Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Summary

Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode: Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Host: Pete Kunze
Guest: Helle Strandgaard Jensen (Associate Professor, Aarhus University)
Date: December 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of New Books and Media, host Pete Kunze interviews Helle Strandgaard Jensen about her book, Sesame Street: A Transnational History. The discussion explores how Sesame Street evolved from an American educational TV series into a global media phenomenon, and how its transnational travels reveal much about childhood, education, media, and business in the modern world. Jensen challenges common perceptions about the show’s altruism and anti-commercial ethos, offering a nuanced, comparative history that examines Sesame Street’s adaptation, resistance, and reinvention across different cultural contexts.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

Helle Jensen’s Background and Path to Sesame Street

• Jensen’s Academic Journey: Trained as a historian in Denmark (Aarhus University, formerly Roskilde). Earned a PhD at the European University Institute, Florence, followed by fellowships in the US, UK, Sweden, Norway. Now Associate Professor and co-director for the Center for Digital History at Aarhus ([02:09]).
• Initial Interest: Her MA thesis explored Danish children’s TV and found Kermit the Frog’s influence on local characters. This sparked a curiosity about Sesame Street’s international impact:

  “The producer…who was very inspired by Kermit to make this Danish frog, he talked a lot in his papers about… a sort of fear and fascination relationship with Sesame Street really piqued my interest.” ([03:18])

Moving Beyond Nostalgia: Why a Transnational Approach?

• Existing Literature (e.g., Street Gang documentary/book) often focuses on nostalgia and US-centric celebration.
• Jensen’s Aim: To shift from domestic history to comparative, transnational, and business-focused analysis, considering both successful and failed cases.
• What’s Missing: Previous works rarely discuss the “business side of Sesame Street” or critically interrogate its model of childhood.

  “Money is not as cute as the Muppets…It’s definitely money sturdy sometimes.” ([05:47])

The Research Process

• Global Archival Work: Jensen visited archives in 7 countries, covering 11 archives, often facing incomplete records, especially in Italy and France ([09:42], [13:12]).
• Tool: Used Tropy software to organize, tag, and cross-reference materials, enabling detailed comparative research ([09:42]).
• Archival Realities: Comparative work is shaped by what archives have survived—children's media is often under-preserved ([12:44]).

The Origins of Sesame Street in US Social Policy

• Context: Developed under the Johnson administration (Head Start, War on Poverty), with funding from Carnegie and Ford foundations ([14:29], [18:44]).
• Educational Model: Relied heavily on cognitive psychology; aimed to “improve the individual child” with numeracy and literacy, rather than enacting structural change.

  “Thinking about the educational system as somewhere where the individual can improve their way of life…the individual can get to live the American dream is a very individually focused way…” ([14:29])

• Progressive Critique: The series reflected a shift away from progressive, socially oriented education toward measurable outcomes ([18:44]).

Positioning in the US Media Landscape

• Business Strategy: CTW (now Sesame Workshop) firmly positioned Sesame Street as “not commercial, not Disney,” but initially tried to sell to commercial networks/Disney before joining PBS ([20:35]).
• Target Audience: Ostensibly disadvantaged children, but mass medium logic and cognitive psychology led to a generalized “model child” ([20:35]).

The Business Side: Merchandise and Markets

• Cross-Media Franchise: Merchandise and licensing were crucial for financial sustainability; grant funding was time-limited ([24:15]).
• Product Philosophy Shift: Initially insisted on only “educational” merchandise, but loosened as scale increased ([24:15]).
• “Selling, But Appearing Not to Sell”: Maintained nonprofit/anti-commercial branding while engaging in commercial practices, especially abroad.

  “I go really into detail with this selling, like selling but appearing not to sell strategy. That was fascinating…” ([28:55])

Entering Global Markets: Early Push and Obstacles

• Early International Strategy: CTW began marketing Sesame Street globally in 1968, even before the US premiere ([29:40]).

  “It is the strategy. It’s not something…people just saw that this was amazing in the US…but that’s not how cultural transfer happens.” ([30:41])

• Sales Agents: Hired agents in the UK and France to open European markets; early success in Latin America despite financial uncertainty ([30:41]).
• Cultural Imperialism & Localization: Criticisms emerged of “Americanization” and the show’s educational philosophy, especially in Western Europe, where public service broadcasting and progressive education already dominated ([34:18]).

Case Studies in Localization and Resistance

• Western Europe: Emphasis on collaborative, arts-and-crafts, and culturally specific children’s programming over “hardcore education.” Sesame Street seen as conservative ([35:54]).
• West Germany: Local producers insisted on anti-authoritarian messaging for children; were able to leverage financial importance to CTW to force concessions ([38:18]).

  “Children are seen as a social group that needs to be able to think on their own, be empowered, stand up, speak back…” ([38:18])

• Scandinavia: Collaboration failed over IP and expectations—Scandinavians preferred to swap content informally, clashed with CTW’s commercial/IP demands ([41:40]).
• The Muppet Exception: Everyone wanted Muppets, but CTW wouldn’t license them alone; insisted on the complete educational package ([41:40]).

The Negotiation of Brand and Identity

• Transnational Production Cultures: Negotiations and tensions—between Americans, Europeans, and among Europeans themselves—revealed the complexities of making the “brand” global ([45:31]).
• Brand Recognition and Merchandise: European broadcasters’ handling of Sesame Street affected brand integrity and the ability to sell related merchandise ([45:31]).

Challenging the “Sacred Cow” of Sesame Street

• Myth-Busting: The image of Sesame Street as purely altruistic and anti-commercial is contradicted by historical necessity and financial realities ([48:23]).

  “I didn’t set out to dig into dirt…following money, it’s not cute, but it’s been fascinating.” ([48:23])

• Limitation of US Model: The “culture free” cognitive child model was resisted abroad, revealing its US-centric (and era-specific) biases ([48:23], [52:13]).
• Historical Perspective: Sesame Street’s business and educational strategies made sense in their historical context but are not timeless or universal ([52:13]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Transnational Turn:

  “Global history…turns around domestic history. You see what you miss... For instance, the business of Sesame Street is rarely touched upon in these nostalgic tales.” — Helle ([05:47])

• On the Archive:

  “You don’t go into the archive with a question. You go into the archive, you see what they have, and then you build the questions out from what you can find.” — Pete ([13:49])

• On Cultural Imperialism:

  “The workshop says it’s coincidental and people just…found this amazing thing in the US, but that’s not how cultural transfer happens…” — Helle ([30:41])

• On “Selling but Not Selling”:

  “I go really into detail with this selling, like selling but appearing not to sell strategy…how do you craft such a strategy and how are you so successful with it?” — Helle ([28:55])

• On Localization & Resistance:

  “In West Germany…to avoid having a repetition of the war…the way in which we can avoid having a repetition of the war, the Holocaust, is to have…children be more critical, stand up to adult authorities.” — Helle ([38:18])

• On “Model Child” Limitations:

  “That’s not…a very cognitive psychology model where you don’t consider social, cultural backgrounds of the kids…” — Helle ([20:35])

• On the Myth of Altruism:

  “It wasn’t…financially viable. There was no business model where it could stay…anti-commercial. It just couldn’t.” — Helle ([48:23])

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Key Timestamps

• [02:09] Jensen explains her academic and research background.
• [03:18] Origin of her interest in Sesame Street—Danish TV’s “jazz frog” vs. Kermit.
• [05:47] Why a transnational/business approach; contrasts with US-centric nostalgia.
• [09:42] Description of research process and technical tools for data management.
• [14:29] Sesame Street’s link to 1960s US social policy/government programs.
• [18:44] Cognitive psychology’s influence; critique of progressive education.
• [20:35] CTW’s business positioning and target audience construction.
• [24:15] Finding the money: franchise, merchandise, and evolving business strategies.
• [29:40] Early international marketing strategies, including Europe and Latin America.
• [34:18] European resistance; emphasis on cultural and child-centric education.
• [38:18] Case study: West German localization and negotiation with CTW.
• [41:40] “Failures”: UK and Scandinavia—why attempts at localization sometimes failed.
• [45:31] Brand and IP management across markets; cross-national production tensions.
• [48:23] Rethinking Sesame Street’s legacy—beyond the “sacred cow.”
• [53:36] Jensen’s next project on public/media debates about children.

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Conclusion and Looking Ahead

Jensen’s Sesame Street: A Transnational History reframes the beloved show as a product of particular historical, political, and economic realities, rather than an apolitical force for good. Her transnational and business-centered analysis reveals the complexities of translating American educational ideals abroad—and the negotiations, failures, and reinventions that ensued. Ultimately, she argues for a more critical, historicized understanding of children’s media, to the benefit of both scholars and practitioners.

Coming up: Jensen’s next book project will explore public debates about children and media, using digital history tools to trace controversies from the past 40 years across the US, UK, and Scandinavia ([53:36]).

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Narrator]

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I do.

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[Pete Kunze]

Welcome to the New Books Network welcome to New Books and Media, a podcast series on the New Books Network. I am your host, Pete Kunze. My guest today is Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen, Associate professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, and the author of Sensibi A Transnational History. The book was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. Good evening. Hello. How are you tonight?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

I'm good, thank you. And how are you?

[Pete Kunze]

I'm doing well, thanks. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and training as we get started?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yes, I can. So I'm an MA in History and Danish and from Ruska, the university, which is a sort of problem oriented, project focused research university in Denmark. And then I've done a PhD history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. And I've been, you know, I've done fellowships in the US and then the uk, Sweden, Norway. So I've been in a lot of places now I'm yeah, as you said, an associate professor in, in History and Classical in the Department of History and Classical Studies at Aarhus University. I also co direct the center for Digital History in Aarhus. So I do A lot of digital history in my sort of daily teaching.

[Pete Kunze]

Excellent, excellent. So how do you get from history and digital history in particular to talking about Sesame Street? I mean, for many children around the world, it was a staple of education and entertainment. So what piqued your interest in turning to it as a historian?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Well, so actually it's for my MA thesis, which was at this university that I went to that is sort of, you know, research focused, proper and oriented. Half a PhD. Basically it's your MA thesis. But I did something on the influence of 68 and counterculture on Danish children's television. And during the thesis I found this frog, which was not Kermit the Frog. I've never watched Sesame street as a child because it was never bought by Danish children's television. But there is another frog on Danish children's television which is called Kai, but he's like a jazz frog. And he will teach you about not numbers and letters, but jazz standing up to adult authorities and being friends with a parrot. And I found out that he was inspired by Kermit the frog. So that got me really interested in Sesame street and what that was. And this inspiration because the. The producer who. Who was very inspired by Kermit to make this Danish frog, he. He talked a lot in his papers about like how he liked some of system history, but not all of it. And this sort of very sort of contrasted. It was fear and fascination relationship with systemistry really piqued my interest as an MA student. But then I did my PhD, but something completely different. And then I. When I came back after doing my PhD, it's like the Sesame street hadn't left me. That. That would be an excellent sort of prism for understanding childhood in. And the relationship between childhood and television and education in many different countries would be a good. Like, because I had failed cases and I had successful cases and it would be a great thing to do. Like to do a comparative study on.

[Pete Kunze]

Excellent. Yeah. I was thinking, you know, in the last few years there have been several kind of popular books, academic books, I believe there was a documentary based on Street Gang, which was very kind of nostalgic and laudatory about Sesame Street. How does your book differ in its approach from these other takes on Sesame street we've seen in journalism and academia? And in particular, what do you feel a transnational approach brings that previous studies may have missed or even neglected?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

So I think a lot of things when you tell me this, and of course I've been following. So actually I've been writing this book since 2014. I've published another book in between, but it's a long sort of project that I've been working on, on. And I've also. I've done a. I've done quite a lot of, like, memory studies and Twitter and Sesame Street. So I see all these sort of nostalgic and very celebratory tales about Sesame street often in that Twitter study. But I think, you know, comparison, like, so comparative history and also global history, transnational history, all this where you compare and you look at sort of how do things travel and not travel gives you. It also turns around domestic history. So lots of the history that's been written about System street is focused on the US or individual countries. But comparing countries and also having this global angle turns. You know, you see what you miss or how you could, you know, what's missing in. In all of these when you compare them. For instance, that the business of Sissame street is rarely touched upon in these sort of street gang, you know, both the book and the film. But also there's the sunny days. And look, often, you know, the business side of things or ideas of childhood as from childhood studies, childhood media studies rarely touched upon. So that's really, really different. Also, there's that you see that ideas of childhood and education and TV viewership can come across as quite conservative sometimes in a U.S. context in Sesame street, when you compare it to what's happening in Europe at the same time. So it changes its domestic history and it changes a narrative. Also, this following the money, the business model that is very different from the stories that you normally get. Well, so money is not, you know, as cute as the Muppet. And it's not nostalgic. It's. It's definitely money sturdy sometimes.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely, Absolutely. I think a few years ago, when Sesame street left public television in the United States and went to hbo, there was this kind of blowback, understandably, of like you're desecrating a part of our childhood. You know, something that was meant for working class children and for children of color is now going to be increasingly inaccessible. And I think one of the things your history kind of hits upon is that there are always these kinds of commercial and capitalist efforts behind Sesame Street. And particularly when we look in a transnational or global approach, we see kinds of, you know, potentially cultural imperialist frameworks come to mind, but also kind of countering that with kind of media proximity. And I think that that's one of the things your study does really well is show us that, yeah, sometimes it went into these places with American politics in tow. And other times they had to localize the content because, you know, governments, particularly in Western Europe, as you focus in, in your study, were kind of like, yeah, no, we see, we see what's going on here and it doesn't jive with what we're interested in. But yeah, I mean, we'll get more into that in a bit. But to begin, I guess the. I mean, the. I'm fascinated by the methodology here because you're traveling to seven different countries covering 11 archives. Can you tell us about this research process? And, you know, how do you track down and organize all the information you're getting and even figure out where it's at?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Well, it's been a. So I started in 2014 where I got some grants from the European Union and the Danish Research Council. So that enabled me to travel to a lot of places. Also thanks to my husband, who actually came with me and with our son. And so we. We've stayed abroad for quite, quite a long time. Also, actually, I did some of it already when we were leaving, when I knew we were leaving Italy. So. So I've, I've been fortunate to be able to travel to all these places. I think it's been a sort of kind of snowballing with, you know, seeing. Oh, so I go to one archive in Germany. I see, well, some of it is in another archive, or I go to one archive in Sweden. I see, oh, some of it is in Norway. But also getting it growing organically, seeing that I want these countries not, you know, like selecting countries. But I've, I've organized all of my material in a program called tropy, which is developed by George Mason. What's it called? The Rosenstreak center for History and New Media, I think it's called. And that's been excellent. So I've. Because it enables you to create an archive of your own. And, you know, you can tag people. So I have. If I find people in my material from the U.S. i tag them and their names and the places. Also I see, you know, some of the US material talking about Scandinavia, talking about Latin America, I, I tag those and I. And then I can tag across. I can actually gather material across sort of that fits for my own conceptual model, the analytical levels that I want to look at in this really big database where I have the. All of the material in there. And also I have all the metadata that I've, you know, put in my cells. And so, so really that really helped me. And also at some Point I figured out that one of the analytical levels, I wanted to have like a global level. So even though I'm focusing mostly in Western Europe, I wanted to see how children's television workshops marketing to a global audience in Latin America, in Australia, in Japan, how that impacted the business strategy in local cases. So like, for instance, Scandinavia. And then I wanted, also I knew that I wanted to compare, for instance, western Germany to Scandinavia, to Britain. So, and, and organizing the material entropy. Being able to create like a. The perfect archive for my exact study was phenomenal. I wouldn't have been able to do this kind of big comparative study, I think, as well, without that software.

[Pete Kunze]

Yeah. As I was reading it, I was marveling at how not only were you able to find all this stuff, because as you, you rightly note, those of us who work on children's media and children media histories, a lot of that stuff wasn't saved. Right. It was seen as. It's seen as culturally devalued. It's seen as ephemeral, particularly if it's television or some other kind of daily entertainment. And to see how much of it was actually preserved, particularly from an industrial side of things, was really great to see in.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, I, I ran into problems because there are different, like. So for comparative studies, you want, you want something, you know, units of comparison to be, you know, good and substantial. So I had, I thought I wanted Italy and France in there at first, but they are on a. They, they are not case studies on their own because that simply wasn't possible because the material wasn't kept. So I went to the Italian archives every day for two months because I was like, I don't believe you don't have anything. But I didn't.

[Pete Kunze]

Yeah, I mean, I talk to my students about that when I teach history and historiography. Right. It's. You don't go into the archive with a question. You go into the archive, you see what they have, and then you build the questions out from what you can find.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yes, it's definitely an iterative process.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's go back to the beginning. And I know this has been covered a lot in earlier Sesame street scholarship, but many of our listeners may not know it. Can you tell us a little bit about how Sesame street got developed by the Children's Television Workshop, and in particular, how was it actually closely aligned with 1960s US social policy?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, so I think definitely, you know, as you point to 1960s US sort of social policy, the Johnson government, head start, the war on Poverty. That is very Very important. So thinking about, you know, welfare for all of, you know, for a very sort of for all Americans and thinking about education as well. But I think also here education goes further back actually. I think it's very important to think about Cold War and to think about Sputn launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union or by the Russians. That is sort of seen to in educational history to be like a wake up point for at least some parts of the US where you're like, oh, well, you know, they got this, you know, a satellite and now, you know, we've fallen behind in STEM and we have to do something. So I think in terms of education and educational system as something where the Johnson governments focus on equality of opportunity as the educational system as somewhere that you can sort of not save but improve equality of opportunity for all Americans, also minorities, that is very important for system history, like for the development of Sesame street. To understand this, because actually you could say from a European perspective, comparative European perspective, thinking about the educational system as somewhere where the individual can improve their way of life, the individual can get to know, live the American dream is very individually focused, focused way of thinking about how to improve society rather than to think about like big structural changes. To think about like, well, this educational system might actually be biased in some way. But systemistry is a solution where you think about the individual child doing better when it gets into like the preschool child being better prepared for school. So you know, if you can teach them numbers, letters and other sort of cognitive school like type. Skills, then they will do better in the educational system. So you think about, you know, improving, you could say the individual child rather than the educational system. And that is a very, that ties in very well with the way that the Johnson government is thinking at this moment. So it's a, you know, very liberal American way of thinking.

[Pete Kunze]

Yeah, I actually studied at the University of Texas at Austin, which has President Johnson's presidential library is there. And I think what people may not realize because his, his reputation in the United States is kind of Johnson as this kind of aggressive, macho, effective legislator and negotiator, but he actually was trained as a school teacher and that kind of gets perhaps glossed over in his legacy. But you know, education programs were so central to him going back to his time working with Mexican American children in Texas. And it's interesting to see how, you know, the Corporation Public Broadcasting, the Children's Television Workshop and and of course Joan Ganz Cooney, who comes up a lot in your study, of course, are Kind of central towards developing the show and how it intersects with education policy, how it intersects with cognitive psychology at the same time.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, absolutely, cognitive psychology. And also because of the funding from. The first funding comes from the Carnegie foundation or the Carnegie foundation, and they really emphasize cognitive psychology at this point in time. That's the way, that is also their way to solve poverty crisis. That's the way to solve inequality in the American society. So this is this focus on education, but also that the current education. So John Kanz Cooney is not very happy with the progressive education. She's like, well, this made way too much sort of like social and cultural learning in these preschool programs. I want, or we want focus on like, you know, numeracy, literacy. So there is also in Sesame street is a criticism of the educational system in the US that ties really well in with the criticism from more conservative leaning policymakers.

[Pete Kunze]

Excellent, excellent. So as a show on this emerging public broadcasting, nationwide public broadcasting, of course, the United States had localized public broadcasting before then, but this was really about putting in place a nationwide public broadcasting that could be educational. So Sesame street becomes, is incredibly available and accessible around the country and it has a very different mandate than most industrially produced children's entertainment. So how did the Children's Television Workshop position Sesame street in the market and how did it perhaps position itself against things coming out of Walt Disney Productions, for instance?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, I think this is really interesting. I think also the Children's Television Workshop, or Sesame Workshop as it's called, called Mao, has been very good at sort of emphasizing some parts of their history and not others. And I think what I, what I was surprised about sometimes was how this is also business model positioning you as somebody who fills a void in a market. Right. And that was also what they did when they sort like when they were out looking for funding, saying like, this is not, you know, this is what American children need. This, you know, this is not. Doesn't exist on their current market. But they were actually very comfortable with going to Disney, for instance, seeking out funding like that. And they also tried to get Sesame street on commercial networks at first, but it wasn't possible. And then came the alliance with pbs, which they really benefit from like that, you know, that really positions them as something different also because Joe and Gantz Cooney is like, you know, we don't want, we don't want commercials within the broadcast, we don't want sponsorships. But because there's the funding from, there's the funding from Carnegie, funding from Ford, funding from the government. So it's, it's not commercial, commercially funded and that makes you stand out on this market. Right. So it's also a way to go to your funders and say like we fill in this void. We are not the vast wasteland. And, but, but it needs to be for everybody. And I think this is really important. Like yes, there is, as they say, well, we want to do something especially for what they call underprivileged children, which you know, is mostly Afro children, minority children, but it has to be for everyone because you cannot put something on a mass medium and a public service broadcasting if you don't got anybody to want everybody to watch it. And that's also why they operate with this ideal model child from cognitive psychology where they say, well there is just like this idea of this four year old. What can a four year old do? And that's not, it's a very cognitive science cognitive psychology model where you don't consider social, cultural backgrounds of the kids and the interest that they might lead to or the differences in learning patterns that might lead to.

[Pete Kunze]

Excellent, thank you. So let's talk a little bit more about Sesame street and the Children's Television Workshop as a business. I think this is really important aspect of, of your book and one of the things that comes through is that it was also a cross media franchise. Right. We think of Sesame street as a television series, but that was just one component of the business model, of the narrative structure of the series, of its educational mission. Can you tell us a little bit more about the business strategies you uncovered and how did you find them?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, I was very interested in the business strategies also because they haven't really been covered in much of the scholarship also domestically from a US side and also because this was much of the motivation for to take the show abroad. So it wasn't, it was very clear from the beginning that it wasn't very, it wasn't financially viable. So you had to make money, you know, because you couldn't, you know, fund like, so somebody like the Carnegie afford. They'll only give you for the first two seasons, three seasons perhaps, and then continue with a little bit. But they will never fund all of it. Right. And you have this quite big work. The workshop is big, it's a big corporation and so you need to get your money from somewhere. And well, once you've said like we don't want commercials, we don't want sponsorships, where is it going to come from? It's going to come from what they call non broadcast, but which is really Merchandise, Right. So there's all this Sesame street merchandise like bed linen, toys, booklets, games, lots. And it's really fascinating. And they had to sell it to bring in, you know, money to keep the show going. And also the alliance with books makes sense because parents, especially middle class parents, love books. So a way to, you know, say like oh, your children will learn numbers and letters. Like they will learn how to maybe take the first steps in reading. That alliance really makes sense. That gives you a lot of, you know, credibility. See, it gives you a lot of goodwill and also. But I think one of the fascinating cases that I look into was this. You know, at first everything that they produced that were merchandise had to be educational and they tested it and. But then at some point it's like, we can't test this. We can't do all of the test setup like we have for the broadcast. We just have to be able to sell it. And then it's like, yeah, as long as it's non gimmicky, we cancel it. And then there's also the alliance with action for children's television, which is also anti commercial. Like where. So there's this really, there's this alliance of seeing like not, you know, your non profit. You're. You can say you're against commercials but really you have to sell quite a lot of merchandise and you have to also then sell abroad the. The broadcasting, sell it abroad. So that's the way. So that's why I really looked into the financing and the budget and it's really interesting like follow the money is. Is quite interesting for a cultural history to then, you know, look at the financial side that gives some something that's really different.

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[Pete Kunze]

And your mention of action for Children's Television reminded me of Heather Hendershot's work on Peggy Sharon and.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yes, yes.

[Pete Kunze]

And learning how to, you know. And what was interesting in reading Hendershot's book. Right. Was that, you know, Sharon realized she couldn't go in and advocate censorship, that she had to work with a lot of these people and, and how she was effective at doing it. I mean this is really important dimension of children's media and the media culture more broadly. And it's, it's exciting when we get more into the policy and the economics and just the sheer financing of these things, especially if they're going to have this, this anti commercial ethos. But at the same time there's capitalist practices at work.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Right, yeah. And I go really into detail with this selling, like selling but appearing not to sell strategy. Like that's, I really, I think that was fascinating and I really tried to describe it like how that actually works. How do you craft such a strategy and how are you so successful with crafting such a strategy? That's just really fascinating.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's, let's, let's shift now toward when the Children's Television Workshop decides to pursue non US Markets. How early in the history of Sesame street does that happen and how well do those initial efforts go?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Happens very early. And they go very well at first actually I found like as early as 1968. So even before it airs in the US there is the Children's Television Workshop places sort of this three page information article about their work in a German magazine for broadcasters which is rightly read in Europe at this point in time. And it's clear from other like that it's read outside of Germany because people definitely know about the workshop very early. So that's, that's, you know that I, I found that fascinating that that is really early and that they're you know, aware of this magazine and they're aware of like potential markets really. It's, it's not really selling at this point. It's more like information about what we're doing and this cool thing we have going on that you might be interested in.

[Pete Kunze]

Sure.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

And then in like late 69 they start approaching BBC which is a gatekeeper to Commonwealth market at this point. And also then they enter in early, very, very early. I don't know if it's late 69 or early 1970, but they enter Sesame street for this Apprecianess which is a huge children's film. Fest or television festival at this point in time. Like if you want to see if you have a children's television program and you want it to be seen by the world, that is where you enter for that competition. And that's really successful because Sesame street actually wins one of the prizes in 1970. So it's seen by the broadcasters from 40 from more than 30 countries on four continents at this festival. So it's really seen by the world. And then they also, and this is fascinating, they employ sales agents. Like I've never seen any of those sales agents mentioned in any work I might have. I've really studied lots of System street historiography and I might have overlooked something. But the children, they employ people from Britain and people from France. So they have sales agents in both London and Paris when we in 1970. So it's really early and it goes quite well in the beginning with. So the London based agents, they're able to sell quite widely to the world. They also have like, they're very industrious and very commercial in the way that they approach this. The Paris based agents are less successful. They're trying to figure out how to co produce with affluent European broadcasters. But eventually they're actually also able to prepare this market. So. So you know, quite early on this strategy. And it is the strategy. It's not something it. The semi workshop says it's coincidental and people just, you know, saw that this was an amazing thing going on in the U.S. but that's, you know, that's not how cultural transfer happens. Right. Somebody has to, you know, make it seat, somebody has to see it. And then of course there's Latin America which is also approached. So the, the Sesame Workshop is very involved in getting Sesame street to Latin America for a pan Latin American Spanish version from early 1970. But the financial setup in that one is really shaky despite they get 1 million from Cerex. But they actually try to get Coca Cola to sponsor it first, which is interesting in terms of like cultural imperialism, I guess.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely, absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit more about this? Like what are you kind of gesturing towards some obstacles and some roadblocks that they faced in this process. What were some of the criticisms that the Children's Television Workshop faced in these markets, particularly in Western Europe?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, so there's lots of the different things, but overall in for instance in Western Europe you have a tradition for, you know, you have public service broadcasting. So being an alternative to commercial broadcasting is not a good selling point in Western Europe because you have very Little commercial broadcasting. And the commercial broadcasting you have is very, very regulated. But also progressive education is really on the rise. And that means also like a much more child centered way of thinking about what, what do children need in terms of children's television? They need something that talks to them as already beings, as human beings who need, you know, to be culturally stimulated, talked about as a social group, for instance, what are their interests? So a very sort of the very hardcore educational approach that, which is the one that, that I know that Sesame street is also fun and lots of music and Muppets, but they, what they try to sell Sesame street as is this educational philosophy that you can teach via television. And Europeans just not interested in that because they're like, we have schools, schools will take care of that.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

We want to have a cultural education, cultural stimulation, arts and crafts and things like that. So. So the seminary ends up looking a bit conservative to Europeans actually because of this sort of strict education like educational emphasis that it's being sold on. Yeah, and also there is a, you know, copying commercials as a technique to get children glued to the screen for an hour. You know, you don't have, have any shows that is an hour long at this point in time in Western Europe for children it's there like 15, 20, 25 minutes. But also you have a schedule approach. So you have like, if you have something informational, you have that, you know, in one program and then you have something entertaining in another program. You don't mix them like, because it's all made within, in one department in Europe, you know, it's not different competitors like, you know, Sesame Workshop has this one thing, whereas a European broadcast is like, well, we have, you know, news for kids, we have cartoons for kids. And we all do it like, you know, in the same schedule and we all collaborate on these things. So it's very different. And that's an obstacle also because Children's Television Workshop sometimes has a little, it's a little difficult for them to get this. The cultural sensitivity is not always sort of very fine tuned.

[Pete Kunze]

And this leads nicely into my next question, which is one of the important interventions in this book, I feel like, is your focus on the child viewer and particularly how this audience is constructed by these shows. Right. Because it's not that Sesame street was just taken from the US and broadcast around the world. It was localized to different, different markets. So can you tell us a little bit about how it's modified in different markets and in different contexts? In part because different children or what children need, what children Want what children are getting or not getting is, is markedly different in different areas of the world. So can you talk more about how that is informing your approach and, and some of the, some of what you uncovered?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's localized very differently in very different countries. It's like the more money you want to pay way to work together with Children's Television Workshop, the more localized the product you can get. So that's also interesting. But so for instance, one of, one of my case studies is Western Germany. I think it's fascinating because it's one of the first co productions after Latin America. So the, the workshop starts, starts co producing in Latin America and they're like well it's a very financially is a very different setup. So they want a new setup for Western Germany and they get that. But in, in West Germany you have come out, you come out of the Second World War and the, the, the experience of the war and the way in which the war is interpreted at this point in time, it has a huge impact on pedagogy and education in West Germany. And so the way in which also you see children and their relationship with adults. And it's thought to be at this point in time, you know, the way in which we can avoid having a repetition of the war, the Holocaust, you know, is to have a more critical, have children be more critical to be able to stand up to adult authorities. So the child, the children are seen as a social group that needs to be able to think on their own, be empowered, stand up, speak back, be much more anti authoritarian to see themselves as equals with adults in some ways. And this is a very child centered focus. And so the Germans, they want this to be the focus of the German local production. But there's a huge pushback on that from the American side actually. And it's only because financially the Children's Television Workshop cannot lose Germany as a market because where Germany goes, rest of like lots of Europe goes. So if this, this, if this fails and that's, that's financial, that leverage is actually what, what, how the Germans can say to the Americans, you know what, we want this anti authoritarian education. We want to empower children. You know, we want show them as equal as adults. And there is, there are some great examples I think in, of how this plays out actually in the book. And so that's one of the ways that is, you know, you really see this negotiation of what is localization and how, how also financing makes that work.

[Pete Kunze]

And so in that spirit I'm I'm curious because we've already talked about cultural imperialism, Right. And I'm wondering about the other side of it, right, which is cultures, contexts where the viewers were like, no, thank you, we're good. So can you tell us a little bit about places where Sesame street failed or at least stumbled for a period before it got its first footing?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the UK is another case study here. But. And that's about like the BBC doesn't want it. There's something about fake letters and lawyers and so really intriguing. And ITV takes it. So that's one, you know, you could have one broadcaster not take it and another just, you know, take it. But I think the third case is Scandinavia where it's, you know, just returning project. Like there's a fascination, as I told you, with the, with the, with Kermit, for instance. Like, okay, so everybody in Europe loves the Muppets, the music and the Muppets. That's, you know, and Burden Ernie. And everybody wants to buy just segments with the Muppets and the. Even the BBC wants to buy segments with the Muppets. But like Children's Television Workshop is like, no, we have a philosophy is tied in with all this educational setup. They research the testing, so you buy that that are nothing really. And the Scandinavians, they try for like a year, two years, three years even to collaborate Denmark, Sweden and Norway about a Nordic version. But it completely fails because Scandinavia, at this point in time, they're really used to collaborating also with no profit. Like they're all public service, so they just swap segments and they don't pay for those things. They then, you know, I give you something, you give me something. Collaborate together and, and, and they really don't. I think the Scandinavians are very sort of naive. Like they don't get how the Americans, they need to, you know, that's is their brand, it's their ip. They don't get that the Americans on their side are like, you're just like rogue. Like we can't understand what you want. And also, you know, all this anti authoritarianism. It' much like it's not. So that completely fails. Then Sweden takes, you know, this, this open system which is a spin off which Sweden eventually buys. But, but it's really interesting to look at this because often we don't get to study cultural demarcation. But there are so many, I found so many sources from this, like the negotiations. Also the Scandinavians, how they call each other on the phone and they talk about like what they think about the Americans and tends to talk about, you know, have internal memos about what they think about the Scandinavians. And it's, it's been fascinating having this archival material where you have like, you have the letters that are outgoing, you have the internal letters that you know, are circulated before even the outgoing letters, then you have the reception in that country and you have like internal discussions with other countries or even on a European level and you have what's going back. So it's been really multi layered sort of cultural transfer. It's been fascinating to, to see, you know, what, what you keep inside your organization and what you send out is not the same at all.

[Pete Kunze]

Yeah, it's fascinating to think about production cultures, you know, in media industries, research. Right. But then to think about how they are constructed transnationally. Right. Because often work on production cultures is like, oh, let's look at a set in Hollywood or, or maybe a, you know, a runaway production in Toronto or here in my, my town of New Orleans. But to think about a production culture that in some ways is not only a literal space but becomes this kind of, kind of metaphorical space. Right. Where like the Scandinavians and the Americans working across, you know, the around the world are trying to kind of make something happen through this, this transnationalization of Sesame Street. I mean it's super interesting and, and.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Generative and it also pushes, it pushes this children's television workshop to rethink what is our brand. How little can we sell without losing the sort of integrity brand and also the merchandise that they need to sell with the brand. Like they need a lot of brand recognition. That was one of the problems in France. Like they're like the way in which it's broadcast, you know, you don't see that is our brand. Like we, we, we absolutely need that because that's one of the ways it's crucial for us to sell all the merchandise that comes with it. And I think also the way like I've enjoyed not only working with social media of, you know, Americans working with, you know, Germans or Scandinavians, but also see like how did the Danes, the Germans and the Brits talk together about their American when they weren't in the room in the European broadcasting, for instance, or how did Germans when they argued for, against draw upon experiences that they had seen other people have with co production in Latin America? That's really absolutely fascinating to be able to explore, to have this rich materials just explore, explore the global level and its impact on a local level.

[Pete Kunze]

Absolutely. And to see too in some ways discursively they were positioning themselves against, at least in the US Context, like filmation and Hanna Barbera and, you know, the violence or the nonsense of those shows.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

And they saw themselves very much as, you know, when going to Europe, you have a, you have a television fair that's the equivalent of the Cannes Film Fair. You have, have the Cannes Television Fair. And so they strategized before going, saying, like, we should not come across like, you know, Hanna Barbera. We are not like them. We should be more class. Like, we're more classy. We don't push our product. We just display it in a way so that people can avoid seeing it.

[Pete Kunze]

Right. I mean, it's fascinating to think about these intersections of progressive education and kind of liberal elitism. Right? Like that, that great society thinking of, like, we know how to the downtrodden and how it manifests itself in these media cultures as well as we kind of head into the, the final stretch here. One of the many rewards of your book is reassessing Sesame Street's intentions, practices and legacies, as we've been doing in our conversation here. How do you think your history is challenging these received notions of Sesame street as altruistic, anti commercial, maybe even, some people might say, even mistake it for socialist in its efforts and its management. And I think your history kind of points to ways that it's not. I mean, do you feel that you're kind of going after a sacred cow here?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know. It's. It's been difficult, right? It's like I didn't set out to dig into dirt like I should have. Maybe that was naive of me, like following money. It's not, not, you know, it's, it's, it's not cute, but it's been fascinating to, to follow the materiality of transfer and see, you know, things doesn't, you know, they don't spread into the world just because people find them fascinating. Like, there are lots of things that are fantastic which, but which stay local because they're never marketed outside. You know, it has to spread in some way. Way. Right. It's not, you don't, you're not, as a European broadcaster in the 1970s, thinking like, oh, what's going on in the US you can't Google it, you can't watch it on YouTube, you can't see it anywhere. So if you have a show in the US you, you make it travel. And that's been fascinating and I think, but also, I think, you know, it wasn't you know, on the US Market, Sesame street wasn't financially viable. There wasn't. No, there was no business model where it could stay, you know, anti commercial. It just couldn't. Because how was it supposed to make money? It couldn't do it. So they had to seek revenue elsewhere. And I think also there was this really this sense that we are helping people. We, you know, we are doing something good for the world. We believe in cognitive aspects, you know, cognitive psychology, the model, child psychometrics. We, we do, you know, this fascinating science of psychology. We, there is, you know, they talked about often as the show as culture free. And they really did believe in a culture free way of thinking about children, media and education. And then there is the pushback in Europe because there you are like no cultural free. No, no, that doesn't work here. And I think also there is this really, you know, believe in equality of opportunity and you know, helping all kinds of children, underprivileged children in the US And I think there is really, you know, I think that's very sincere. I think it's just very naive. Yeah, no, or it's very of its time. It's very of its time and you know, we shouldn't judge people. I shouldn't have said naive. It's just, you know, it's very bound. It's, it's a way, this, this way that the, the CTV model, which is a research testing and educational model, tying it in with a show. It is, it is a very 1970s module way of thinking about childhood. That, that is. And I think it's been, I think childhood studies especially has been great because there was this, you know, okay, so in Sesame street there are becomings, right? It's like empowering children through education to do better later in life. Whereas we're like, no, we want to empower children in the here and now. We tell them about the world. We tell them about, you know, how to stand up to adult author. We tell them how to, you know, about sibling rivalry, jealousy, all these things that they encounter in their everyday lives. And we empower them in that way. So it's a very, it's been fascinating to compare and to see, you know, how this story about Sesame street change when you do that.

[Pete Kunze]

Yeah. I think your answer there was so revealing for me and so useful because I think there is a temptation to maybe misread your work as kind of following the strain that Disney scholarship has gone in. And I say this as a Disney scholar, right? Where it's kind of like we thought they were innocent, but they're actually, you know, rabid capitalists. And I think you make an important correction there in that kind of potentially misreading Sesame street in the same way by saying like, no, they couldn't have survived in the American market or in the global marketplace without adapting some kind of kinds of, you know, commercial strategies, even though they were presenting this kind of anti commercial ethos. And that kind of compromise is so fascinating and so rich and, and in the latter part of your answer, I really appreciate it. Not only the turn to business practices of Sesame street, but understanding that they're historicized, right? That they're not necessarily strategies that would work today, but in that moment, with that understanding of the audience, with that understanding of the market, here's how we're going to navigate it. And that kind of work, I think, I think is really useful for historians and media scholars alike.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Thank you.

[Pete Kunze]

So what are you currently working on? It sounds like you spent many years on this one. And do you feel like you're sending your child off to school now or are you continuing on this path with more work on Sesame street, or are you taking a new avenue?

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

So I've been very fascinated. It's been great doing this project, but I think the next couple years of, couple of months it'll be all. Be all about Sesame Street. But I think after that, I've actually, I've received some funding from the Carlsberg foundation, which funds a lot of humanistic and social science research in Denmark. And you can get to. So I've proposed a new monograph where I would like to write essays about public debates about children and media. So because I'm really fascinated about the way in which, which these become so much more polarized. Polarized, you know, also. And I'm often, I'm often interviewed for Danish media about these debates. So, you know, like a drag queen, you know, making a show, you know, dressing up in a public library, you know, it copied a lot, you know, from us debates, you know, what these are like. But I often find myself as a, as an example expert talking about, like, why is it when it's about children it gets so there's so much heat and so little light, right? It's like just so I want to look at this. Historically, I've done so for Scandinavia only in a, in a, in a previous book that was published while I actually did the street thing. But I think I also want to use web sources, so archive web. Some very. As a digital historian, I'm very fascinated about like the potential to use archive Web sources. So I'm trying to look at the base in the US the UK and Scandinavia and compare sort of how do we discuss, you know, Teletubbies and homosexuality or spongebob and, you know, how do we look at, you know, something like screen time? So all these debates, I want to. But I want to do a more popular book. I would prefer to write like, 20 essays about, I think, debates about children and culture, the culture consumption.

[Pete Kunze]

So, yeah, I mean, just sitting here thinking about that topic in the US Context, I'm thinking like the Pain Fund Studies or Seduction of the Innocent. Right. And comic books. I mean, and, and, you know, I've done some work on Saturday morning cartoons and what are Saturday morning cartoons doing to children? Right. I mean, it's, it's a really rich area and.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

Yeah. But I would really love to work with sort of more like, you know, 80s 90s, like, you know, like when you. Yeah, yeah. And especially I think there's lots of potential for historians and media historians to work with archive web, which we haven't really taken advantage of yet. And I, you know, I'd really like to do that.

[Pete Kunze]

Excellent. Well, when you finish it, hopefully you'll come back on the podcast.

[Hille Stannengaard Jedinsen]

It would be a pleasure.

[Pete Kunze]

Well, thank you so much for your time today, Hille. The book is Sesame Street, A Transnational History, available now from Oxford University Press and other online books and sellers. This is Pete Kunzee and this has been New Books and Media on the New Books Network. Thank you for listening and we hope you'll join us again next time.