Selling the Alphabet: How Sesame Street Applied Commercial Techniques to Achieve a Social Good
'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?’
‘Sesame Street Theme’ (J Raposo / J Stone / B Hart)
I recently watched a fine documentary about the children's television series Sesame Street. (‘Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street’, 2021, directed by Marilyn Agrelo)
Combining live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry, Sesame Street has been both entertaining and educating kids on PBS since 1969. It was the first pre-school educational show to base its content on research and to involve collaboration between producers, writers, educators and analysts. From the outset the series sought to apply commercial techniques to achieve a social good.
1. ‘A Brilliantly Simple Notion’
‘The people who control the system read. And the people who make it in the system read.’
Joan Coonie
Sesame Street began with a problem. In the mid ‘60s Lloyd Morrisett, a psychologist and vice president at the Carnegie Foundation, was troubled by the poor educational performance of low income, inner city children.
‘We found that those children who had entered school 3 months behind, by the end of the first grade they’d be a year behind, and get farther and farther behind. And I wondered whether there was a possibility that television could be used to help children with school. But television was not very popular with the Carnegie staff. Academics were not interested in television. They did not have it in their homes.’
Lloyd Morrisett
In 1966, at a dinner party in Gramercy Park, New York, Morrisett discussed the issue of pre-school education with his host, television producer Joan Coonie.
‘I knew the answer. I knew the answer right away. Every child in America was singing beer commercials. Now where had they learned beer commercials?...So to me it was clear. The kids just adored the medium. So why not see if it could educate them?’
Joan Coonie
Coonie and Morrisett set about assembling the team that would become the Children's Television Workshop (CTW). A critical early recruit was experienced writer and director of children’s television, Jon Stone.
‘Joan had a brilliantly simple notion. Children are watching a tremendous amount of television. If they’re going to watch that much television, why not: 1. Find out what it is they like to watch? 2 Find out what would be good for them to watch? And then put the two together and that’s the show.’
Jon Stone
The original cast of Sesame Street in set, 1969
2. Extensive R&D
The initiative secured funding from government and private foundations, and there followed two years of research and development. Coonie had to overcome initial scepticism about her leadership.
‘Someone said it won’t be taken seriously if a woman heads it. But the problem is they didn’t have a project without me. Much of it was in my head. Which I pointed out to them.’
Joan Coonie
The CTW researchers established that, in order to attract and retain young people’s attention, an educational show would need a strong visual style, repetition, fast-moving action, humour, music, animation and short films. They drew up a detailed curriculum, and in a comprehensive Writer's Notebook outlined communication goals without specifying characters or contexts. They decided that it would be easier to teach writers how to interpret the curriculum than to teach educators how to write comedy.
‘They told me that we had to incorporate all this education into this show. I was convinced that it would be impossible to do. I’d never written anything like this before. But nobody had written anything like this before.’
Jon Stone
Joan Coonie © Sesame Workshop
3. Creative Execution
Stone decided to set the show in an inner city environment, and chose the name Sesame Street to suggest the magic of ‘Open Sesame!’
‘I wanted to capture that New York energy, because to the three-year-old cooped up in the room upstairs, the action is on the street.’
Jon Stone
Stone created a group of characters to inhabit Sesame Street. There was Gordon, a high school science teacher and his wife Susan, a nurse; Mr Hooper, the proprietor of the corner store; Bob the music teacher; and Maria and Luis who ran the Fix-It Shop. The actors cast in these roles were ethnically diverse to reflect the core target audience.
‘When you’re growing up and you don’t see yourself in the media, then you get the feeling that you don’t exist. And that’s when you start thinking that you’re not part of this society – of this culture.’
Sonia Manzano (Maria)
Another key component of Sesame Street was the music, much of which was composed by Joe Raposo. He contributed classic numbers like ‘I’m an Aardvark’ and ‘Over, Under, Around and Through,’ and guests included the likes of BB King, Stevie Wonder, Johnnie Cash, Paul Simon and Dizzy Gillespie.
'Now what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C.
Let's think of other things
That starts with C.
Oh, who cares about the other things?
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.’
'’C’ Is For Cookie’ (J Raposo)
Critically Stone also signed up puppeteer Jim Henson, whose Muppets had been appearing on late night TV comedies and adverts.
‘When I first heard about it from Jon, I loved the idea of it - the whole idea of taking commercial techniques and applying them to a show for kids.’
Jim Henson
Henson populated the show with his distinctive puppets: cute and lovable Grover; Cookie Monster with his voracious appetite; Kermit, the soft spoken everyman frog and occasional news reporter; Bert and Ernie, friends with totally different perspectives.
Richard Hunt, Jim Henson, and Frank Oz on the set of Sesame Street
4. Test and Learn
At first the show’s street scenes did not contain Muppets, for fear that interaction with real actors would confuse the young audience. But researchers tested trial programmes, using a slide projector as a ‘Distractor,’ and they found that kids paid more attention during the Muppet segments. And so Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch were introduced to the live-action sequences.
Oscar, the green grumpy character who lived in a trashcan, was crafted to represent the more challenging encounters that kids experience in daily life.
‘Oscar’s the dark side of everybody. He’s what children are constantly told they must not do. Don’t say that, it’s bad. Don’t do that. Don’t talk back.’
Jon Stone
Big Bird, bright yellow and eight feet tall, was initially conceived as just a dumb goofy guy. But he was adapted to be a peer for the audience.
‘I think I should play him as a child who’s just learning and doesn’t know a lot of things yet.’
Caroll Spinney (Puppeteer)
Experiences such as these fed into what became the CTW Model: collaborative planning; a detailed curriculum; developmental research; measurement and response.
CTW’s analysts established that children liked seeing other children on TV. And so Sesame Street featured ordinary kids, not child actors, whose unscripted interactions with the core characters became hugely popular.
The researchers also discovered that, when adults co-viewed the show with their children, learning was enhanced through the conversation that went on during and after. And so the writers deliberately scripted more sophisticated gags, cultural references and guest appearances that would appeal to an older audience.
'When I find I can't remember
What comes after
A and before C.
My mother always whispers
letter B.
Letter B, letter B, letter B, letter B
She whispers buh-buh-buh means letter B.’
‘Letter B’ (C Cerf)
Jon Stone with Ernie and Cookie Monster
5. Keep Evolving
Supported by innovative local marketing programs to win the interest of target communities, Sesame Street premiered in November 1969. It was an immediate hit.
‘When it went on-air the phone started ringing off the wall. No one had ever seen anything like it.’
Joan Coonie
Within a few series the show became something of a cultural phenomenon.
‘I think Sesame Street is the greatest thing that ever happened in television.’
Orson Welles
‘My little daughter watches it and she’s getting so smart. She knows everything about it.’
Muhammad Ali
Of course, there were challenges. At its launch the state commission in Mississippi voted not to air the show. Coonie was steadfast in its defence.
‘There’s no question that we are integrated and we reflect to some degree inner city – I would say Black inner city – life. And we’re very proud of that. I mean, if that’s our worst sin, I’m happy to be a sinner.’
Joan Coonie
The early programs were also criticised for being over-stimulating; for their representation of women and Latinx characters. When a specifically African American Muppet was introduced, some from the community complained of stereotyping.
The show took such objections onboard, and continued with its model of test and learn. It adapted and evolved with changing times and circumstances.
In 1982 the production team had to respond to the death of Will Lee, who had played Mr Hooper since its inception. They determined that, since kids do sometimes encounter mortality, then the show too should find a way of dealing with it: confirming that Mr Hooper was not coming back; but making it alright to feel sad.
‘If we’ve been trying to be truthful, why should we short-change kids now?’
Sonia Manzano (Maria)
Sesame Street is one of the longest-running shows in the world. By its 50th anniversary in 2019, it had produced over 4,500 episodes, two feature-length movies, 35 TV specials and 180 albums. Its YouTube channel has almost five million subscribers. Some 86 million Americans have watched it as children.
Sesame Street is also one of the most studied and monitored shows in television history. Consistent patterns of data collected over 30 years indicate that the program has had significant positive effects for its viewers across a broad range of subject areas.
The story of Sesame Street should be an inspiration to anyone working in business. It encourages us to reflect on the opportunities to employ commercial techniques to create positive social change. Yes, we can.
‘Sesame Street wanted to give kids tools to create the world they wanted to live in.’
Sonia Manzano (Maria)
'It's not that easy bein’ green.
Having to spend each day
The color of the leaves.
When I think it could be nicer
Bein' red or yellow or gold,
Or something much more colorful like that.
But green's the color of spring
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean
Or important like a mountain or tall like a tree.
When green is all there is to be,
It could make you wonder why.
But why wonder, why wonder?
I am green and it'll do fine.
It's beautiful and I think it's what I wanna be.'
Kermit, ‘Bein’ Green’ (J Raposo)
No. 389
