Come And Play: 'Sesame Street' Celebrates 40 Years : NPR:
"When first lady Michelle Obama popped in on Sesame Street to hang out with Elmo, Big Bird and some kids, she came to demonstrate one of her pet projects: how to plant your own vegetable garden. Her point was that from very small seeds, some delicious and wonderful things can grow. And in TV terms, Sesame Street 40 years ago was one of those seeds — and it has ended up feeding many generations of young viewers."
On Nov. 10, 1969, when we first heard the theme to Sesame Street, public television itself was a new and largely unproven entity. There was no cable TV then, no Fox — by and large, just three commercial networks and, in each TV market, a local station or two. Children's television wasn't very regulated, and certainly, by the end of the 1960s, wasn't very good. Sesame Street, with its simple mandate of educating children as it entertained them, changed all that.
We live in such a different technological world now that one of the basic principles of Sesame Street has been, quite recently, overthrown. Sesame Street was available to any family, no matter how poor, so long as it had electricity and a TV set. Tune in, and even the most disadvantaged preschooler could learn his or her ABCs and count to 10 and begin attending school without feeling left behind.
"When first lady Michelle Obama popped in on Sesame Street to hang out with Elmo, Big Bird and some kids, she came to demonstrate one of her pet projects: how to plant your own vegetable garden. Her point was that from very small seeds, some delicious and wonderful things can grow. And in TV terms, Sesame Street 40 years ago was one of those seeds — and it has ended up feeding many generations of young viewers."
On Nov. 10, 1969, when we first heard the theme to Sesame Street, public television itself was a new and largely unproven entity. There was no cable TV then, no Fox — by and large, just three commercial networks and, in each TV market, a local station or two. Children's television wasn't very regulated, and certainly, by the end of the 1960s, wasn't very good. Sesame Street, with its simple mandate of educating children as it entertained them, changed all that.
We live in such a different technological world now that one of the basic principles of Sesame Street has been, quite recently, overthrown. Sesame Street was available to any family, no matter how poor, so long as it had electricity and a TV set. Tune in, and even the most disadvantaged preschooler could learn his or her ABCs and count to 10 and begin attending school without feeling left behind.
