Sunday

40 Years of Sweepin’ the Clouds Away

We can all recall how the opening lyrics went…

“Sunny Day, sweepin’ the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet, can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?”

Early mornings were a delight for children aged 3-5 through the week, as they would eagerly wake up and sit in front of the television watching their favorite characters, Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, and others on Sesame Street.

I know I do – it was my favorite show when I was a little kid.

40 years is quite some time for a television show to run, which takes us back to the year 1969.

Neil Armstrong walked the moon, the US withdrew from Vietnam, Led Zeplin & The Beatles were musically rocking the world, Woodstock took place on a NY farm with more than 400,000 people there, and Richard Nixon was elected President – yes, many historical things were taking place. However, for the children, the only thing which they cared about what their favorite show which began on November 10, 1969 on the NET network (later replaced by PBS).

With that said, Sesame Street has been running for quite some time & witnessed many historical events throughout its time, running alongside shows such as ‘All My Children,’ ‘The Price is Right,’ ‘The Young & the Restless.’

Canadian-journalist Malcolm Gladwell once stated, “Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them.”

And that was the prime purpose of Sesame Street. When the show first began, it used a combination of animation, Muppets (created by Jim Henson), and live actors to motive & encourage the minds of young children, help improve their word recognition, simple mathematics, and other life-skills. Over the years, Sesame Street also began teaching its viewers about “real-world” issues such as death, divorce, pregnancy, birth, and adoption to name a few. The show even decided that they would have a prime-time special titled, ‘Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times,’ to discuss the late-2000 recession.

By the time the show’s 40^th anniversary episode aired, it was ranked as the 15^th most popular children’s television show, with 20 international independent versions and broadcasts in over 120 countries – talk about becoming an international phenomenon. IN addition to that, the show also received 118 Emmy Awards.

Well, back to the show. It was my favorite when growing up (yes, I said that already)! My favorite characters were Grover (boy, did I love Super Grover),Bert & Ernie, Elmo, Count, and Oscar the Grouch. I’ll admit, when I was five years old, I was Oscar the Grouch for Halloween – that’s how much I liked the show. But over the years, the show has clearly changed. It’s changed and adapted to how society wants things to be portrayed. In all honestly, what’s next, a gay-Muppet? There’s already Kami, an HIV-positive Muppet on one rendition of the show. It’s good that the show wants to portray realistic situations to its viewers, but they have to remember that at the end of the day, the shows’ core viewers are pre-school kids and those in kindergarten.

Regardless, the show is a success, and will always be around. I do hope that the show has another 40 years. Here’s to Sesame Street, the Muppets and the entire team who makes this show possible every day. And last but not least, here’s to Jim Henson who envisioned the Muppet and put it into reality.