My Favorite "Street"

I just finished reading a book called "Street Gang." It wasn't about the rumbles between "The Bloods" and "The Cryps". It was about the genesis of the most successful children's program in the history of television: Sesame Street. The program is celebrating its 40th anniversary this November.

I read the book and am writing a post about the show because of the influence Sesame Street had on me when I was a kid. The show debuted in 1969 when I was 8 years old. Now at that age I wasn't part of its target audience but my sister, Shari, who was 4, was. I watched it after school with her. When the show started running at 6PM on our local PBS station the entire family watch together.

The big drawl to the show for both my dad and me was the Muppets. Dad had been fan of Jim Henson's puppet troupe since Rowlf the dog appeared on the Jimmy Dean show in the early 60's. Other than that program, occasional commercials, and appearances on the Ed Sullivan show before "Street" there was no place to see the Muppets on a regular basis. Later on The Muppet Show would solve that problem forever.

Of course Kermit the frog, Ernie and Burt were the first of Henson's characters to capture my admiration. Ernie and Burt were like Abbott and Costello for the juvenile sector of the population. I loved Ernie and started impersonating him almost as soon as I started watching him.

One of the most profound experiences of my childhood was the day my cousin Gary and I discovered an Ernie puppet on the shelves of the toy department at a local department store. The details of this story will be shared in a future post.

The Sesame Street Muppets lit a fire in my heart for puppets. At one time I owned hand puppets of Ernie, Burt, Grover, Cookie Monster and more.

There were other things about Sesame Street that I liked too. Their short animated films and songs about numbers and letters grabbed my attention and interest in such a way that to this day, 40 years later, I can sing some of them word for word. I recently discovered a lot of them on You Tube and have enjoyed watching them again. I have even shared them with my friend Brent and his children.

In 1970 my parents bought us the Sesame Street Original Cast Album. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it got played until it wore out. My cousin Gary and I used to listen to it all the time. We memorized the words to all the songs and even made fun of the terrible way Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, tried to sing. Once again I could sing almost, if not, all the words to the songs on that album to this very day. I've tried several times to get a copy on Ebay but I have not been able to win an auction with a reasonable bid. Perhaps one day.

While it's been years since I've sat down and watched an episode of "Street"; mainly because of the liberal humanistic agenda is promotes these days. But there will always be a part of me that will remember the way the first few years of the program connected with the my creative spirit. It encouraged me to become an kid puppeteer. Again I'll write more about that in a future post.


Happy 40th Anniversary Sesame Street. When it comes to TV it will always be my favorite "Street"