Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/Once upon a time, American kids had a problem—OK, two. They were watching way, WAY too much TV and they were falling way, way behind in school. But then a trailblazing producer and her psychologist friend asked a bold question: What if we used the first problem to solve the second? The result: Sesame Street, home of Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert & Ernie, and a social-media superstar named Elmo. Since Sesame Street’s debut in 1969—the same year as the moon landing!—the show’s helped educate more than 150 million kids in 70 different languages while breaking racial barriers along the way. It’s also taught us the meaning of friendship, the value of neighbors, and the joy of a good rubber ducky. And it was only possible thanks to audacious creators, educators, and one shaggy-looking puppeteer named James Maury Henson (but you can call him Jim). Learn about Kermit The Frog’s commercial past, why the only bets worth making are contrarian ones, and why Sesame Street is the best idea yet.Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — and the bold risk takers who made them go viral.Episodes drop every Tuesday, listen here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/—-----------------------------------------------------GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the special episode about Sesame Street?
Today, it's Sesame Street, the most surprisingly powerful story we've ever covered. As I read the script for this story, I cried. Yeah, twice. Also in the recording. And since Jack's about to return from paternity leave, we thought the timing of this was perfect. So Yeti, sit back, relax, and enjoy this sample of the best idea yet with our Sesame Street episode.
Nick, as you know, I decided to go to Paris this summer. Not just with Alex. We brought both boys too. Bold move. We should point out these boys are under four years old. And we had four seats next to each other in the middle of the huge airplane. And everyone loved you on that airplane, didn't they? Well, you know, we whipped out the nuclear option. iPads. Yeah. The cheapest babysitter there is.
We don't love pulling out the iPad. That's going to do it. But the worry is, is that going to make them hooked on the iPad? It's like on the one hand, the iPad deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for kids. On the other hand, it's completely destroyed their brains. I try to find like educational content that will keep them occupied on the screen. Right, right, right.
Is Baby Shark really going to teach them quantum physics? I don't know. It's worth a shot, honey. Now, Nick, this feels like a modern problem. It does. But it actually goes way back. Before TikTok, before smartphones, all the way back to the earliest days of television, every parent has been dealing with this screen dilemma.
As long as there have been screens, there have been kids trying to watch things on those screens. But get this. In the 1960s, one woman decided to harness children's fascination with screens and use it for something great. She wasn't a teacher and she wasn't a parent. She was a TV producer. And her creation paved the way for the golden age of screen time that you can feel now.
Sesame Street taught us to read, to count, to process emotions, and to make friends with a guy who lives in a trash can. Bert and Ernie showed us what lifelong friendship is about. They're the original co-hosts. And Grover taught us that being a waiter is harder than it looks. Sesame Street has been on the air since 1969, the same year we landed on the moon, Jack.
That makes Sesame Street the longest-running children's TV show in U.S. history. The Simpsons? Eh, Sesame Street beat them by 23 years. Sorry, Marge. And since Sesame Street launched, it has helped educate more than 150 million children across 70 different languages in more than 150 countries. Jack, could you sprinkle on some more numerical context for us, please?
Well, add in the 300 million parents who are grateful that their kid had Sesame Street, and that means this show has impacted 450 million people. That's right. The number of the day is 450 million. This show, it broke barriers with a diverse cast and black actors in leading roles, which actually got the show banned in Mississippi in the 70s, which we'll talk about.
Sesame Street also brought in A-list guest stars from James Earl Jones and Stevie Wonder to Carrie Underwood and Julia Roberts. But honestly, the real stars of Sesame Street? Muppets. These fuzzy, lovable, and totally alive-seeming puppets were created by the great Jim Henson and his workshop.
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Chapter 2: How did Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisette revolutionize children's TV?
He then began inventing dozens of characters out of felt and fluff, and he called them a mashup of marionette and puppet. He called them puppeteers. Muppets. In 1955, while in college, Jim starts making puppets. Muppets, Muppets. Sorry. Yeah, you got it. Jim starts making Muppet content for local TV, performing short sketches with characters that include a weird reptilian character with round feet
known as Kermit. Now, before you fact-check us, zoologists, Kermit doesn't officially become an amphibian until a few years later. At this point, he's a cold-blooded rat, though. And before long, Jim Henson's Muppets are making national appearances on the Today Show and the Ed Sullivan Show. Kermit is a rising star. But he's got to make money on these puppets, man. And how's he pulling that off?
Jim takes his talents B2B, creating Muppets for advertising campaigns. He makes a dog named Rolf who sells Purina dog food. Adorable. And a certain monster of cookies to sell snacks for general foods. He's going to wreck some cookie crisps. So Jim Henson's a big deal even before he arrives onto Sesame Street. And there are a couple reasons why these Muppets get so popular.
Before Jim, puppeteers on TV would always be visible on camera. Ventriloquist dummies, they were shown sitting on the performer's lap. You saw the human performer. But on Jim Henson productions, the cameras zoom in to show just the Muppets themselves. So the viewer automatically thinks of the Muppets as real characters. And another reason people love the Muppets, it's mischief.
I didn't know this, but Jim Henson is often thought of as this cuddly guy who loves kids, but he's actually got a wicked sense of humor. Get this, he makes sketches where one Muppet eats another Muppet. Animuppization. Or one where one of them explodes. These Muppets are rule breakers. Rated R. And nothing makes little kids laugh like a character who's being naughty.
But the Muppets can also be caring and vulnerable, which kids also love. The contrast of sweetness and rule breaking, it's exactly what Jo needs on her creative team. Maybe, just maybe, Jim can unite the professors and the artists who are working on this groundbreaking project but just haven't been able to get along. So Jim is invited to a seminar that Joan is hosting at the Waldorf Hotel.
But Joan has no idea what Jim looks like. And she sees this tall, stringy guy in leather with long hair and like a hippie beard. He kind of looks like a war protester. Should we call security? Joan is a little concerned about the situation. Like, who is this dude? That's no radical. That's Jim Henson. So Joan goes from stressed to hopeful.
This bearded, creative genius of a man might just be the key to bringing her show's academic and entertainment goals together. So with Jim on board, the team rallies together. He's the uniting element that Joan needs. Yes, we're ready to go, Jack. Lights, curtain, I'm ready. They actually need one more thing. Oh, what's that? They need a show. Oh, that's key. 1969 is a mad flurry of production.
No more dinner parties. Joan, she's got a show to make. The first thing is to set the location. And Sesame Street breaks with decades of television tradition. They don't build some suburban paradise with big lawns. Their setting is an urban street. A dark, worn, kind of dirty urban street. Based on locations in Harlem, the Bronx, and the Upper West Side.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Sesame Street face during its creation?
But that next character that Jim designs becomes the key to this entire format. It's the Muppet who will become the show's tender, sensitive heart. The Muppet who's got a soul of a child and the height of an NBA center. The Muppet, known as Big Bird. Big Bird is made of turkey feathers dyed a brilliant yellow and sewn upside down onto an eight foot tall wearable puppet.
But Jack, how do they make Big Bird come alive? Because it's actually a feat of engineering. The Muppet Puppeteer steps into Big Bird's giant bird legs, puts one hand into Big Bird's left wing, and operates Big Bird's head by reaching his right hand high up into the air.
And it doesn't stop there, even if he's cramping, because he then has to use his pinky finger to move the eyelids so that Big Bird can blink, show surprise, worry, sadness. All those emotions are operated by an extended pinky finger. It's this kind of expressive detail that makes Jim Hansen's Muppets so magical for kids.
Now, at first, Big Bird is supposed to be some kind of a bumbling doofus, a clumsy character that smacks into telephone poles and has that big oversized head that keeps bonking things. But this does totally change when Jim Henson recruits one particular puppeteer by the name of Carol Spinney. Muppeteer. Muppeteer.
Carol is ex-Air Force, and he's a gentle soul that loves drawing and still feels like an overgrown kid himself. His mom named him Carol because he was born the day after Christmas. Carol is the reason that Big Bird evolves from clumsy clown to the sweet, naive picture of childhood innocence. Big Bird kind of becomes the proxy for Sesame Street's core audience.
Big Bird is the six-year-old who needs help navigating the world. Big Bird doesn't know why things are the way they are, so the humans around him have to patiently Explain it to them. But they're really patiently explaining to the kids watching the show. Oh, and by the way, Carol also plays Oscar, so he's doing a great double act.
With Big Bird and Oscar now in the mix, Joan and her team screen some new scenes for test audiences. The difference is night and day. Oh, totally different. During every segment, the kids can't take their eyes off the screen. Muppets and humans together at last. So Jack, add it all up.
After nearly three years of development, the idea that started in Joan Cooney's Gramercy apartment over a bottle of Chardonnay is almost a reality. The street looks great. The content, top notch. The puppets, fantastic. We finally have a show. All right, lights, camera. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, yeah, yeah. There's one little thing we have to solve. Oh, you're kidding me.
The show doesn't have a name. Joan Cooney, oh, she is stressed. She feels like she's about to lose her mind. It is May 6th, 1969. The sets, yeah, they're built. The shooting schedule, it is locked in. The press conference announcing her unprecedented, history-changing show, it's this afternoon. But Joan is worried about what she's going to say when people ask her what to call it.
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Chapter 4: How did Jim Henson change the landscape of children's programming?
Kermit is in the pilot episode. So is Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. Starting lineup, I like the way it looks, Jack. Smooth. They even get a cameo from star comedian Carol Burnett for a little celebrity riz, a technique that Sesame Street will go back to again and again. But it's also fun to look at who's not there. Sesame Street launches without Grover.
He's a season two edition. Oh, and Jack Count Von Count? You won't see him until season one, two, three, four seasons. Even Mr. Snuffleupagus doesn't show up until 1971. But this is The Pylon, episode number one. And as it airs, Joan Cooney and Lloyd Morissette hold their breaths. It's become so much bigger than they ever imagined.
If it succeeds, they'll be able to reach thousands, maybe millions of children. But if it fails, educational television might just be called impossible. And kids will go back to singing jingles from beer commercials and Mentos ads. The stakes...
are high that's one of the risks that startup founders take when they're piloting a totally new concept like a whole new industry that didn't exist yet if it fails it can cast out not just on the startup that they launched but on the entire sector yeah it's like hey impossible hamburgers no pressure but the entire plant-based industry depends on you ipoing successfully
Nick and I call this the future fallacy, when investors will disregard a viable concept because the first try didn't work out. And Jack, that's exactly what Joan is worried about right now. She feels the burden that the future of children's educational programming depends on her Sesame Street hitting it out of the pot.
So Jack, after all this production, two years of work, everything's set, how do they do? Within the first few weeks, WGBH, Boston's public broadcasting network, receives more than 7,600 phone calls and 2,000 letters from parents and educators. who praise the show. Grab the rubber ducky and let's dive in. What are they saying, Jack?
People share stories of their little kids suddenly learning to count and singing their ABCs. According to the Educational Testing Service, Sesame Street is improving cognitive skills for underserved kids by as much as 62%. Kids are actually learning from TV. Jack, this is U-N-P-R-E It's unprecedented, baby. Yes, it is. TV critics, they're given glowing reviews of this whole new concept.
And so do public figures like Jesse Jackson, Orson Welles, even the president of the United States at the time, Richard Nixon. Although that won't stop that president from later trying to cut Sesame Street's federal funding, but that's a story for another pot. The show is also producing at a pace that would make Dora the Explorer blush. Sesame Street is producing 130 episodes every 26-week season.
Sometimes they're doing five episodes a day. And it's not just the quantity. We got to talk about the money, Jack, because at this point in 1970, they're spending about $28,000 per episode. That's over $225,000 in today's money. And it's a lot compared to your average episode of Captain Kangaroo. Yeah, it's like Disney Channel money. But... What's the payoff for that investment?
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Chapter 5: What impact did Sesame Street have on education and society?
Chapter 6: What iconic characters were created for Sesame Street?
Big Bird, don't you remember we told you? Mr. Hooper died. He's dead. Oh, yeah. I remember. Well, I'll give it to him when he comes back.
Now, eventually, the adults step in, and one by one, they each gently explain what being dead really means. And Big Bird, he just can't accept that.
Well, he's going to come back. Who's going to take care of the store? And who's going to make my birdseed milkshakes and tell me stories?
The adults reassure him that David will make him milkshakes. They'll all take turns telling him stories. Slowly, Big Bird starts to understand, but he doesn't like it. It won't be the same. And everyone agrees, because it won't be the same. The actors only shoot one take. When Carol Spinney comes out of the bird suit, he asks for a towel because he's been crying.
And honestly, when we first saw this scene, we started crying. Yeah. Sesame Street decides to air the episode on Thanksgiving 1983. And they do that so that children will be home with their parents to watch it together. But before the big day, the team test screens the segment at a daycare. They show it around pickup time so that the parents can catch it along with their children.
When the scene is over, parents and kids physically reach out to each other for comfort, not in a scared way, but in a reassuring way. When the producers see that, they know they've done the right thing. Their answer is in the embraces. This moment foreshadows the way the Muppets, and the actors who play them, remember Jim Henson himself.
In 1990, a sudden illness claims Jim's life too early at the age of 53. At Jim's memorial, Carol Spinney, as Big Bird, sings Kermit's favorite song, It's Not Easy Being Green. You can hear the emotion in his voice as he sings in character. And amazingly, you can even see it on Big Bird's face. Even when he's mourning his friend, Carol gives Big Bird an entire life of his own.
The show experiences deaths and cast changes, which will always happen on a show that runs for 50-plus years. But this story isn't just about who's missing. It's about who gets added, too. That's right, because it wouldn't be a Sesame Street episode without a character so beloved that he even gets more fan mail than Big Bird, the Muppet who actually helped save the entire show.
It's time to bring out our cuddly buddy, Elmo. Now, Jack, put on your podcasting vest because we are about to meet Sesame Street's favorite red three-year-old, Elmo. Elmo first appeared on Sesame Street as a background Muppet in 1979. Basically, Elmo was in a few short scenes with no lines. But in 1984, this small red monster gets a new puppeteer named Richard who gives him a gruff, bossy persona.
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Chapter 7: How did Sesame Street's launch affect children's educational programming?
Oh, it totally worked. I mean, it won't always work. That's why there are bets. But you'll never get ahead by making the same bet as everyone else. True. The only bets worth making are contrarian ones. Now, Jack, before we go, it's time for our favorite part of the show, the best facts yet. The best tidbits of info we couldn't fit into the story, but we also couldn't leave it without.
Why don't you kick us off right there? What do we got? Remember we said Sesame Street took a page or two from the Disney IP playbook? Well, that includes theme parks. In 1980, Sesame Place opened up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. With about 3 million visitors per year, Sesame Place's attendance is on par with your average Six Flags. You know, we actually did our fifth grade class trip there.
Did Elmo tickle you? I tickled Elmo. Never saw it coming. Another one, Jack? Bert's best pal might be Ernie, but did you know Bert actually had a twin brother named Bart? He's a traveling salesman, so you never really saw him. He was always on the road. Cookie Monster originally didn't only eat cookies. Oh, actually, in Sesame Street's pilot episode, I think he ate a letter.
He ate W. But the show noticed that kids really connected with Cookie when he was focused on one single food. Finally, Sesame Street's original architect, Joan Ganz Cooney, is still alive and fabulous at the time of this recording. Her co-founder, Lloyd Morissette, he sadly passed away peacefully in 2023 at the age of 93.
Chapter 8: What were the early reactions to Sesame Street from parents and educators?
And Carol Spinney, who brought Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch to life, passed away in 2019 at the age of 85. And Jack Big Bird actually performed at Carol's memorial, just as he had at Jim Henson's. I'm crying again. I think we need to bring Cookie Monster back. Cookie Monster, you need to lighten the scene over here. And that. is why Sesame Street is the best idea yet.
On the next episode of The Best Idea Yet, get ready to live moss. Porkay, we're about to take on Doritos Locos Tacos, or DLT, as they're apparently called. If you know, you know, and you're about to know. Woo, yetis. The tears come for you too. Oh, Kermit. Kermit. Besties, remember to subscribe for free to The Best Idea Yet wherever you get your podcasts.
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