Sesame Street

Sesame Street
Genre	Children's television series Educational
Created by	Joan Ganz Cooney Lloyd Morrisett Jon Stone Jim Henson (Muppet characters only)
Theme music composer	Joe Raposo Jon Stone Bruce Hart
Opening theme	"Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?"
Ending theme	"Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?" (instrumental; up until season 45) "Smarter, Stronger, Kinder" (season 46 onwards)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	54
No. of episodes	4666
Production
Executive producers	David Connell (1969–72) Jon Stone (1972–78) Al Hyslop (1978–80) (credited as "producer" in season 10) Dulcy Singer (1980–93) Michael Loman (1993–2002) Lewis Bernstein (2003–05) Carol-Lynn Parente (2006–17) Brown Johnson (2017–19) Benjamin Lehmann (2018–present)
Production locations	Reeves Teletape Studios (1969–92) Unitel Video, Inc. (1987–93) Kaufman Astoria Studios (1993–present)
Running time	60 minutes (1969–2015) 30 minutes (2014–present)
Production company	Sesame Workshop
Original release
Network	NET (1969–1970) PBS (1970–present) HBO (2016–2020) Max (2020–present)
Release	November 10, 1969 (1969-11-10) – present

Sesame Street is an American children's television in series with many Muppets (puppet characters) and non-Muppet characters (human characters). There are also many animated characters. The show deals with issues like music, song, alphabet, numbers, and teaching children basics in learning, as well as more serious issues like death, divorce, HIV/AIDS, autism, and foster care. Part of the profits, go to an international project for children's schools. 54 seasons to 5,435 episodes.

The show has been on TV since November 10, 1969. Jim Henson made the Muppets and a lot of writers and puppeteers worked together to make the show. The Muppets were used afterwards in a different show called The Muppet Show. Sesame Street has been on TV in 120 countries all over the world. More than 4000 episodes have been made over 50 seasons. One unique feature of the show is that the episode number appears at the start of each episode.

For most of its history, Sesame Street had been shown on PBS. In 2015, new episodes began airing on PBS in January 2016, but those episodes would be shown on PBS nine months. In 2020, Sesame Street aired on PBS for the last time. After five seasons on PBS, the show returns to PBS as its first-run program, for the newer episodes, starting with the 51st season.

The Muppets

See the main article: The Muppets

• Big Bird is a 8-foot-tall yellow bird-rex. He was the first Muppet to appear on Sesame Street. His best friend is Snuffleupagus who looks like a reddish-brown mammoth-like elephant-creature with no tusks and was assumed to be imaginary by the rest of the cast, until the creators revealed him due to hearing about reports of sexual abuse cases of children. Performed by Caroll Spinney (1969–2018) and Matt Vogel (2009–present).
• Oscar the Grouch is dwelling green alien who lives in a garbage can with his pet worm Slimey and his pet elephant Fluffy. He is always in a bad mood and he loves everything that other people hate: mud, dirt, etc. He has a girlfriend named Grundgetta. Performed by Caroll Spinney (1969–2018) and Matt Vogel (2009–present).
• Bert and Ernie are two roommates. Ernie is more active and always ready to play a game or make a mess. Bert is an often boring grouch who likes to read; he likes things to be clean, neat and loves pigeons. They are rumors that they are gay, which Sesame Workshop has denied.
• Cookie Monster is a blue alien that has a baritone voice, and eats large amounts of cookies. It was rumored that he would be renamed the Veggie Monster in an effort to promote healthy eating, but that turned out to be untrue. He also once had his own skit where he introduced parodies of famous books, movies, plays, and TV shows. Performed by Frank Oz and Peter Cullen.
• Zoe is a female yellowish-orange alien. She has a rock named Rocco and loves ballet. She is also Elmo's best friend.
• Rosita is a bilingual turquoise female alien who is from Mexico and speaks both English and Spanish. She also plays the guitar. Performed by Carmen Osbahr.
• Grover is a clumsy blue alien. He pretends to be a superhero named Super Grover. Super Grover is his alter ego.
• Count von Count (The Count) is a number-counting lavender vampire.
• Prairie Dawn is methodic and driven young girl who loves to write and direct pageants featuring her friends
• Elmo is a small red alien who has a falsetto voice and lives with his goldfish named Dorothy. He speaks in third person and got his own Sesame Street segment, Elmo's World, in 1998.
• Kermit the Frog is one of the first Muppets designed and built by Jim Henson. Borgenicht calls Kermit "funny, ironic, and always the voice of reason amidst the insanity around him; the calm in the eye of the storm". He was a star on Sesame Street until 2001. He had his own skit where he interviewed characters from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and history.

Other muppets for Sesame Street include a girl fairy named Abby Cadabby, Murray, his lamb named Ovajita, Juila, and the Two-Headed Monster. Not only Muppets play in the show but also a diverse cast of human characters who live with the Muppets.

Episodes

Series overview

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
	1	130	November 10, 1969	May 8, 1970
	2	145	November 9, 1970	May 28, 1971
	3	130	November 15, 1971	May 12, 1972
	4		November 13, 1972	May 11, 1973
	5		November 19, 1973	May 17, 1974
	6		November 4, 1974	May 2, 1975
	7		December 1, 1975	May 28, 1976
	8		November 29, 1976	May 27, 1977
	9		November 28, 1977	May 26, 1978
	10		November 27, 1978	May 25, 1979
	11		November 26, 1979	May 23, 1980
	12		November 24, 1980	May 22, 1981
	13		November 23, 1981	May 21, 1982
	14		November 22, 1982	May 20, 1983
	15		November 21, 1983	May 18, 1984
	16		November 19, 1984	May 17, 1985
	17		November 18, 1985	May 16, 1986
	18		November 17, 1986	May 15, 1987
	19		November 16, 1987	May 13, 1988
	20		November 14, 1988	May 12, 1989
	21		November 13, 1989	May 11, 1990
	22		November 12, 1990	May 10, 1991
	23		November 11, 1991	May 8, 1992
	24		November 9, 1992	May 7, 1993
	25		November 22, 1993	May 20, 1994
	26		November 21, 1994	May 19, 1995
	27		November 20, 1995	May 17, 1996
	28		November 18, 1996	May 16, 1997
	29		November 17, 1997	May 15, 1998
	30	65	November 16, 1998	May 7, 1999
	31		January 3, 2000	May 12, 2000
	32		January 1, 2001	March 30, 2001
	33	50	February 4, 2002	April 12, 2002
	34	26	April 7, 2003	May 12, 2003
	35		April 4, 2004	May 10, 2004
	36		April 4, 2005	December 30, 2005
	37		August 14, 2006	November 10, 2006
	38		August 13, 2007	October 16, 2007
	39		August 11, 2008	November 7, 2008
	40		November 10, 2009	February 18, 2010
	41	44	September 20, 2010	January 5, 2011
	42		September 26, 2011	February 6, 2012
	43	26	September 24, 2012	April 25, 2013
	44		September 16, 2013	March 20, 2014
	45		September 15, 2014	June 8, 2015
	46	35	January 16, 2016	October 29, 2016
	47		January 7, 2017	September 2, 2017
	48		November 18, 2017	July 14, 2018
	49		November 17, 2018	July 13, 2019
	50		November 16, 2019	July 18, 2020
	51		November 12, 2020	July 8, 2021
	52		November 11, 2021	Juley 7, 2022
	53		November 3, 2022	June 29, 2023
	54		November 9, 2023	July 4, 2024

Related pages

• Sesame Workshop

Other websites

• Muppet Central