Sesame Street Soul
Forty years of funky television
by Kurt Iveson
Towards the end of 1968, almost all of the pieces for a new television show aimed at inner-city kids were in place. A group of activists committed to using television to help educate disadvantaged children formed the Children’s Television Workshop. The Workshop pulled together a diverse and dedicated team of entertainment and educational professionals, who had spent months workshopping ideas for an innovative combination of fun and curriculum. Included in the mix was Jim Henson and his company, poised to launch a new crew of muppets on the world. Initial funding for the show had been secured from the federal government and the Ford and Carnegie Foundations. The CTW even had a street team in place, ready to promote the show to inner-city communities.
But with only weeks to go before shooting commenced, the show had no name and no set.
One night as the deadline drew near, producer Jon Stone was struck with a bolt of inspiration as he sat down in front of his TV. The inspiration came in the form of a public service announcement aimed to draw attention to the plight of the very inner-city kids who were at the heart of CTW’s mission. “Send your kid to a ghetto this summer,” suggested the announcement, “we have all kinds of facilities here.” It then went on to talk about ghetto pools (with pictures of fire hydrants gushing into gutters), ball fields (with pictures of kids playing stick-ball in a car-lined street), potential field trips (with pictures of vacant lots covered in rubbish), and cozy camp cabins (with pictures of kids sleeping three and four to a bed). At the end of the ad, the narrator asked, “You don’t want your kids to play here this summer? Then don’t expect ours to. Give jobs. Give money. Give a damn.”
Stone immediately realized that the new show needed a street setting. Recalling the decision later, he said, “For a preschool child in Harlem, the street is where the action is. Outside there are kids hollering, jumping double-dutch, running through the open hydrants, playing stickball. Our set had to be an inner-city street, and more particularly it had to be a brownstone so the cast and kids could ‘stoop’ in the age-old New York tradition, sitting on the front steps and watching the world go by.”(1)
By the standards of children’s television at the time, this was a radical move. The set was populated by a diverse mix of kids, adults, and muppets, so that Sesame Street (as it was finally called) became a feisty and fantastic extension of a reality its target audience could recognize.
And, reflecting the streets which provided its inspiration, Sesame Street had to have soul.
Not surprisingly, music was a fundamental part of the show. The theme song, written by Joe Raposo (with that famous harmonica provided by jazz musician “Toots” Thielemans), set the tone, with kids singing as they made their way to Sesame Street. Even more importantly, songs for the show had to be catchy enough to work like advertising jingles, lodging themselves in the heads of the kids watching—but instead of advertising products, they were advertising the numbers and letters that sponsored each episode.
The studio musicians assembled by Raposo also had the occasional chance to stretch in providing incidental music for the documentary-like segments that peppered the show, which took viewers to the zoo or to a playground or some other place.
And, of course, some incredible musicians also made memorable guest appearances on the show. Indeed, as the show built a large audience and critical acclaim, guests were lining up to take part. Folks like Lou Rawls, Leena Horne, Smokey Robinson, and Ray Charles turned up to sing along with kids, joined by muppets and the Sesame Street house band. Stevie Wonder took over the street with his whole band.
Alongside the guest musicians, other celebrities like James Earl Jones, Jackie Robinson, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor showed up to read the alphabet or count some numbers. Jesse Jackson even did a spot leading a bunch of Sesame Street kids in a recitation of “I Am Somebody.”
So, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the show, here’s a list of some of Sesame Street’s soulful highlights.
1. Stone is quoted in Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, by Mark Davis (Viking, 2008).
