BackStory; Sunny Days: The History of Sesame Street in America and the World

major funding for backstory provided by an anonymous donor the national down for the canaries and josephine robert cornell the moral foundation this is welcome the backstory the show that explains the history behind today's headlines i'm brian balogh and then there's and i'm joined freeman if they knew to the podcast were all historians along with her colleague nathan conley and each week we explore topic in american history for many there was nothing brings back wistful childhood memories quite like sesame street whether it was practicing your abcs with big bird learning the value of

friendship from burton ernie or exploring emotions with elmo the show has a special place in hearts all across the country since the first aired in nineteen sixty nine sesame street has raked in countless awards and has become one of the longest running children's television shows in history but not the sixty six sesame street was nothing more than an idea sort of the people at the party were interested in or actually working in television that's lloyd morissette the cofounder of sesame street he says the origins of the show can be traced back to a dinner party in new york city hosted by joan cooney a television producer and so i said at one point in the conversation showed is a television could be used to teach young children and her answer was i don't know that i'd like to talk about and so with that question began the development of what would become sesame street but you understand while boyd would ask such a question

with rewind a bit before sesame street he was a psychologist at the carnegie corp an organization that supports academic policy and childhood development at the time there was lots of talk about the education gap between rich and poor children that's were let's work as a psychologist comes in we first i think three to five how much are the number anymore experiments to see if something could be done about where children are given special treatment special curriculum and to see whether or not when they went into school they could do better all those programs worked alone says those experiments was successful only reached a few thousand children have a solution that problem television but not everybody agreed with them the general feeling in the academic

world at the time was that the television was a boon to write so there wasn't any uniform feeling that it was really possible for television to be a beneficial educational applications the audience we are particularly trying to reach was a disadvantage audience that was otherwise likely to fail in the early grades asking a typically speaking there were or about four and a half million children entering school each year and about a third of those were better at a disadvantage in reading for example of three months but in the first grade it would be for the ryan lessard great to be your mind and they never made up now most of those children lived in urban areas so in choosing a setting for the program we chose an urban area and of course we were in new york that have a very large population of the children were talking about and you decided that should be in new

york and it should be in the very beginning representative of the multicultural nature of me over time did it turn out that the kids who were not from disadvantaged backgrounds bridges says a tracker that showed good to go to the countryside and they're really seen a city street you find that that strategy that you have to reach that you're your target audience also reached other kids wrote to me that the viewing conditions were very different than they are now in the time we went on the air in nineteen sixty nine a typical family would have one television set and the family would watch the television together proposal was only one program would be watched so we have to design programs that appeal fairly broadly to both adults and children and so they are the writers concentrated on having content of the adults would find humorous and funny and keep them involve so the children would

indeed watch now what happened to measure your question was yes we did find that the entertainment values in the show attracted children who did not need as much in the educational roman as their children were dracula christian right and as you know it it meant that we're really had to continue to think of the curriculum that was going to most benefit the children most in the rye those same time keep the show entertaining enough so they would have a lot of hardy has had attracted else's war children so there was television that young people learn something from before sesame street and i was fascinated by captain kangaroo and the main thing i love the shadow side i shouldn't speak yeah poorly other but the main thing i remember is i really really wanted a schwinn

bicycle he had this is mostly at this great sense of solidarity with them and they would come on and talk about just how excellent a schwinn was so solid an excellent so how would you differentiate that your cells in the early days from shows like captain kangaroo over the first year of the program the main hurdle that we had to overcome was to prove that television could indeed be used to teach un shelter and the study that was done after the first year and show that the mortar watch the more they learned and that indeed they did learn some things were we were trying to teach the things we were trying to teach were chosen not only because they were things that are useful to children but they were also things that can be measured did they know their letters that they know their numbers soul at the beginning

the the very explicit purpose of sesame street was to get kids who otherwise are starting and sort of at a deficit when the stars go ahead start the feel or sesame street is help you narrow the gap between more and less fortunate kids in some ways yes button in an accomplished in the original goal know the demographics of that group have changed considerably over the years that is a change what i think now i'm speaking personally us is that what we saw as an educational problem was second marriage an educational problem really it was an income inequality problem and that we have not overcome and i say one other thing here and work where i live now in california i see many spanish background children

and several are told me that they learned english from sesame street artist and that was one of our goals but children are better motivated can find something to learn and sesame street offers a lot of possibilities so today on the show a celebration of sesame street's fiftieth anniversary walking down memory lane for the new a history of america's most beloved children should have the show has been successfully exploited find out how a sesame street advocate stations throughout for forty five years of the show and we'll hear from a special through refinancing sesame street might be one of the most famous streets in the united states but it turns out there were and in some cases still are international versions of sesame street all

across the world i'm talking about russian versions of sesame street jermaine versions of sesame street sesame street in northern ireland candidate south africa and the middle east but these versions are the same thing you'd see in the united states in all cases they're tailor made to reflect the local concerns and issues of children for twenty years charlotte call helped develop international programing for sesame workshop i got in touch with her recently to find out what it was like developing muppet characters that connected with kids all over the world but i started our conversation by asking charlotte to explain the international model of sesame street and how it developed in the days before she joined the project in nineteen ninety four when a vault you know in the seventies when a very early on was this co production model where initially about fifty percent of the content was from sesame street in the united states and then another fifty percent

was produced locally so in the german show which is bent on you know for years and years and years you need see burglary and that they would lose those segments were dubbed into german but you know kids living in germany really is a lot of bourbon early as german wright so much so that you know there were even on postage stamps in some of these power yet but one that the difference when i came was that there are some opportunities to really look at how you could use sesame street to promote international development paints and i'm assuming again that that would be a combination of american producers and educators working with producers and educators in winter her work show or south africa our and and coming up with what that sort of message ought to be yours that really mostly coming from the country where the show is going to be it was a

collaboration that was just the most and some of the most exciting elements about working on these programs was this you know opportunity to be working with these amazingly oliver the of the world and the sesame workshop model which was used you know and i still use today in the united states was innovative in that it brought together researchers educators to work over the course of an entire project with the producers and in the international realm you kind of layer and that whole element of bringing and educators from whatever region you're working in whatever country at and they're working with researchers there and the production team and then collaborating with experts at sesame and so it became this kind of uber collaboration well let's talk about an example of that just the people can get a sense of that when you talk about working on the israeli and palestinian version so how did that work what

what kind of messages were you developing together and then what what did the outcome look like so with that production we began first by having meetings that were separate with israelis and palestinians and then there's also a group of palestinian israeli citizens who were you know arab citizens of israel and had a meeting with experts from those three groups and even having tennis at separate time to really art have them articulate what did they want the program to bring their children and what they want their kids to learn and then we had an opportunity to bring people together in n out seminar that you know that was fascinating i mean they were there were people the joint who had never been in the room with somebody from the other group and they really talked about what should kids now and what should be said they were and what's amazing i think in

terms of sesame street and kind of why we were able to work in these different realms was you know for all of the discourse that might be negative across group divides everybody wants a brighter future for their children become a huge you know fire you can get people to talk about their kids and talk about what they wanted for their kids and you know even colombia much more playful engagement just lies everybody was focused on kids that critical particularly that it had its ups and downs he kind of in accordance with what was happening politically and it morphed into different things but the essential core was to wonder you know it had sort of a basic curriculum that was very much like the critical here and unite states of literacy numerous a kind of basic social skills but it was awesome to help introduce palestinian children to israelis and the israelis

children to palestinians now i understand that that particular show or as you put it crime morphed over the years explicitly because of the politics of the situation particularly having to do with the idea of one street is that true well there'd been a program in israel for a long time that was quite beloved that was a sesame street programs and so on and that was produced by israeli educational television and so this was an extension of that in in many ways in the very beginning but the invasion was that there was eight israeli street and there was a palestinian street and really what what evolved was basically two different shows in the end there was some crossover between the characters where israeli characters would come to the palestinian program and vice versa but there were there were two distinct differences between the end products for a lot a lot of reasons and

will one of the palestinian problem was in arabic and that the israeli was in hebrew and then it did have some arabic elements to it so it is our character our segment or something that really stands out to you from the israeli palestinian version of sesame street that really kind of captures what that was all about well what's the inter characters you know each of that the israelis had their cast and the palestinians have to cast a man and then they had other characters that away and i talk to each other like there's a there's a beautiful exchange between these two or muppet today can of muppets that that her disease kind of happy go lucky muppets that are exchanging and that at one point they are in other rising one they want speaks hebrew and the other speaks arabic and they're kind of cut a figure out how they're going to communicate

and in the end they will is that they share a love of falafel and so they dispatched to the end you know i go back to each other fall off or they are you know and so the falafel becomes though their shared word and they're kind of shared love it's this idea of finding your common humanity let me shift from the israeli palestinian version that we've been talking about to another one of these international sesame street oceans that had educational and then some kind of an beeper message to it and that's on south africa and i understand that you helped develop a character named tammy surgeon in this was really wonderful so early on sesame had had visited south africa they were actually invited to that was a little bit before i arrived there were invited to

come and have talked to people and see if it would be possible to do a sesame co production they're in and the company was very interested but had decided they wanted to wait until you know after apartheid and so once apartheid ended they decided to do a program that would support south africa's new curriculum and this sesame piece was going to support that the program had been on the on the free year of the principal toppling sesame there was and this was true for the very beginning people and educators in south africa really felt that any kind of educational program in south africa needs to address a chevy and eight at the time there was a wonderful minister of education seems cut or how small it seemed sesame street and he was very familiar with it he knew kind of its potential he also was deeply i'm concerned about the situation of a tv and

aids in south africa and i think he felt it was a responsibility of the minister the ministry of education to be educating the population about the issues of a kenyan eight and he also believed in starting early this was a country where one in nine south africa's south africans was affected by infected by the disease and so it was impacting them out on a huge level and he felt very strongly that even young kids can learn about this and so it was really his kind of drive that set us up we began by just looking at you know what should young kids now and we did form of testing to find out what the kids are reading now what we found out was the kids how you know the associated it alienates with a coordinate it was negative valence or maybe knew it was something that they you know it was a you know it was a

disease and really what became kind of emerged was there was such a huge culture of silence around ha va needs and what people felt was that we need to give kids a lexicon for talking about a teddy inmates' kids and their parents the result of that was the development of this character cammie whose name means hope every aspect of her words deliberate first of all she's a more humanoid looking up in and the reason for that was that if you're with human disease and you know that didn't want them to be confusion without more animal like character she's female because of the disproportionate number of women who are infected all the different elements of her personality kind of who she was where were debated by these educators and working with

the creative staff she became this vehicle war helping kids learn about a teddy and eight senate and it really became a wonderful wonderful thing and what's interesting is the feedback though that we got from parents from kids and is it really worked it was a way for people to talk about it you know she you became champion for children for unicef she is kind of cut at an official who you know isn't exactly ambassador title yet nobody can be an ambassador for muppet but she was as close as you can be christopher yoo have fun and the president don't work and they were these ideas talk to people about things that are important to them about things that will make a difference in their lives yes well i do that also talk to people about my school and my friends and my favorite things and i also

talk to them about it and eats natalie actually talking about whether a puppet can be an ambassador not i i understand that you use the term muppet diplomacy before in talking about this work so so what actually do you mean by that tulley muppets are playful they are enduring to two people and then i've seen people be in the meetings and we'll have little plush toy sitting on the table and you know and the things the discussions get difficult people start fiddling around with these plush toys and at certain amount mills you know and i i think that muppet diplomacy is really about getting at that common humanity that we share and the muppets just it is charcoal is executive director and co

founder of blue butterfly collaborative which supports locally made educational programming in low income countries for twenty years she was senior vice president of global education at sesame workshop and thanks to unicef or the audio you just heard of candy with that if you couldn't tell former president bill clinton while and move okay guys i have a confession yeah killer let's hear i've always had this wish to one day to meet a muppet you know who hasn't had that i wish the journalist come true if it did i am very happy to report that i did is that you do you really like and it is the main character new jersey to her well actually her

full name is a seat that the most of the last quiet nights she's an adorable turquoise monster he's been a recurring character on sesame street for nearly thirty years presenter stands out among her furry friends because she's bilingual and you can often find her teaching her fellow muppets words or phrases in spanish she loves to share a culture with her friend says he's actually getting a lot to say a few words she loves music she plays the guitar he's just happy to be part of the gang and it's easy to imagine beloved characters like big bird elmo and rosita as actual living an autonomous creatures but the reality is that behind every character is a talented muppet year bringing them to life yeah my name is that a man was about into imam up a tear on sesame street and i perform and rossi doubts in all the heat down for the word on the street and you know she can stand ping winston our monasteries so they're

there i am to help with that carmen has been with rosie this is the character was introduced in nineteen ninety one calling even works with the show to create crazy this personality an appearance and i wanted a light hands for her to be very touchable you know like graph things are friends and beautiful huge arms and zach niles the said you know i don't want her tiny i won a big monster and then they have no well what is when it will be her name and i thought well you know it has to be within our so people can roll the are when they see a real seat then i can teach them how to roll the are so proceed they came along too by the time cumming joined sesame street she was already a skilled puppeteer she had worked on the show plaza says a mall in mexico city today it's just cold sesame oil it's the version of sesame street for spanish speakers in america carter says it was actually the first episode of plaza says similar

nineteen seventy two that initially sparked her fascination for puppetry in it a wonder to wow how they do that is just i didn't know that they wear those things other costs to use i have no idea so when the opportunity came to me when i was eighteen to take a workshop that was for me the moment the moments that i realize that there was nothing else i wanted to do that before but it was so difficult to earn it was i realize that it was not just you know you're not wearing a puppet you know it was a little guy with just one expression right into your hands above your head you know you have to do everything else i was so challenging carmen got the hang of it and eventually landed a job with clauses system all and after a few years working in mexico she was invited to check out the set of sesame street in new york city that's my conversation with jim henson changed her life and i walk in and eyes

so you know the puppeteers they are win burden ernie in it couldn't believe that it was just so magical and it was magical to see them working together there was so much fine and they make these characters and then jim henson invited me to be part of a workshop i thought oh you know i may be maybe they need a bilingual character i don't know so yes i was part of that were shot for two weeks and he was so much fun and i was just about to go to mexico and we were in the studio and he called me you know he was in the other side of the room and he called me and i just walked him in he's in a car men after the workshop you know i just i wanted to ask you at one of the part of my muppet family home and he really gave me a family because i love my country and i went my home and everybody and and i can hear about myself then he gave me that you know all the muppet tiers and iron

and everybody's been wonderful and knowledge is the new authority so you describe wonderfully the characteristics you wanted anyone heard him to be able to hire because on that what are some of the aspects that you thought she was bringing to the show that maybe weren't there before her character was there well first of all as she was going through the struggles that i was going in that was that we knew in a new country and she was new in a news release so it was very natural for her to be doing what i was doing you know i remember right at the beginning a seed that was struggling with higher words and her ax since and she was the only one that he was feeling bad about what was happening but everybody else was saying absolutely no i mean you don't have to feel bad news big to land which is not alas big to land which is that you know all the contrary is great that you're able to speak to land which is so i think it's great that there is

one more character in a rainbow of characters on sesame street because i think sesame street is always being so important you see the cast and nineties sixty nine you know you have russ go there you have a gourd you have murray and louise and then those days you didn't have people of color are on on the tv show and the kids finally were able to identified you know it's like oh there's somebody that looks like me on tv ad wave of receipt that i think they continue what they started in nineteen sixty nine just adding another color in the rainbow you know and what was the response when her character first appeared an added that go into the rainbow how did people respond to her character oh it was grapes oh gosh i have a lot of lenders everybody was really happy that there was a monster a bilingual monster is still is overwhelming i'm honored to represent my people but the other day we were performing at the lincoln

center with wynton marsalis with all the celebrations of their fiftieth anniversary any was amazing experience to sing live and then at the end we went through the audience and they really don't care that we're trying to talk to recede and span is a little world the only will they all say hello they say all of that you know and they tell her her name in spanish and is just of the horrible mom now has there been had you noticed in the time that you've been received as there's been a change in the way that people respond to her character at all well now they know her better you know there's so many characters on sesame street but they definitely know an event define her as she plays the guitar and she speaks spanish island that it is really good also received has been part of a lot of the outreach projects that sesame workshop pass and you know what he does in part of videos for the military families

for like the last ten years so the audience to as much as like the people that they see me through those show that they supersede that now and videos of their specific you know for like cat dealing with changes for the military are or are losing somebody or or impersonal asian and all these wonderful work that says sesame workshop asked for community see it and actually i have to say in the average receipt that's that is in a wheelchair and i was able to go to walter reef i'm visiting some families there but i was able to go to the preschool that they have their end it was really a special moment because he kept a maine and you know i did some songs with them and rosita sang in but then or when a little girl came to really quietly empty for a hog and she told her i know you are dealing with a lot of home because your daddy's in a wheelchair

my daddy's in a wheelchair to put everything is gonna be ok you'll see and i really it have had that big genome that completely the kids are amazing you know with a cat is because i know them and they share saying send and there their friends so but their baby was just a special to have that moment when a little girl saw the most rewarding thing in the world write that that that kid just said to you i learned what i was supposed to learn and now they give it to someone else yes yes now you talked about you know originally being really taken with just puppets and puppet hearing generally but thinking back to when you were a kid when you think it would've meant if there had been some kind of a row seat but the character that you could have gotten to know as a kid welby grain absolutely and but you know i'm a mom and i have to tell you that

these videos help me as as mom with my kid actually in my family we were going through changes when i was doing the video of change as in i didn't know how to talk to my kid about it i mean we're not in the military or anything but any regular family goes through a lot of health issues and stuff and i was going through changes at home and thank god i had the help of sesame street because i was able to talk to my kid in a way that now we both were understanding what was happening so thank god for that really seriously also and related to that question then how do you feel that it's important for kids whether it's your kids or someone else's kids why do you feel it's important for kids to be able to see themselves in muppet form whether or not it's a hulking monster or some other kind of creature i think it's very important and i hope they really get the message that we trying to send them you know sometimes i think about oscar the grouch right oscar

the grouch is just a wonderful character that he is who he is you know he is so proud she lights trash and he's fine about it as like i miss those who i am and this is what you get when you see me and i think out of that is very important for the kids to know no matter how you look no matter what your color no matter where you come from you are who you are in your special and also i think it should be allowed to have fun and to be goofy end to make mistakes and learn from them in and just talk to your friends and have a community is it or are

as we just heard those who dared the bilingual market is giving voice to an often under represented demographic in america in fact a turquoise monsters a perfect example of one of the enduring themes of sesame street diversity the show itself was established to appeal to a diverse audience and address deep seated issues like poverty and racial injustice being an historian of sesame street is really being a historian i love all kinds of different things and it's being an historian of social justice being a historian of race in america it's being a historian of media and popular culture sesame street provides this wonderful lands for which we can examine all sorts of different trends that are happening in american history that's catherine us trust me when sesame street

first aired in nineteen sixty nine she says it was an immediate hit but while the show was experiencing early success the country was grappling with civil rights and the vietnam war so i asked catherine why sesame street chose to promote diversity doing his turbulent time in american history while the right there is a lot of things going on in nineteen sixty nine and they were actually planning the show for a couple of years prior to that so through nineteen sixty seven and sixty eight there talking about well what can we do to fix some of the problems in society what can we do to address some of these major issues that we have as a country ends they were particularly interested in addressing poverty and racial intolerance in nineteen sixty seven you have all those urban uprising it's in nineteen sixty you have the assassination of martin luther king these are things that are on everybody's mind so when they start the

show day playing in the curriculum around cognitive goals around things that you would think of as basically like academic ends doe is however are just tools their means to an end on their thinking about how are we going to help kids feel comfortable in school and feel comfortable learning and particular howard in and help inner city african american kids and sesame street consciously had a racially integrated cast the first four cast members the hosts of the show were gordon and susan an african american couple and bond and mr hooper two white guys who lives in the neighborhood too and how did conceptions of diversity change over time how they reflected in the show well once you get to the nineteen seventies there are a lot of different groups who are looking at what happened with them

african american civil rights movement and saying what we should learn some lessons from that and work towards social justice for our communities to thank so you've got a women's movement you've got latino civil rights and pride movements you've got the american indian movement ends it got disability rights activists beginning to work toward law is helping their community and that show up on the screen sesame street was a show on public broadcasting ends it always conceived of itself as a show for the public because of that the public understood this as their show the public understood that this was a show that they could be a part of so an audience members people who were activists in other areas of society started looking at sesame street

saying well why can't somebody like us being on the show to end sesame street listened to them so they looked to people on their staff people in the cast and audience members who are writing in to their suggestions about how to make the show more reflective of what american society really was and what american society should be you're working on a podcast with co host from dorm about sesame street and i understand that we have a clip cued up here i'd like you to set it up for us what we can hear our podcast is called everything happens here half a century of sesame street ent we are exploring all the things that people have learned from sesame street over the years beyond the alphabet

or numbers arena talk to scholars have studied sesame street as well as the people who actually were involved in working on sesame street creating act and tell me a little bit about emily perl kingsley emily perl kingsley was a writer on sesame street for forty five years so she started in season two it nineteen seventy and disability issues became very important to her personally outside of the show ends she realized that working on a show like sesame street was an opportunity for her to bring these issues two of broad audience so we're going to hear her talk about how she wrote for a deaf character played by a deaf actress linda both and how she wrote for her own son jason who had down syndrome and was featured on the

show as well in season two i was assigned to go out and check out a thing called a little fear the death and you go out and when they were performing and i was absolutely enchanted with them their imaginative and creative and end you gave the audience a simultaneous experience and hearing people are not hearing people above be experiencing the same kind of thing with the signing and they're not signing was going on at the same time it was fascinating and so i came back from the chinese people have had their wonderful and we really need to have him on the show and i started writing the segments for them and they had a fabulous response fadel is in the process of writing the stuff for the little fear of the death i decided i should learn to sign i started socializing with these people and we would get together

on wednesday nights into you know community would play games they would just chat and so on and how it wasn't very very opening up experience for me because in addition to learning to sign and having all these new friends i was getting a little politicized about disability issues and i was it was interesting to be able to see things from their point of view which i had never been exposed to before and i've been in the boat came in and there was you know a character who became a regular she lived on the street she was definitely were wheeling some sanctions when but we did segments out with linda i have you wake up in the morning what kind of an alarm clock do you use if you can hear it and how do you know when somebody is ring in and say we're canceling his real questions

right there on the show and i don't think there was any show up to that time that had you know we dealt with that kind of something i read straight head on asking questions and answering of applause showing them and it was a full fledged ordinary manner in the community she has lived there she was the librarian she had a dog just as a person who happen to live an analyst allow you would deal with a death issue when emily started writing for the show in nineteen seventy she said she was in stinking about disability as part of diversity would that have been normal in nineteen seventy it would have been entirely normal for adults in nineteen seventy two in most cases would not have grown up around cheers and classmates and gone to school with individuals who were labeled as having a disability it would have been in a mostly new experience to see individuals with disabilities on television

so when there's an example of an adult character who appeared on the show and are represented people with disabilities were not children with disabilities on the show well the first child with a disability to be featured on sesame street was jason kingsley emily's sign in nineteen seventy four i had my son jason who was born with down syndrome and that was a very shocking experience to say the least personally oh we were given very very horrible advice from friendly obstetrician but this was the of the advice of the day you were told when the baby like this was one that even after ringing at home if you don't want to do it it can be placed in an institution and you could go home and tell your family that the

baby had died in childbirth because the the expectation was that this child would never accomplish anything he was about three it was too late and he was putting letters together and letters and scrabble tiles he was putting together and making little words and i was bawling our city utah this stuff that the directors and said was impossible by definition i realize i had this this venue this format not really at my disposal that was a possibility and i went to the producers and ice and his three year old kid with down syndrome was dying to read can we put on the show show people that were kits with this kind of a disability can learn more than anybody thought and i said sure let's try it it wasn't until nineteen seventy five there was the federal law requiring public schools except all children regardless of the nature of your greedy of disability that public schools

around the country were required to consider and start planning for the education of children with learning disabilities with down's syndrome and other developmental disabilities in many cases where children with disabilities were educated in public schools they were segregated in separate classrooms in separate schools starting in the late nineteen seventies schools and camps and classmates faced an entirely new world and so the representation of individuals with disabilities on a television show was probably the first exposure on media to the concept of disability for young children and when jason on the show and we did a whole bunch of short little segments with him first so fabulous that

he was doing better identification and illinois is making towards together and he was so cute you'd put on the show and maybe the response was actually from the mail that we got just blows away as amazing people would say i have a kid like that these guys were capable of it was that i never even seen a child with this condition on on a show ever it's so wonderful just to see america just having a regular life and so that's why it's i have to start thinking about why can't we do how can we do it justify can we did sayre of all say oh i can't reduce five if you know i can't we do helmets and embraces and precious some of the stuff and that's what sort of set me off and my my career of of

advocacy on the show if children with disabilities are really only being included in classrooms in the late nineteen seventies it's really early for sesame street to be including those children in bear some of televised classroom of the air nationwide ad in the early seventies my question for someone who wrote for the show for forty five years and shaped it in so many different ways what me and was her view of what the show was about i did a show it's called a fiery little red monster parade the idea of that show is solidify the compensation of one suspicious of dollars to make a parade and he's banging his romany saying come and you know come on the radar at

this the furry little red monster pray and then sally says how can i watch with you mentioned sure here's the song and she says women i'm not read our english so omar says well will change the song i'm a victory for that very little red and orange must've heard it and then somebody else comes along and wants to join in the parade was not a monster know or who's not little you know anytime there's a song changes to accommodate three people and then at the end it turns out that you know it's just become on really ridiculous to be singing this stupid song that's getting longer longer so they find it and changed it to areva the end it might mean for a break so the idea being that the message that it's ok to be one of us it can be ok to be for everyone

catherine ostrowsky the sesame street's dollars an independent historian her forthcoming podcast is called everything happens here half a century of sesame street still listen you'll find a link on our website at dubie toby toby got backstory radio dot org that's going to be with us today but you can keep the conversation going on and let us know what you thought of the episode as western portions of that history and you'll find a success story a percentage at the back story for us on facebook and twitter at backstory we don't be a stranger the shelf life of this week catherine backstory major support provided by johns hopkins university and the national

recommendations expresses podcast do not necessarily make additional support this or what about an artist and in park brian balogh is a professor of history at the university of virginia and is this professor of the humanities and president emeritus with john freeman is a professor of history and american studies at yale university's nathan connolly is by drought and associate professor of history at the johns hopkins university virginia