Sesame Street Anti Racism Special: Another Difficult Issue Tackled?

Praised for discussing difficult issues in a frank manner to kids since it set-up shop back in 1969, has Sesame Street finally tackled the difficult issue of racism?

By: Ringo Bones

In the wake of the death of George Floyd due to police brutality and a renewed Black Lives Matter protest amid the dangers of an ongoing pandemic, most adults who saw the special said that it is quite telling that a children’s show explained racism better than most adults. The CNN and Sesame Street anti racism town hall special hosted by Van Jones could be the children’s educational show’s landmark moment for the show’s half a century of programming.

The show opens with Elmo’s dad Louie – both Sesame Street characters – were talking about the importance of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and on why not all streets are like Sesame Street which is an idyll of equality during half a century of the show’s existence. Some say, it is high time that the difficult issue of racism will be discussed frankly to kids – especially in the largely racist climate of Trump’s America.

Sadder still, Sesame Street fans old enough to see the show when it first aired back in 1969 are probably old enough to remember the race riots in the wake of the assassination Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a year before. Not to mention the race riots in the wake of the acquittal of police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King – despite the existence of video evidence – back in 1992. Maybe the difficult conversation is now a necessity about systemic racism all around us.

The Sesame Street COVID 19 Special: Most Difficult Issue Tackled So Far?

Given that what the scientific community knows about the COVID 19 threat is still evolving, is this the “most difficult issue” being discussed by Sesame Street to date?

By: Ringo Bones

The COVID 19 pandemic is probably one of the most difficult issues confronting humanity to date that since the global lockdown, the folks at the Children’s Television Workshop had worked in conjunction with CNN already made two COVID 19 Sesame Street specials. Even though Sesame Street had made episode tackling difficult social issues since it started back in 1969 ranging from LGBT issues to parents not around due to the ongoing War on Terror during the first few years of the 21^st Century, it seems that social distancing could be the most difficult issue that kids around the world will be confronting and, fortunately, Sesame Street once again will allay the fears experienced by kids with regards to the COVID 19 pandemic.

With experts like Dr. Sanjay Gupta explaining why social distancing is necessary to slow down the spread of the virus before an effective vaccine is found, the two specials managed to teach the kids to adapt to the so-called “new normal”. Let’s just hope that the latest generation of Sesame Street’s fans will be the beneficiaries of an effective coronavirus vaccine.

Sesame Street Is Now A Real Street?

Due to the iconic children’s educational show’s upcoming 50^th Anniversary, did NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio just named a real street after Sesame Street?

By: Ringo Bones

In honor of the show’s 50^th Anniversary, New York City made “Sesame Street” a real intersection – as in West 63^rd Street and Broadway - in the Big Apple, permanently.  Joined by Big Bird, Elmo, Bert, Ernie and the others, Mayor Bill de Blasio changed the name of the Manhattan intersection at a ceremony held back in Wednesday, May 1, 2019. The mayor also declared that May 1, 2019 is Sesame Street Day.

The show has been headquartered in New York City since 1969 and has always been based between West 63^rd and West 64^th Streets. While an intersection was temporarily renamed 10 years ago, this time it’s for good. Mayor de Blasio also praised Sesame Street for: “Fifty years of extraordinary programming, 50 years of making people’s lives better, 50 years of helping children believe in themselves”. Very nice gesture by Mayor Bill de Blasio for doing this in May considering Sesame Street will be celebrating its broadcast 50^th Anniversary this November 2019.

Sesame Street Versus Donald J. Trump?

Even though the show has been largely “politically agnostic” since it first aired back in 1969, did Sesame Street managed to got itself to be the focus of U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s ire? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Even though he never “Tweeted” it out loud, many people believe that Donald J. Trump has a long-standing beef with Sesame Street way before he became – albeit not via popular vote – the president of the United States. Under the Trump Administration’s budget that was published back in May 2017, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be one of many nonprofit corporations across the United States that would lose funding despite that it makes up only a tiny portion of the annual federal spending. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides funding to thousands of radio and television stations in the United States, but is best known for its ties to both PBS and NPR. 

And some – mostly Sesame Street viewers who had been watching the show for at least since the early to mid 1970s – believe that President Trump’s disdain for public broadcasting stems from an old grudge against Big Bird, Elmo and Cookie Monster. Sesame Street viewers could trace it back when a character named Ronald Grump which was parodying the then real-estate mogul Donald J. Trump in the 1980s.

Ronald Grump’s first appearance on Sesame Street came in 1988 when he convinced Oscar the Grouch to replace his spot on the street with a building called “Grump Tower”. In exchange, Oscar got a free room in the tower and three bags of trash even though his friend tried to talk him out of the rotten deal. Oscar and Grump eventually got into an argument over pets being allowed in the “duplex can-dominium”, which almost cost Oscar 40 bags of trash – or as he put it, his entire “trash savings” – to get out of the deal. 

Ronald Grump’s second appearance came in 1994 when Sesame Street celebrated its 25^th Anniversary. Played by famed actor Joe Pesci, Grump announced his plans to destroy Sesame Street to build a high-rise “Grump Tower.” Following a lot of hostility – Grump said Sesame Street will be a luxurious boutique called “If You Have To Ask, You Cannot Afford It” – Grump’s plans ended up falling through the cracks due to Oscar’s can being government property. 

When Ronald Grump made his final appearance in 2005 for the episode “Grouch Apprentice”, he was back to puppet form. In search of a helper to sort through all of his trash, several muppets auditioned to be his assistant by going through a series of contests. Grump ended up firing one of them (one being called Omagrossa, which was clearly based on The Apprentice star turned Trump political aide Omarosa Manigault) and hiring two of them, Oscar and Grundgetta, because they were the most incompetent. Sadly, give Sesame Street’s apolitical nature, Ronald Grump won’t be returning anytime soon to parody President Trump. Grump just got on Sesame Street as a bad example of greediness in a values lesson episode. And the top brass of the Children’s Television Workshop were probably very thankful that Ronald Grump wasn’t grabbing any pussy on the set of Sesame Street during his final appearance back in 2005.

Should Sesame Street Do A Donald J. Trump Episode?

Famed for doing difficult issue episodes tailored for children to understand, should Sesame Street do another difficult issue episode explaining the election of Trump to the White House? 

By: Ringo Bones 

For over forty years, Sesame Street has made Emmy-worthy episode on difficult issues tailored for young children to understand. Most notable are the episodes explaining gay marriage and the deployment of those with family members who are in the military to Afghanistan in Iraq during the post 9/11 period of the George W. Bush administration. But this time around, should the creative team at the Children’s Television Workshop do an episode explaining to kids the election of the “unsavory” billionaire and reality show proprietor Donald J. Trump to the White House? 

Folks who grew up during the past forty years or so are probably taught in school that being the president of the United States is a special job that only those qualified should be chosen to do so are probably now scratching their heads on why a bully, sexist and paedophile billionaire like Donald J. Trump got elected to the White House. Undoubtedly, many children are, now too, asking their parents to what tantamount to be the existential question on “why good things happen to very bad people?”

Was Sesame Street’s Mr. Hooper Jewish?

The answer is he – the Sesame Street character – definitely was, but the better question to ask would be: “when did you found out that Mr. Hooper is Jewish?  

By: Ringo Bones 

Of all the human casts of the iconic children’s educational TV series, those who were there since the show first aired back in 1969 would probably cite Mr. Hooper as the most fascinating. The most probable reason is, is that the “powers-that-be” at the Children’s Television Workshop allowed his character to slowly evolve and reveal since he first appeared in 1969. Kids who were closely following Sesame Street since 1969 to about the mid 1970s would probably notice that Mr. Hooper – like the Children’s Television Workshop advisor Gerald S. Lesser made him out to be – as someone who is “slightly mean and abrasive but with a poorly hidden nice streak”. This was largely due to Big Bird’s inability to say storekeeper Mr. Hooper’s name properly. 

Even though it was only around the mid 1970s until towards the end of the 1980s that Sesame Street was gradually building up for world wide recognition, these were by no means politically stable times when it comes to television viewing when compared to the first decade of the 21^st Century. Most viewers in the Philippines despite lucky enough to view that Big Bird Went To China special just a week after it aired in the United States, most Sesame Street fans here didn’t manage to watch aspects of Mr. Hooper’s life on Sesame Street well until 1991 onwards via VHS and Betamax tapes. 

That Sesame Street special where it was explained with honesty to kids that Mr. Hooper had passed away that won a daytime Emmy only became general knowledge here in the Philippines at about the same time when a post Operation Desert Storm euphoria was sweeping around the globe back in 1991. On Mr. Hooper being Jewish – probably around 1993 and it wasn’t until 1994 that I saw that official CTW book “Christmas Eve On Sesame Street” being displayed in our neighborhood’s second hand book store that I managed to read first hand that Mr. Hooper is Jewish and celebrated Chanukah. By the way, the official Children’s Television Workshop book was based on the 1978 special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street were Mr. Hooper’s was revealed to be Jewish. But in actuality, Mr. Hooper’s performer – the actor Will Lee who passed away back in 1982 of a heart attack – isn’t Jewish. 

When It comes to Mr. Hooper’s full name, it wasn’t until the advent of Web 2.0 that I saw that episode where Mr. Hooper got his GED certificate from attending night school that his full name was revealed as Harold Hooper. Maybe we should be thankful of the modern internet for without it, most obscure Sesame Street trivia will remain a mystery to most of us.   

Was Oscar The Grouch Originally Orange?

Even though many younger generations of kids know him for being green (yellow-green?) colored, did you know that Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch was originally orange in color? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Many television trivia themed books sold during the past 40 years has probably made it well known that Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch was originally orange in color – as in during the first season of the iconic children’s educational TV show during its first airing back in 1969. But Oscar the Grouch’s transformation from orange to yellow-greenish for four decades now may be just part of the story. 

When I first saw Sesame Street during the early 1970s as a very impressionable toddler, color TVs in my neighborhood might as well have been a science fiction plot since most households in my neighborhood can’t afford a color TV set – even the “cheap” Made in Japan models. But something weird happened, when the powers-that-be at the Children’s Television Workshop decided to transform Oscar the Grouch from (probably puke) orange to yellow-greenish, every kid in my neighborhood noticed that Oscar the Grouch became “less dirty looking” even though we are watching the show in our black and white TV sets. Did my fellow toddlers back then noticed a different shade of gray of Oscar the Grouch? 

Based on these observations, will the powers-that-be ever try to make Oscar the Grouch orange colored again? Given today’s advanced OLED based video display screens touted to be capable of displaying colors that 1970s era Sony Trinitron color cathode ray tubes often misses to replicate, reminding today’s kids on how Oscar the Grouch used to look during the first season of Sesame Street might prove to be a ratings bonanza to the beloved children’s educational show. Unless of course Madison Avenue image consultants will just dismiss the idea as a cynical marketing ploy.