. 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.719 Yeah, we should mention the hardware, though, because they have 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:47.880 won a staggering two hundred and twenty one Emmy Awards. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.360 I'm not going to degrade it by saying, well, they're 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.360 daytime Emmys, but they are daytime Emmys, and you can 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:55.800 rack up a lot of those over the years, But 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.240 to twenty one over fifty five seasons, I don't care 0:05:58.320 --> 0:05:59.760 how you slice it. That's super impressive. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.479 Zero Emmys, as do I which I'm kind of surprised 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.400 neither one of us has an Emmy for the work 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:06.200 that we've done. 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.039 Eleven Grammys pretty good, sure, and then a bunch of peabodies. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.480 I believe that the last time they got an Emmy, 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.479 the producer accepted it, just yawned on stage, and. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.240 Water just threw it in a big room. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.800 The rest of them, yeah, on the pile. So we 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:27.160 should talk about the origins of all this because Sesame 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.640 Street and the whole idea behind it grew out of 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:34.240 two developing things in the mid nineteen sixties. One was 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:40.200 President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, which was this ideal 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.880 policy movement toward ending poverty and inequality, getting rid of crime, 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.160 helping the environment, making a great society. As far as 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.240 progressives were concerned, that was one thing that was going on. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.200 So there was much more of an awareness. There was 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.839 a little like they literally declared a war on poverty, 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:01.960 so there was much more of an awareness of a 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.080 difference between the advantage and the disadvantage, especially among children 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.560 in the United States at the time. And then on 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:11.440 the other side of the coin, there was this growing 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:18.320 awareness among psychologists and other educators that what had been 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:22.080 previously neglected and ignored, which was the early childhood years, 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:27.560 say between three and five, were really crucial to the 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.160 intellectual development of a kid. And so there came this 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:39.760 idea to create television programming that was geared toward disadvantaged 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.320 kids between ages three and five to help them, to 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.680 give them kind of a leg up before they started schooling. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.400 That's pretty much the premise of where this whole thing 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:50.160 came from. 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.000 Yeah, which I mean talk about a noble cause they 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.320 were on board from the beginning, and well, as you'll see, 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.520 you know, shortly they really put their money where their 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.720 mouths were as far as doing actual research and studies 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.440 to make sure they were doing what they intended to 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:09.080 do precisely as the story goes. In nineteen sixty six, 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.080 as far as origin, a woman named Joan Ganz Cooney 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.080 and a dude named Lloyd Morrissett were at a dinner 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.040 party and they started talking about TV and like, maybe 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.800 TV could educate kids. Cooney was in the newspaper biz. 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.000 She started producing TV and then as soon as New 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:31.040 York City he got a educational television station. She came 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.520 on board and started working for them. And I think 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.440 a documentary on a Harlem pre school was her first 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.200 job and it really just got her hooks, got its 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.640 hooks center as far as like, hey, TV can do something. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:48.280 Different, Yeah, she said in a documentary called Street Gang. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.480 I think Colon Howie got to sesame Street. It was 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.679 from twenty twenty one that she wanted to find out 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.280 what television would do if it loved people instead of 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.600 trying to sell the people. 0:08:59.200 --> 0:08:59.640 Amazing. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.880 Yeah, and this is a time where the FCC chair 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.880 back in nineteen sixty one under JFK, his name was 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:10.360 Newton Minno. He made a name for himself historically by 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.480 saying that television was a vast wasteland. And I mean 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.760 he was kind of right, there was some good stuff 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.680 on at the time, but also there was some really 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.640 bad stuff too, And it was I think what he 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:26.440 was ultimately saying. Though he wasn't critiquing the smartness of 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.760 the sitcoms at the time, he was basically saying, like, 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.920 there's nothing to be gained from, Like this is all 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.720 just dumb escapism and advertising essentially is what TV is. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.640 And we hadn't really come a very long way for 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:40.280 a long time. 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.120 Well we haven't. We have it one step forward, two 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:45.440 steps back maybe. 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.600 Hey man, when they did away with the after school special, 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:49.760 TV took a nose dive as far as I'm. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.880 Concrete, As far as Morisset goes, he was a VP 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.000 at the Carnegie Corporation, very smart guy. He had a 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.040 PhD in psychology from Yale, and his sort of lore 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.439 goes that he was watching his daughter, his young daughter, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.520 watch TV test patterns before you know broadcast started early 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.440 one morning and he was like, oh my god, kids 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.400 like they'll really watch anything if it's on a screen. 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:14.160 This is not good. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.240 No, he said to Joan Ganz Cooney. Isn't it ironic, 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:19.160 don't you think? 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:20.559 Is he related? 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:22.600 No? I think she has an e at the end 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:23.200 of her name. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:25.160 No, I think you're right. I just wondered though, because 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:26.560 she was in kids television. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:28.520 Yeah, you can't do that on television. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:29.920 Yeah, I was like, Oh, I wonder if there's a 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:30.760 tie there, but I guess not. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:31.720 She got slimed. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.960 So they started doing a little research, and they got 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.360 a grant through the Carnegie Corporation because Morissette was a 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.800 VP there and he wrote a report about, you know, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.400 using TV is a good thing for preschool kids. They 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.440 got another grant to develop like a more in depth pitch. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.000 Basically did a lot more research. Again, they weren't just 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.640 sort of writing from the dome, and in nineteen sixty 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:02.439 eight they presented a proposal called Television for Preschool Children, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:04.800 and again on the premise that like, hey, all we're 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:06.640 doing is like trying to sell stuff to people, Like 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.400 what if TV treated them with respect and love instead? 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.160 Yeah, And I mean TV was a great way to 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.600 get to kids already by the mid sixties I saw that. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.000 I think, oh, I don't remember what year it was, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.520 but around the time that these guys were starting, kids 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.200 were averaging fifty four hours a week in front of 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.640 the television. That's almost eight hours a day. That's a 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.360 full workday of watching TV for kids. Yeah, so, I 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.880 mean they were already tuned in. So the idea of 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:37.560 like getting to them through the TV in a way 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:39.400 that you're like you were trying to help them, to 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.000 educate them. That I mean it was radical for the time, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.160 but it also is just totally sensible. But like you said, 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.080 they weren't just going on this idea like of course 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.120 it's going to work. They tested this inside and out 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.520 and what became the Children's Television Workshop, which is now 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:01.239 called SESAME Workshop. This collaborative of like writer producers, directors 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:06.560 for the show, but also child psychologists, sometimes religious leaders, 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.360 educators and also of like different races, ethnicities, all coming 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.360 together to basically say, like, here are some things we 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.040 can we like, here's goals we want to achieve in 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.960 educating kids. We want them to learn cognitively, we want 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.959 them to learn social graces, and like I think if 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.240 we try this way or that way, we can actually 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.080 achieve that. But let's try this way and try that 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.079 way and test them both and see which works best. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.040 Yeah, for sure, And they they had to get kids 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.040 to watch though, like all of this hard work would 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.640 be it would be really really sad if kids just 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.680 didn't tune in because you know, as we'll see, like 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.840 PBS and its precursor, the National Education Television I guess 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.880 network was you know, maybe not a lot of people 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.280 watched it at the time, so they knew they had 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.400 to get eyeballs in front of it. So from their 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.400 initial eight million dollars in funding from different foundations and 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.040 some from the federal government, they spent nine hundred thousand 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.800 dollars of that eight million to promote the show, which 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.559 is a pretty staggering percentage out of the gate, and 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.559 they had a bunch of all you know, they went 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:17.520 to you know, regular media outlets of course, but they 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:22.040 also hit head start programs and churches and daycares. I 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.040 think you found out that when like the week before 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.800 the premiere, they hired trucks with like loudspeakers to just 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.360 drive around you know a lot of urban neighborhoods, you know, 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.079 advertising that it was coming on. And like you mentioned 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.040 it from the onset, mister Jim Henson, coming aboard was 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.760 also a big part of getting people to watch because 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:43.160 the Muppets were already a thing. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.560 Yeah, like we said, Kermit was already so commercialized he 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.880 basically was removed from the show. But they've been around 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.800 since the fifties. I think Jim Henson's first puppet gig 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.000 was out of high schooler during high school, and he 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.440 developed this stick pretty quickly, but it wasn't it wasn't 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.840 associated with kids. He would take it on like the 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.280 Steve Allen Show or the Jack Parr Show, like late 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.080 night TV and do like puppet skits that weren't at 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.200 all geared toward kids, and very quickly started doing advertising 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.439 with them as well. They just became a think muppets. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.760 People knew muppets before there was Sesame Street, so did 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.680 land Jim Henson. He wasn't like some mega star, you know, 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.440 he was no C. C. Deville at the time, but 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.600 he was well known. So it was kind of like 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.560 they landed a bit of a whale by getting Jim 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:39.400 Henson fully involved in developing and executing or I should say, 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.080 producing Sesame Street initially. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.440 You know what, I think I got the poison reference 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:47.840 wrong in that episode recently. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:49.400 That's why I said that CC. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.280 Deville is a guitarist. Ricky Rockett was a drummer. 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.280 You got that straight finally. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:55.720 Talk dirty to me. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.000 One of the reasons why, also, Chuck, it was so 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.000 big to bring Henson on was because from that research, 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.880 and today this seems totally normal, But this grew out 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:11.000 of the children's television workshop. Research was that puppets and 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.920 animation really got kids going. It really jazzed them. You 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.440 really got their attention. And as we learned from the 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:22.000 editorial cartoon episode, that's because they're super stimuli. So the 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.640 jet kids up. And then weirdly, some of the child 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.680 psychologists involved in the development of the show, we're like, Okay, 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:32.960 that's fine, we need puppets, but the humans and the 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.920 puppets can never interact, they can never communicate. It will 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.800 scare the Bejesus out of the children if they do. 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.280 And I guess somebody was like, that's a pretty ridiculous thing, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.600 and that got thrown away even before the pilot episode ran. 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.440 Well, no, they actually tested it with kids and learned 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.040 that the kids were not interested in the adult only sections. Yeah, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.400 so they actually had real, real data. So they tried 0:15:58.440 --> 0:15:59.560 it out and it just didn't work. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.800 No, And they should have known too. I mean, this, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.400 like Sesame Street, was pretty groundbreaking in that it was 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.840 an educational show, But there are already kids shows like 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.800 Mister Rogers had been around for a year before it debuted, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.440 Captain Kangaroo had been around since nineteen fifty five. But 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.760 what made it different is that those shows were generally 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.080 like anti school and they encourage kids to explore a 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.440 life of crime, whereas Sesame Street was like, no, let's 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.400 go to school and be the best kind of people 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:27.920 we can. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.760 Now, can we take a break? Yes, all right, great, 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:34.040 we'll come back and talk a little bit about what 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.120 happened on November tenth, nineteen sixty nine, right after this, 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.560 all right, so I promised a specific date in mind, 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:03.240 November ten, nineteen sixteen, again a year before, roughly before 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.199 PBS came out, a show like this would air on 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:10.440 something called the National Education Television And that's when it aired, Tada, 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:12.840 and it was a hit right out of the gate, 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:18.000 almost seven million viewers in season one. Ernie had a 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.480 big hit song with rubber Ducky actually charted at number 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.480 sixteen on the Billboards in September nineteen seventy and was 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.679 nominated for a Grammy. And they used to do a 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.440 ton of these episodes. They had one hundred and thirty 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.919 episodes a season for a while, and then further reduction 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.000 in funding kind of over the years trimmed it down 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.159 and by the time they hit the two thousands, they 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.240 were down to thirty episodes a year. But you know, 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.439 I mentioned test pilots and James Earl Jones was. You know, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.199 it kind of depends on who you talked to. He 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.840 was in one of those test pilots. So some people 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.879 say he was the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.960 but the actual real episode one season one was featured 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:01.879 as the first guest. 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.600 Yes, and Carol Burnett was laughing while she was counting 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.040 to ten. James Earl Jones was just staring at the 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.560 camera doing the alphabet in almost a really creepy way. 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.240 Have you seen it? Oh yeah, it's great. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:20.919 Yeah, And that pilot was called the title of it 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.320 was Gordon introduces Sally to Sesame Street. And the other 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.760 I mean, in my opinion, oddball human that appeared in 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:35.440 episode one season one was magician James Randy. Oh really, yeah, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:36.040 pretty cool? 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.800 That is cool. Was he just doing magic or teaching 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:40.280 kids to be skeptics? 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.120 I think he was just doing magic, Okay, I didn't 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.600 watch the whole episode, but I just thought that was 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:45.080 kind of fun. 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.239 But the reason James Earl Jones was on there and 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.240 shortly after Harry Bellefonte and a lot of other black 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:57.080 celebrities very early on, was because, again the show initially 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.320 was geared toward a disadvantage inner city black kids who 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.320 had just been totally overlooked and forgotten. So they wanted 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:08.120 to show people that looked like them on TV and 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.720 so they could learn from them. So it was really 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.520 kind of, I don't want to say, like geared toward 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.680 black kids, but there was way more for the average 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.520 three or four year old black kid growing up in 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.400 America at the time that they could find anywhere else 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:27.639 on TV. The thing is it was also designed for everybody, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.119 for every kid, so any kid could come along and 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:35.040 enjoy it, and that was actually seen. Apparently Sesame Street 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.880 is based on Harlem, I guess, And they originally had 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.080 one name for it, which was I think was it 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.560 one two three B Street or b Avenue? No, No, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.280 I think it was, And so people were like, that 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.280 sounds really New York and it's going to turn off 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.800 everybody outside in New York. Everyone in New York will 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.600 love it. But you know, so they expanded it to 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.920 Sesame Street eventually so that everybody could could appreciate it more. 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.320 Yeah, and part of the racial diversity was a problem 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.359 in some places in the United States at the time. 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.719 Their human characters, Gordon and Susan were a black couple, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.520 and the state of Mississippi said, not in my state, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.479 that's not going to be on television. And because it 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.399 is a you know, PBS is a public thing, the 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.000 state kind of shut that down. The State Commission did 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.080 and banned it. It only took twenty two days for 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.879 that to be reversed. But take heart that a local 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.240 NBC affiliate stepped up during that three weeks and aired 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.040 those episodes even in Mississippi. 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.600 I think that's so cool, man, Yeah, that's great. 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:39.000 So. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.959 Yeah, the first the original human cast were Gordon and Susan, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.600 a black couple, and then mister Hooper and Bob, both 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.560 of them were white, and mister Hooper ran the store. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.399 Bob was a music teacher, Gordon was a science teacher, 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.160 and Susan originally started out as a housewife, developed into 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.959 a nurse, and then finally became a working mom later on. 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.600 Yeah, It took a couple of years to get Latina 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:05.680 representation because initially, in the first couple of seasons, Chicano 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.600 activists and Puerto Rican activists were like, hey, where are 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.280 we in this show? And so by season three we 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:16.280 got Maria and Luis. You did mention Gordon. Originally that 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.040 was a guy named Matt Robinson, but he left the 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.480 show kind of co created this character with Jim Henson 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.000 named Roosevelt Franklin, and he was purple, but he was 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.760 sort of a black coated muppet because he spoke using 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.480 African American vernacular English. And while some people was like, no, 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:35.720 this is great as a role model and it's real, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.679 other people were like, no, that's a negative stereotype. You know. 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.480 I think it would be different today, but for the 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.120 time that didn't go over so well. 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:50.400 No, and the fans of Arrested Development will probably recognize 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.200 Franklin Joe Blust's puppet. He was based on Roosevelt Franklin. 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.840 And because of that, I was when I started to 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.600 watch clips of Roosevelt Franklin, the origin the muppet, I 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.000 was like, this is gonna be awful. It was not. 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.200 It's actually quite ridiculous that they got rid of him 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.000 because he was a really well developed black character. Yeah, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.719 it's just perplexing that they cave to that because he 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:13.520 was a good character. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.199 Yeah, did you say Job or gob Bluth? Oh? 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:20.679 Yeah, I said Job. Didn't I go just stop the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:22.160 listener mails right now. No, it's Job. 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.040 I thought it was Gob No no, or Is that 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:26.040 just one of the jokes. 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:31.920 Yeah, yeah, because his his that's it's an acronym, George 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:32.760 something Bluth. 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.119 Okay, I thought there was a joke on there at 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.360 some point about gob, but I might just be wrong 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:38.639 on that. 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:40.919 It's been a man, It has been a while, so 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:41.880 you could be right too. 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:45.439 Don Music was another character they got rid of that 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.520 was a Don Music was a composer. It would get 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:50.760 frustrated and bang his head on the piano keys and 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.080 parents are like, hey, my kid is banging their head 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:57.120 on piano keys and stuff, and we got to get 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:58.679 this character out of there. So they got rid of 0:22:58.680 --> 0:22:59.959 Don Music pretty early on a hiss way. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.960 Well poor Don. Yeah, so there's as this is like 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.720 nothing unusual for Sesame Street. They started doing that from 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.119 the outset right like they started like there. It started 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:13.880 off with a black and white cast, and I mean 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.560 that was still kind of strange or unusual for TV 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.920 in America, but they keep doing it. And what's kind 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:23.840 of saddening is every time they do it, it's like, 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:26.679 Oh my god, I can't believe how great this is 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.440 that they're including this character. And then there's another segment 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.400 of the public who's like, I can't believe they're including 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:37.240 that character. It's just sad either way. I think it's 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.920 both kind of sad because what they're doing. What Sesame 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:42.560 Street does is they say there's a group of people 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.719 out there who are being neglected, that kids that were 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.280 talking to interact with, and we need to bring them 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.119 on just to normalize and because they're just normal people 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.280 and we need to show that. So they've they've introduced 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:58.560 a number of characters that proved to be controversial over 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:00.960 the years. What I like about Sesame Street, with the 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.560 exception of Roosevelt Franklin, they basically just stay mute on 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:06.280 it and they're like, you guys, sort it out. We're 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:07.800 going to just do our thing over here. 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:10.760 Yeah, for sure. And this is you know, pretty early 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:12.919 on too. In nineteen seventy eight, they had a character 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:17.080 with down syndrome who was in Preschool's name was Jason 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:20.840 Kingsley and was the son of a writer, Emily Kingsley 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.200 for Sesame Street, and so all of a sudden they 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.800 started having more kids with you know, challenges and disabilities. 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:30.800 They've had kids that are hearing impair, They've had kids 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:33.960 in wheelchairs. Over the years, recently they've kind of brought 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:36.359 it into the modern age for you know, issues that 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:40.440 kids face sadly more and more of these days. One 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:43.760 character had food insecurity and eventually homelessness. 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:44.920 Yeah, that's Lily. 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:48.400 Yeah. And another whose father was in prison, and then 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:52.800 another kid who was in foster care because her mother 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:56.880 is battling opioid addiction. So they're I mean, they've never 0:24:56.920 --> 0:24:59.440 been afraid to bite off some really really tough stuff 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:01.720 that sadly, kids have to deal with, and they know 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:03.679 they have to deal with this stuff, so they're not 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:04.520 backing away from it. 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:07.479 Yeah. One of the other things that Susame Street does 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:11.240 when it introduces like a muppet like this is shine 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:14.000 a light on the fact that this is an actual thing, 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:17.639 Like they're not like what obscure terrible situation can we 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:22.000 find and base them uppet on. Apparently in the United States, 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.639 two point five million children are homeless at any given time, 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:30.040 two point six one million children have a father or 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:33.040 a parent who's in prison, and another one point four 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:36.680 million have a parent addicted to opioids. So it's not 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:41.679 like these are niche topics that niche puppets are built on. 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:45.120 These are real challenges that a lot of little kids 0:25:45.119 --> 0:25:48.399 in the United States face, Whether yeah, you consider it 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:49.280 tasteful or not. 0:25:49.880 --> 0:25:52.280 Yeah, for sure. You know, we mentioned that they put 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:55.040 their money where their mouth is as far as continuing 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:57.840 to do research and study about you know, its effect 0:25:57.880 --> 0:26:01.040 on kids and potential outcomes, because that was, you know, 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:03.359 that was the mission statement from the very beginning. So 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:05.120 they couldn't just be like, we're doing a great job, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:11.160 so we're good. They got into Educational Test the Educational 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:14.840 Testing Service to do a study after just season one, 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:18.600 and they sampled nine hundred and forty three kids from 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:23.639 urban areas and then one rural area. And the kids 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.159 there were, you know, disadvantaged kids in urban areas and 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:29.360 rural areas. There were Spanish speaking kids, there were advantage 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:32.160 suburban kids in this study, and they found that kids 0:26:32.200 --> 0:26:34.280 really did learn from the show, and that the more 0:26:34.320 --> 0:26:36.880 you watch the more they learned and the more they knew, 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:37.920 which was pretty great. 0:26:38.480 --> 0:26:43.240 Yeah, that was that was season one, right. Yeah, so 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:45.720 they went back and said, let's figure out if this worked. 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:49.640 There was a twenty thirteen study that kind of recreated 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:53.600 it intentionally or otherwise, but rather than looking at the 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.119 United States, they took it on an international scale, and 0:26:57.160 --> 0:26:59.480 it was a meta analysis of twenty four studies that 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:03.040 had been on the effects of Sesame Street and all combined. 0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:06.480 This meta analysis looked at ten thousand children in fifteen 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:09.520 different countries, so it was a pretty robust study, and 0:27:09.560 --> 0:27:13.560 they found the same thing, that there were significant positives 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:17.200 associated with kids watching Sesame Street, and that kids who 0:27:17.240 --> 0:27:21.600 watched more perform better in school, and that this effect 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:27.240 carried no matter the income level of the country, low income, 0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:30.600 middle income, high income country, doesn't matter. The effects were 0:27:30.640 --> 0:27:34.480 the same, and it hit three different outcomes cognitive outcomes, 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:38.520 learning about the world, and social reasoning, and basically it 0:27:38.640 --> 0:27:40.879 just turned every single one of these ten thousand children 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:41.920 into a superchild. 0:27:42.480 --> 0:27:45.800 Yeah, there was one, well, just why they have the 0:27:46.200 --> 0:27:46.720 s on their. 0:27:46.680 --> 0:27:48.800 Chest right Testame Street Superchild. 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:51.199 Another study. I thought this one was pretty striking to 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:54.560 me because they could actually do a fairly direct ab comparison. 0:27:55.760 --> 0:27:59.680 The American Economic Journal, for Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine 0:27:59.680 --> 0:28:01.600 did at because they were like, hey, wait a minute. 0:28:01.800 --> 0:28:06.440 In those early years, there were UHF stations in VHF stations, 0:28:07.040 --> 0:28:10.760 and some areas had some, and then you know, a 0:28:10.760 --> 0:28:13.480 couple of neighborhoods over another, you know they may not 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:16.480 have the same access. So they could literally compare districts 0:28:16.480 --> 0:28:19.600 in elementary schools and outcomes with people who did not 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:21.280 have the show at all and people who had it, 0:28:21.720 --> 0:28:24.560 and they found it the show actually did improve outcomes, 0:28:24.560 --> 0:28:27.000 and that the positive effect of the show was particularly 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:33.680 pronounced for boys and black, non Hispanic children and children 0:28:33.760 --> 0:28:37.280 who grew up in other counties who had economic disadvantage. 0:28:37.400 --> 0:28:41.520 So it was literally helping and targeting the kids that 0:28:41.560 --> 0:28:44.160 they were hoping to target while also being good for 0:28:44.200 --> 0:28:44.960 everyone overall. 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:48.640 Yeah, and one specific outcome I saw, just for an example, 0:28:48.680 --> 0:28:51.200 and that study was that the kids who watched Systame 0:28:51.240 --> 0:28:53.440 Street were fourteen percent more likely to be in an 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:56.560 age appropriate grade in middle school or high school, so 0:28:56.600 --> 0:28:58.840 they hadn't been held back, or they were fourteen percent 0:28:59.160 --> 0:29:01.080 likely to have not and held back then kids who 0:29:01.120 --> 0:29:01.720 didn't watch it. 0:29:02.080 --> 0:29:03.000 Yeah, it's pretty great. 0:29:03.280 --> 0:29:05.160 Yeah, it's statistically significant. 0:29:05.560 --> 0:29:08.160 Yeah, this is a pretty good quote too. The New Republic. 0:29:09.080 --> 0:29:12.280 Their quote is that Sesame Street was essentially the first 0:29:12.360 --> 0:29:18.040 MOAK massive online open course, providing educational content to viewers 0:29:18.040 --> 0:29:22.160 for free, and a twenty fifteen white paper from the 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:25.880 Early Childhood Education Group said it's one of the largest 0:29:25.880 --> 0:29:28.280 and least costly interventions. 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:31.680 Yeah, and you might be like with New Republic, it's 0:29:31.680 --> 0:29:34.040 a pretty liberal rag of course. Of like sesame Street. 0:29:34.280 --> 0:29:36.440 We found a quote from the National Review, which is 0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:41.680 about what conservative and the National Review called sesame Street 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:45.360 the one great thing accomplished by lbj's Great Society, which 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:48.000 is a hilarious quote, and that was in twenty twenty one. 0:29:48.240 --> 0:29:52.840 Just one thing, right, Hey, it's good for sesame Street though. 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:56.320 Yeah, that's what I was saying. Everybody loves Sesame Street. 0:29:57.120 --> 0:30:00.200 So I guess we'll press on chucking plug into the 0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:02.760 rest of the world, because, like we said, shows up 0:30:02.760 --> 0:30:05.040 in one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy countries, 0:30:05.240 --> 0:30:07.840 and there's at least thirty co productions around the world, 0:30:08.000 --> 0:30:10.120 and it turns out they're really fun to read. About 0:30:10.160 --> 0:30:10.680 and talk. 0:30:10.480 --> 0:30:13.920 About they really are, because, like you said, you know, 0:30:13.960 --> 0:30:16.560 depending on the country, they're going to tailor it for 0:30:16.600 --> 0:30:20.400 their country and have characters that reflect things kids might recognize. 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:25.760 So if you go to Israel and watch Oscar the Grouch, 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:30.640 you'll see that Oscar's name Moisha Ufnik. Pretty good name. 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:32.280 It means grouch and Hebrew. 0:30:32.600 --> 0:30:35.280 Yeah, but you probably won't see Oscar the Grouch or 0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:39.960 Count von Count in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has its own co 0:30:40.000 --> 0:30:45.080 production called My Best Attempt is boch E Simpson, and 0:30:46.080 --> 0:30:50.240 they have cultural taboos against trash and vampirism. So Oscar 0:30:50.320 --> 0:30:54.080 and the Count don't really translate to the Afghani version 0:30:54.120 --> 0:30:55.040 of Sesame. 0:30:54.680 --> 0:30:59.280 Street the simsims right, I wonder if that's the theme. 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:04.240 Yeah, there's the sesame in Arabic or Arabic like languages 0:31:04.320 --> 0:31:10.080 or Arabic related languages, simpsim or sumsum has it seems 0:31:10.120 --> 0:31:11.160 to be what sesame is. 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:12.400 Yeah, I think so. 0:31:12.400 --> 0:31:14.440 So if you ever run across a trivia question that 0:31:14.520 --> 0:31:18.480 says what is sesame and Arabic, you'd better say simsim. 0:31:18.440 --> 0:31:21.880 Yeah, sims i am if spelling counts one word. If 0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:24.280 you go to the UK, and you said cookie monster, 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:28.400 they'd say, I think you mean biscuit monster, of course, 0:31:28.400 --> 0:31:31.600 because biscuits are cookies over there. And if you go 0:31:31.600 --> 0:31:34.400 to Latin America, you might not see Big Bird, but 0:31:34.480 --> 0:31:38.240 you might see Abe Lardo, who is Big Bird's cousin. 0:31:38.280 --> 0:31:39.240 It's a giant parrot. 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:43.240 Yeah. So you've got like different characters or the same 0:31:43.320 --> 0:31:46.040 characters with different names, or characters that just don't show up. 0:31:46.080 --> 0:31:49.560 But there's also characters that are just totally new, and 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:54.160 they kind of follow the original Sesame Street's program of like, 0:31:54.440 --> 0:31:58.280 let's include people who are stigmatized or left out. And 0:31:58.360 --> 0:32:02.680 so the South African version of Sesame Street Takalani. Yeah, 0:32:02.800 --> 0:32:04.680 I don't know why I had trouble saying that. Takilani 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:10.560 sesame delicious. Yeah. They included a character named Kami. Kami 0:32:10.640 --> 0:32:13.800 is based on the word kamogello, which means acceptance in 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:18.360 some South African indigenous languages like Zulu. And the reason 0:32:18.400 --> 0:32:21.160 they did that is because Kami is an HIV positive 0:32:21.400 --> 0:32:27.200 orphan of a mother with aides who died. And this 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:31.320 is a muppet who is basically playing with other muppets 0:32:31.360 --> 0:32:33.720 to show little kids that you don't have to be 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:37.520 fearful of having a friend who is HIV positive. It's 0:32:37.560 --> 0:32:41.120 not dangerous to play with them. And in South Africa 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:43.720 that was very controversial because a lot of people have 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:47.000 HIV in South Africa, but it's still very stigmatized. So 0:32:47.080 --> 0:32:49.640 of course Sesame Street in South Africa was like, let's 0:32:49.680 --> 0:32:50.800 get Kami in there. 0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:54.240 They could probably have an American version of that same character, 0:32:54.400 --> 0:32:56.160 or at least in the eighties they could. 0:32:56.200 --> 0:32:58.520 I read that there was a letter written by a 0:32:58.600 --> 0:33:02.760 small panel of Congress people to PBS basically saying, don't 0:33:02.800 --> 0:33:06.000 even think about it. Oh boy. 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:10.040 Since ninety eight there was a there's been an Israeli 0:33:10.720 --> 0:33:16.360 Palestinian co production which is super unique obviously called Rekoff 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:20.960 some some oh yeah, or Shars Simson, like you said, 0:33:21.680 --> 0:33:26.400 and this is pretty great. It's Israelian Palestine Palestinian kids 0:33:27.400 --> 0:33:30.440 together and we they're from separate streets, but they get 0:33:30.440 --> 0:33:32.800 together and hang out and play and talk. And when 0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:35.880 they do, the language, you know, either Hebrew or Arabic, 0:33:35.880 --> 0:33:39.280 has translated in subtitles into the other language. And they 0:33:39.480 --> 0:33:41.680 weren't just like, oh, we'll just pat ourselves on the 0:33:41.680 --> 0:33:44.200 back for this. They were trying to accomplish something. So 0:33:44.240 --> 0:33:47.120 they measured outcomes again and did studies, and they found 0:33:47.200 --> 0:33:49.880 that watching the show made kids in that area more 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:53.000 likely to use positive terms to describe kids on the 0:33:53.000 --> 0:33:54.160 other side of that conflict. 0:33:54.560 --> 0:33:58.280 And Sesame Street, we should just say that after every 0:33:58.520 --> 0:33:59.880 every great thing we talk about them. 0:34:00.760 --> 0:34:03.160 Yeah. And you know, actually there's a quote that kind 0:34:03.160 --> 0:34:08.040 of goes along with that. Andrew S. Nazios, who led 0:34:08.560 --> 0:34:12.400 us AID under George W. Bush, he said the Arabic 0:34:12.480 --> 0:34:15.240 language version of the show was the quote biggest weapon 0:34:15.320 --> 0:34:17.719 against al Qaeda and Islamic extremism. 0:34:18.600 --> 0:34:21.600 Yeah. I thought about that too, that like, you're using 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:28.120 Sesame Street to spread essentially global good, basic human values 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:33.200 in places where those are sometimes in short supply. You know, Yeah, 0:34:33.200 --> 0:34:36.960 I think that's cool. And then that one, the Arabic 0:34:37.080 --> 0:34:40.600 version you just mentioned it, it's called Alain Simpson. They 0:34:40.719 --> 0:34:44.680 use that in Syrian refugee camps because little kids in 0:34:44.719 --> 0:34:49.080 Syrian refugee camps schools were canceled because the government dropped 0:34:49.520 --> 0:34:52.640 chemical weapons on their town. But they're still getting to 0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:56.040 watch this Arabic version of Sesame Street to make sure 0:34:56.040 --> 0:34:57.160 that they're not left behind. 0:34:57.680 --> 0:34:59.959 Yeah, and you know, since we're here, before we break. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:03.840 We might as well mention that the Sesame Workshop is 0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:08.000 a nonprofit that gets part of their funding through the 0:35:08.120 --> 0:35:13.920 US federal government through the USAID program, and just I 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:17.400 think a couple of months ago, the current administration announced 0:35:17.440 --> 0:35:21.080 that obviously Usaid and by the way, episode coming up 0:35:21.080 --> 0:35:25.719 on that soon on, that organization is being cut at 0:35:25.840 --> 0:35:30.400 the behest of the Department of Government Efficiency. So Sesame 0:35:30.440 --> 0:35:33.279 Street is going to lose a lot of funding. And 0:35:33.560 --> 0:35:36.879 the current president said the Arabic language version was part 0:35:36.880 --> 0:35:40.319 of hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. But the 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:43.799 good news is is that it accounts for only four 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:47.799 percent of their total funding. So hopefully, I mean, they 0:35:47.840 --> 0:35:50.160 were pretty much called off guard and are scrambling a bit, 0:35:50.160 --> 0:35:52.440 but hopefully that it's not like the end of Sesame Street. 0:35:53.400 --> 0:35:56.319 No. I saw it as in real dollars, about five 0:35:56.400 --> 0:35:59.480 million dollars. But the problem is that's still a significant 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:02.560 Like they're operating at a deficit, so they basically need 0:36:02.600 --> 0:36:05.080 every dollar they can get, so it's still hitting them 0:36:05.160 --> 0:36:08.600 four Yeah, So I think in March twenty twenty five, 0:36:08.640 --> 0:36:11.279 they announced that they were having to lay off employees, 0:36:11.320 --> 0:36:13.920 which is not something that happens all the time at 0:36:13.920 --> 0:36:18.760 Sesame Street, although I'm sure they've tackled it plenty of times. 0:36:18.960 --> 0:36:20.520 Yeah, maybe there was an episode about it. 0:36:21.360 --> 0:36:24.880 Probably should we take a break. I just want to 0:36:24.880 --> 0:36:27.080 throw out one more. We talked about the Afghani version 0:36:27.360 --> 0:36:31.000 of Sesame Street. In twenty sixteen, they have featured they 0:36:31.080 --> 0:36:35.120 debut a girl mupet named Zari who goes to school 0:36:35.239 --> 0:36:40.280 wearing a h job. Yeah pretty great, yep, take that Taliban. 0:36:40.880 --> 0:36:42.880 All right, Well we're gonna take that second break, and 0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:47.520 we're gonna wrap it up here right after this fish. 0:37:04.560 --> 0:37:06.560 So chuck. Before we broke, I was talking about how 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:12.400 Sesame Street probably has tackled the episode of being fired 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:15.200 parent being fired right. The reason why is because they 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:18.200 have a long history of tackling tough topics that date 0:37:18.280 --> 0:37:21.799 back pretty far. I think in nineteen eighty two. That's 0:37:21.880 --> 0:37:26.640 usually where people trace the origin of Sesame Street, just 0:37:26.719 --> 0:37:29.960 taking on very adult themed episodes that kids sometimes have 0:37:30.040 --> 0:37:32.760 to deal with head on. With the death of mister 0:37:32.800 --> 0:37:34.960 Hooper who brand Hooper's. 0:37:34.560 --> 0:37:37.839 Store, Yeah, I mean I have a hard time even 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:41.040 talking about this one. It was nineteen eighty two. Actor 0:37:41.080 --> 0:37:44.960 Willie who played mister Hooper passed away in irl, and 0:37:45.200 --> 0:37:47.600 they were like, let's not replace him, Let's use this 0:37:47.640 --> 0:37:50.320 as an opportunity to teach kids about death and grief 0:37:50.920 --> 0:37:54.520 and Big Bird. They aired it on Thanksgiving, so parents, 0:37:54.560 --> 0:37:57.040 you know, were more likely to be home. They got 0:37:57.080 --> 0:37:59.759 together like with again, they weren't just like, hey, let's 0:37:59.760 --> 0:38:02.520 just the white writers whip something up. They got together 0:38:02.560 --> 0:38:05.000 with religious leaders and child psychologists kind of figure out 0:38:05.280 --> 0:38:09.279 the best way to do this, and they decided on 0:38:09.360 --> 0:38:15.000 Big Bird kind of taking the lead in saying very sadly, 0:38:15.920 --> 0:38:17.680 I want to give mister Hooper a picture that I 0:38:17.760 --> 0:38:20.000 drew when he comes back. And that's when they're like, 0:38:20.719 --> 0:38:23.920 big Bird, I've got some bad news for you, my friend. 0:38:24.239 --> 0:38:26.200 Yeah, Gordon famously rolled his eyes. 0:38:26.440 --> 0:38:30.040 Yeah, he's not coming back. Death is permanent. And it 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:34.160 was a huge, huge deal for not just Sesame Street, 0:38:34.160 --> 0:38:37.000 but just how we talk to kids about this kind 0:38:37.040 --> 0:38:37.600 of thing, you know. 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:41.720 Yeah, because it took kids seriously, as you know, thinking 0:38:41.800 --> 0:38:46.239 feeling individuals, because they taught they discussed replacing him with 0:38:46.320 --> 0:38:49.040 a new mister Hooper and just pretending like it wasn't 0:38:49.320 --> 0:38:52.680 a different actor, or saying mister Hooper retired and he's 0:38:52.680 --> 0:38:55.279 not coming back, but he's retired, not dead, and they're like, no, 0:38:56.120 --> 0:39:00.200 let's use this opportunity. It is really tear jerking to watch. 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:04.160 Yeah, in nineteen eighty five, another big lesson came along. 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:08.040 When you know, if you haven't seen the show, mister 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:10.759 Snuffalopagus is this sort of big I don't even know 0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:12.640 what you call it, kind of a big, long haired 0:39:12.640 --> 0:39:13.480 monstery thing. 0:39:13.600 --> 0:39:16.200 But it got to touch a bully mammoth I think. 0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:21.840 Yeah, But big Bird, Snuffalupagus was Big Bird's imaginary friend, 0:39:23.120 --> 0:39:25.600 and the adults like, couldn't see this imaginary friend. And 0:39:25.640 --> 0:39:29.759 in that episode he was seen by the rest of 0:39:29.800 --> 0:39:31.480 the cast and they were like, hey, maybe this can 0:39:31.560 --> 0:39:35.480 inspire kids who are maybe child abuse victims that you 0:39:35.600 --> 0:39:38.239 don't need to fear that adults won't believe you if 0:39:38.320 --> 0:39:41.080 you reveal something to them. And so, you know, they 0:39:41.440 --> 0:39:45.359 tackled it through Snuffalopagus all of a sudden becoming a 0:39:45.400 --> 0:39:47.120 real thing to the adults on the show. 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:49.959 Yeah, because he always had been real, but anytime Big 0:39:50.000 --> 0:39:52.120 Bird tried to introduce some people, he would just not 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:55.040 be there for some reason or another. So he was 0:39:55.160 --> 0:39:58.360 real and when they apologized to him, I think Bob 0:39:58.880 --> 0:40:01.839 the music teacher said, we'll believe you whenever you tell 0:40:01.880 --> 0:40:05.280 us something. From now on Big Bird, Like they really 0:40:05.400 --> 0:40:07.640 kind of drove it home, beat the little kids over 0:40:07.680 --> 0:40:08.200 the head with this. 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:12.480 They also tackled nine to eleven, not in a direct 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:16.000 way by like talking about the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, 0:40:16.000 --> 0:40:19.040 but it was a show very clearly centered around kids 0:40:19.120 --> 0:40:21.520 and you know, dealing with like a big sort of 0:40:21.520 --> 0:40:23.560 shared tragedy and how they might go about that. 0:40:25.000 --> 0:40:29.200 Oh, let's see what else. Another part of that too 0:40:29.360 --> 0:40:33.040 is there was a fire at Hooper's store. They didn't 0:40:33.040 --> 0:40:35.520 show the fires just offscreen. They mentioned it, they referenced 0:40:35.520 --> 0:40:37.920 it happening, and some firefires show up to put it out, 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:40.759 and Elmo is just freaked out by this. So the 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:43.840 firefighters stop and like comfort him and tell them it's okay, 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:47.200 and they helped deal with that kind of I don't know. 0:40:47.239 --> 0:40:51.200 I think the message was listen to firefighters because they're all. 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:54.520 Right, yeah, great message. Kids left fire trucks anyway, so 0:40:54.520 --> 0:40:59.719 they're halfway there, right. They also dealt with like kids 0:40:59.719 --> 0:41:01.799 who have parents in the military that are off at war. 0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:06.440 At one point, they've had episodes on hurricanes and like 0:41:06.520 --> 0:41:10.000 dealing with a natural disaster like that. And they even 0:41:10.040 --> 0:41:12.880 dealt with the COVID nineteen pandemic in twenty twenty because 0:41:12.960 --> 0:41:15.520 kids were at home watching a lot of TV, and 0:41:15.719 --> 0:41:18.200 you know, their parents are pretty stressed out. So they 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:20.160 had a special episode all about COVID. 0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:23.319 Yeah, including when the vaccines came out. Big Bird and 0:41:23.520 --> 0:41:26.799 I think everybody else got vaccinated. Big Bird had a 0:41:26.800 --> 0:41:28.680 band aid on his wings, So my wing hurts a 0:41:28.680 --> 0:41:31.439 little bit. But other than that, I'm okay. Yeah. 0:41:31.480 --> 0:41:35.520 So you mentioned the problems with the funding. It started 0:41:35.560 --> 0:41:39.520 in the mid eighties. They had reports that expenses were 0:41:39.520 --> 0:41:43.080 going to outpace revenues. Perhaps they do a lot of licensing. 0:41:43.120 --> 0:41:45.240 I think about two thirds of their revenue comes from 0:41:45.719 --> 0:41:49.440 lining licensing to like books and toys and things. The 0:41:49.520 --> 0:41:51.640 Monster at the end of this book is a classic 0:41:51.719 --> 0:41:54.320 children's book with Grover as the center character. 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:57.080 My favorite Grover book. One of my favorite books growing 0:41:57.160 --> 0:41:59.480 up was Grover and the Everything in the World Museum. 0:41:59.520 --> 0:42:00.520 Did you ever that one? 0:42:00.800 --> 0:42:01.800 Uh uh? 0:42:01.840 --> 0:42:03.879 It might have been after your time, but I love 0:42:03.960 --> 0:42:06.560 that book. It's drawing in there is so great, and 0:42:06.640 --> 0:42:08.120 it's just it's all Grover. 0:42:08.560 --> 0:42:12.560 Yeah. They've been talking about, you know, the recent cuts 0:42:12.560 --> 0:42:15.000 are one thing, but they've been talking about, you know, 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:19.239 reducing funding and have funding somewhat over the years for 0:42:19.280 --> 0:42:23.719 a long time, though I believe twenty fifteen they were 0:42:23.760 --> 0:42:26.440 operating at a loss, maybe for the first time, and 0:42:26.520 --> 0:42:29.200 so HBO stepped up and said, hey, you know what, 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:32.640 if you give us a jump on PBS, we'll pay 0:42:32.680 --> 0:42:35.000 you some pretty good money. So they got the episodes 0:42:35.080 --> 0:42:38.799 nine months before PBS. But in December of last year 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:42.440 of twenty twenty four, Warner Brothers Discovery said, you know what, 0:42:42.480 --> 0:42:45.040 We're not gonna We're not gonna do that deal anymore. 0:42:45.120 --> 0:42:48.000 We can license back episodes still, or we want to still, 0:42:48.960 --> 0:42:52.160 but the deal has concluded, and I think that also 0:42:52.200 --> 0:42:53.640 put them in a bit of a money bind. 0:42:53.920 --> 0:42:57.440 Yeah, so I guess HBO Max agreed to take season 0:42:57.520 --> 0:43:02.080 twenty or six season fifty five, which is currently out now, 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:06.960 but they're not taking season fifty six and the Sesame workshops, like, well, 0:43:07.000 --> 0:43:09.840 we're still going to make a season fifty six. Who 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:13.440 wants to buy new episodes, brand new episodes of Sesame Street? 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:17.080 So it's up for up for auction right now. I 0:43:17.160 --> 0:43:21.760 didn't see any interested buyers, but I mean the idea 0:43:21.760 --> 0:43:24.200 of Sesame Street is going away because no one's going 0:43:24.280 --> 0:43:27.040 to put it on the air. Is mind bogglingly sad 0:43:27.080 --> 0:43:28.840 to me, and I just don't think it's going to happen. 0:43:29.600 --> 0:43:32.359 The stuff you should know production there you go. 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:34.640 Do you have pool or money together? 0:43:35.239 --> 0:43:37.160 One hundred million bucks or something? What would that cost? 0:43:37.640 --> 0:43:39.160 I don't know, but I'll bet we could get it 0:43:39.160 --> 0:43:41.520 out of Jerry. I don't know. I don't think it's 0:43:41.520 --> 0:43:43.400 going to be one hundred million bucks because that's like 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:46.840 all of their operating costs for a year. And I 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:50.120 mean they get a lot of their money from licensing 0:43:50.160 --> 0:43:52.279 toys and pajamas and all that stuff. So when you 0:43:52.360 --> 0:43:54.800 buy those things, you're actually directly helping Sesame Street. 0:43:55.840 --> 0:43:57.040 That's where I get my pajamas. 0:43:57.239 --> 0:43:59.640 Yeah, I'll bet we could get it for twenty million 0:43:59.719 --> 0:44:02.800 right now. The problem, Mischuck is we don't have anywhere 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.360 to show it. I think that's a big obstacle we 0:44:05.360 --> 0:44:06.640 would have to overcome as well. 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:07.959 Oh, we could cut a deal. 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:11.920 Okay, Well god knows how much that's going to cost us, 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:13.319 but we can. We'll figure it out. 0:44:14.280 --> 0:44:17.680 Maybe we should finish up with some sort of random 0:44:17.800 --> 0:44:20.120 sort of factoids that you might want to share with 0:44:20.160 --> 0:44:24.239 your friends. Here's a pretty fun stat The characters on 0:44:24.280 --> 0:44:28.239 Sesame Street are some of the most recognizable in the 0:44:28.280 --> 0:44:32.120 world and certainly in the US. Seventy five percent of 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:36.239 people under fifty five told a Yuga poll that they 0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:37.440 even have a favorite character. 0:44:37.760 --> 0:44:41.200 Do you want to know the top ten in order? Sure? Yes, 0:44:41.239 --> 0:44:43.839 who's your favorite? We never said who our favorites were? 0:44:44.680 --> 0:44:48.680 Uh, I don't remember. I used to like the Count. 0:44:49.160 --> 0:44:54.000 Yeah, he was great. Oooh that's a good count. Cookie 0:44:54.000 --> 0:44:58.879 Monsters number one, yeah, almost number two, Big Birds number three, 0:45:00.160 --> 0:45:04.040 I guess makes sense. Grover number four. Grover is my favorite, 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:08.400 The Count, mister stuffle up against Ernie, and then Bert 0:45:08.880 --> 0:45:13.120 and then Abby, which is a newer character. I think 0:45:13.200 --> 0:45:15.600 I'm not sure when she came along, and then the 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:17.680 last one. Number ten is other. 0:45:19.680 --> 0:45:23.080 My favorite. So the title, if you're wondering where that 0:45:23.120 --> 0:45:28.480 came from, it was from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, 0:45:28.560 --> 0:45:32.080 Open Sesame. Cooney is on record saying that that was 0:45:32.120 --> 0:45:34.480 probably the least bad title, and we thought, you know, 0:45:34.560 --> 0:45:36.759 open Sesame. We felt like we were opening children to 0:45:36.840 --> 0:45:39.239 knowledge and education. So it's kind of a kind of 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:41.799 a weird little origin, but it just I can't think 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:43.000 of it as anything else. 0:45:44.000 --> 0:45:47.120 Yeah, and lucky for them, it translates pretty well in Arabic. 0:45:47.360 --> 0:45:50.520 Simpson, what was the what was the Mexican version called 0:45:50.520 --> 0:45:51.200 that had a great. 0:45:51.080 --> 0:45:55.759 Name, Plaza Sesimo? I love that? Yeah, I do too. 0:45:56.160 --> 0:45:57.200 Can you tell me how to get there? 0:45:57.200 --> 0:45:59.640 Though? Well that I'm glad you brought that up. I 0:45:59.680 --> 0:46:01.479 was looking up stuff about the theme song. It turns 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:03.759 out there's not much interesting about it other than it 0:46:03.920 --> 0:46:06.960 debuted on the first episode and has been you know, 0:46:07.080 --> 0:46:09.360 toyed with or altered here there over the years. But 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:14.520 it's the same theme song in every episode of Sesame Street. Yeah, 0:46:14.640 --> 0:46:15.920 ten million episodes. 0:46:16.080 --> 0:46:18.799 We got a shout out the writers, the music by 0:46:18.880 --> 0:46:23.000 Joe Riposo and lyrics by Riposo and Johnstone and Bruce Hart. 0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:27.960 Nice. Pretty nice of you. And then did we talk 0:46:28.000 --> 0:46:29.240 about Tickle Me Elmo? 0:46:29.920 --> 0:46:31.720 Well, no, this is the third actor reveal. 0:46:32.280 --> 0:46:37.080 Okay, so we talked about Elmo by suddenly becoming very famous. 0:46:37.640 --> 0:46:39.840 The reason why is because in nineteen ninety six the 0:46:39.880 --> 0:46:43.680 Tickle Me Elmo doll became like the must have Christmas toy. 0:46:43.760 --> 0:46:45.320 And I know we've talked about it in one of 0:46:45.320 --> 0:46:48.400 our Christmas episodes. But let's just briefly mention it again. 0:46:49.000 --> 0:46:51.120 Yeah, I mean thank you Rosio o donald for this one. 0:46:51.400 --> 0:46:54.160 Tickle me Elmo came on Rosio o' donal, and it 0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:56.920 was a big, big deal. This may have been a 0:46:56.920 --> 0:47:01.359 black Pridy episode thing too, because trying to buy those 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:05.560 Elmos at the time was a thing. There was stampeding, 0:47:05.760 --> 0:47:10.120 people went to the hospital. There were people selling them 0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:13.520 on the black market for like really high prices. So 0:47:13.719 --> 0:47:18.160 Elmo was a overnight sensation, like you know, sixteen years 0:47:18.160 --> 0:47:20.719 after or I guess twelve years after his debut. 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:25.319 Yeah, fourteen years ted come it. Also, Elmo is the 0:47:25.320 --> 0:47:28.640 only non human to testify before Congress. That's right on 0:47:28.760 --> 0:47:32.480 behalf of music education in school. I got two more things. 0:47:32.800 --> 0:47:35.000 Just want to call out Julia, a four year old 0:47:35.080 --> 0:47:38.920 muppet with autism who's been around since twenty seventeen. And 0:47:38.960 --> 0:47:42.360 then apparently this year season fifty five, one of the 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:45.800 big themes that they're tackling are big feelings and kids 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:48.400 dealing with them. And they're even debuting a new muppet 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:52.040 who's teaching kids like breathing techniques to call themselves down. 0:47:52.520 --> 0:47:53.480 That's great. 0:47:53.680 --> 0:47:56.160 And then last thing I have is if you want 0:47:56.160 --> 0:48:00.000 a little dose of nostalgia, go watch the full common 0:48:00.000 --> 0:48:08.960 compilation of the Pinball count songs. Remember those three four pots, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. 0:48:09.760 --> 0:48:10.560 Well, I don't remember that. 0:48:11.320 --> 0:48:13.280 I came out in seventy six, so yeah, you probably 0:48:13.320 --> 0:48:15.440 have moved on to Electric Company by then. You're like, 0:48:15.480 --> 0:48:18.880 that's baby stuff. It's great, you should watch it. The 0:48:18.960 --> 0:48:22.759 animation in it is beautiful, beautifully seventies. It's great. 0:48:22.840 --> 0:48:23.719 Yeah, I love it. 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:25.080 Anything else. 0:48:25.520 --> 0:48:28.640 Yeah. In two thousand and five, that was a bit 0:48:28.640 --> 0:48:32.439 of a stir because Cookie Monster, you know, was known 0:48:32.480 --> 0:48:35.560 for just ravaging cookies and stuffing them in his face 0:48:35.600 --> 0:48:38.080 and crumbs flying everywhere, and that's the beauty of Cookie Monster. 0:48:38.640 --> 0:48:41.040 But people were like, you know, maybe it's not such 0:48:41.040 --> 0:48:43.480 a good idea to have a character that's just binge 0:48:43.480 --> 0:48:48.319 eating sugar, right and sweets and treats. So they use 0:48:48.400 --> 0:48:52.400 Cookie Monster as an impulse control model for moderation, and 0:48:52.440 --> 0:48:55.680 a cookie became a sometimes food from Cookie Monster, And 0:48:55.719 --> 0:48:57.319 of course people are going to be like, what are 0:48:57.320 --> 0:48:59.760 you kidding me? Is this gonna be Veggie Monster next? 0:49:00.239 --> 0:49:02.600 And there were letter writing campaigns and there was a 0:49:02.600 --> 0:49:07.319 petition and all this stuff and Veggie Monster was never 0:49:07.360 --> 0:49:08.920 gonna be a thing. They were just I guess they 0:49:09.000 --> 0:49:12.200 just filed those complaint letters in the circular file and 0:49:12.200 --> 0:49:13.840 it's like settled down, everybody. 0:49:15.680 --> 0:49:17.759 I got one more I overlook, do you want to 0:49:17.760 --> 0:49:21.800 hear it? Sure? This is our Kane. But Telly remember 0:49:21.840 --> 0:49:25.640 Telly Monster we talked about, Yes, but no, Okay, So 0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:30.239 Telly has a hamster named Chucky Sue and he used 0:49:30.280 --> 0:49:32.560 to have a stuffed animal horse named Clark. 0:49:33.280 --> 0:49:34.080 Oh how about that? 0:49:34.400 --> 0:49:38.000 Yeah, pretty neat. Huh Yeah, total coincidence too, is from 0:49:38.040 --> 0:49:39.160 the nineties, both of them. 0:49:39.400 --> 0:49:41.640 Yeah, just like that. Hints and up just coming out. 0:49:42.000 --> 0:49:48.120 Yeah, lots of Kermit kurs since I said Kursman, of course, everybody. 0:49:48.160 --> 0:49:52.440 That means it's time for listener mail. Yeah. 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:56.279 This is a little bit on libraries from name reducted. Hey, guys, 0:49:56.320 --> 0:49:59.080 love the many on alternative libraries. I'm a member of 0:49:59.160 --> 0:50:01.640 the board my local library and my wife is a 0:50:01.680 --> 0:50:05.680 school librarian. I want to salute and celebrate our librarians 0:50:05.680 --> 0:50:08.840 who are largely thought of as old ladies with buns 0:50:08.880 --> 0:50:11.040 and cat eye glasses, but they are actually on the 0:50:11.040 --> 0:50:13.200 front lines of the fight for the first Amendment in 0:50:13.239 --> 0:50:16.800 many ways. My local library has a teen room whose 0:50:16.840 --> 0:50:21.040 librarian is collecting the LGTBQ books discarded by other libraries 0:50:21.400 --> 0:50:24.799 because of certain bad actors. The librarian at the high 0:50:24.800 --> 0:50:28.760 school I work has sent red cards telling our heavily 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:32.880 immigrant population what to say if ice immigrants show up 0:50:32.880 --> 0:50:35.160 at their door or stop them on the way to school, 0:50:35.800 --> 0:50:38.520 and apparently his wife. The librarian has to really get 0:50:38.560 --> 0:50:42.160 involved in reference searches these days because of like you know, 0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:45.680 book banning and just getting rid of certain educational proposals. 0:50:45.680 --> 0:50:49.799 So one of our favorite t shirts says, what is 0:50:49.880 --> 0:50:53.160 more punk than the local library? So thanks guys for 0:50:53.200 --> 0:50:54.480 all you do and keep it up. And that is 0:50:54.520 --> 0:50:56.120 from name reducted. 0:50:56.480 --> 0:50:58.920 Thanks name redacted. I know we talked about that some 0:50:59.080 --> 0:51:03.560 in our band on Books episode. Yeah, but yes, you 0:51:03.640 --> 0:51:06.759 can't say it enough. God bless librarians for making sure 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:09.480 that people are educated as we can be for free. 0:51:09.680 --> 0:51:11.760 That's right, perfect fit for this episode. 0:51:11.760 --> 0:51:14.319 Two. Yeah, I thought so too. Well, if you want 0:51:14.320 --> 0:51:15.680 to get in touch of this, like name or d 0:51:15.680 --> 0:51:17.560 acted did, you can tell us your name or not 0:51:17.800 --> 0:51:20.920 doesn't matter, We'll clearly protect you. You can send it 0:51:21.000 --> 0:51:25.240 via email, probably encrypted if you want to Stuff podcast 0:51:25.280 --> 0:51:29.919 at iHeartRadio dot com. 0:51:30.080 --> 0:51:32.960 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:51:33.040 --> 0:51:37.239 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:51:37.360 --> 0:51:39.200 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.