We Got to Sesame Street

Summary

Podcast Summary: "We Got to Sesame Street" – Stuff You Should Know

Release Date: May 8, 2025
Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts – Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant

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Introduction to Sesame Street

In this special Sesame Street edition of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve deep into the history, impact, and enduring legacy of one of the most influential children's educational programs ever created. They explore how Sesame Street has evolved over its 55-season run, touching millions of lives worldwide and addressing a myriad of social issues through its beloved characters and innovative programming.

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Origins and Founding

Josh Clark opens the discussion by providing a foundational understanding of Sesame Street, describing it as a long-running children's television educational program that premiered in 1969. It has since expanded to 150 to 170 countries, with 30 co-productions that adapt the show's content to local cultures and customs.

Chuck Bryant emphasizes the show's noble beginnings, linking it to President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society initiative, which aimed to eliminate poverty and inequality. The hosts explain that Sesame Street was conceived to address the educational needs of disadvantaged children aged three to five, recognizing the crucial role of early childhood education in cognitive and social development.

At [07:00], Chuck remarks, "They have won a staggering 221 Emmy awards," highlighting the program's critical acclaim and success over the decades.

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Key Characters and Their Evolution

The hosts discuss the introduction and development of iconic Sesame Street characters:

• Season One Highlights:
  • Big Bird
  • Grover
  • Kermit the Frog: Initially featured but later removed due to concerns about over-commercialization.
  • Bert and Ernie
  • Oscar the Grouch
  • Cookie Monster
  • Aloysius Snuffleupagus: Introduced a couple of years later, Snoopy’s larger friend with a full name, "Aloysius."

Josh Clark notes, "Elmo came along a way earlier than I thought. He was just kind of a background character but eventually became one of the most beloved Muppets."

The discussion also touches upon the evolution of human characters, including Gordon and Susan, and the challenges faced in maintaining diversity and representation over the years.

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Sesame Street's Global Impact and Co-productions

Josh and Chuck explore how Sesame Street's format has been adapted globally, ensuring cultural relevance while maintaining its educational core. Examples include:

• Israel and Palestine – "Oh Yeah! Tshi Mäsh":

  • Promotes peace and understanding between Israeli and Palestinian children.
  • Features subtitles to bridge language barriers.

• South Africa – "Takalani Sesame":

  • Introduces Kami, an HIV-positive orphan, to destigmatize the condition and promote acceptance among children.

• Afghanistan – "My Best Attempt is Baksh e Simsim":

  • Adapts characters and themes to fit cultural norms, avoiding elements like trash and vampirism which are culturally sensitive.

Chuck Bryant highlights, "Andrew S. Natsios, who led USAID under George W. Bush, said the Arabic language version of the show was the 'biggest weapon against Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.'"

The hosts underscore the importance of these adaptations in fostering global education and social harmony.

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Sesame Street's Approach to Social Issues

Sesame Street has never shied away from tackling complex and sensitive topics. Key moments include:

• 1982 – Mr. Hooper's Death:

  • Will Lee, the actor behind Mr. Hooper, passed away.
  • The show addressed death and grief directly, with Big Bird explaining Mr. Hooper's passing to young viewers, marking a pivotal moment in children's television.

  Chuck Bryant reflects, "They decided on Big Bird taking the lead in saying very sadly, 'I want to give Mr. Hooper a picture that I drew when he comes back.'"

• 1985 – Snuffleupagus Becomes Real:

  • Addressed the disbelief children might face when sharing experiences, symbolizing the importance of believing and supporting abused children.

• Modern Issues:

  • COVID-19 Pandemic (2020): Addressed mask-wearing and vaccinations, with Big Bird getting a band-aid to represent vaccination.
  • Introduction of Julia, a Muppet with autism, and new characters teaching emotional regulation and coping mechanisms.

Josh Clark emphasizes, "Sesame Street knows they have to deal with this stuff, so they're not backing away from it."

These efforts showcase Sesame Street's commitment to providing children with the tools to navigate real-life challenges.

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Research and Impact Studies

The effectiveness of Sesame Street has been consistently validated through extensive research:

• Initial Studies (Season One):

  • Conducted by the Educational Testing Service, sampling 943 children revealed significant learning gains correlated with increased viewership.

• 2013 Meta-Analysis:

  • Reviewed 24 studies involving 10,000 children in 15 countries.
  • Found that Sesame Street positively impacted cognitive skills, world knowledge, and social reasoning, with benefits spanning income levels and geographic locations.

Chuck Bryant cites, "The show actually did improve outcomes, and the positive effect was particularly pronounced for boys and black non-Hispanic children and children who grew up in other countries who had economic disadvantage."

These studies underscore Sesame Street's role as a powerful educational tool that transcends cultural and economic barriers.

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Funding Challenges and Future Outlook

Despite its success, Sesame Street has faced financial hurdles:

• Funding Sources:

  • Primarily funded through licensing (e.g., books, toys), donations, and partial government support via USAID.
  • In 2015, the organization faced operational deficits, prompting partnerships with entities like HBO to secure additional funding.

• Recent Developments:

  • In December 2024, Warner Brothers Discovery ended its licensing deal with Sesame Street, creating financial strain.
  • The current administration announced cuts to USAID funding, impacting the Arabic language version of Sesame Street, though it accounts for only 4% of total funding.

Josh Clark expresses concern, "The idea of Sesame Street just going away because no one's going to put it on the air is mind-bogglingly sad to me."

Chuck Bryant adds, "We don't have anywhere to show it. That's a big obstacle we would have to overcome."

While the future remains uncertain, the hosts remain hopeful, suggesting that continued support through licensing and donations can help sustain the beloved program.

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Notable Moments and Cultural Impact

Sesame Street's cultural footprint is vast, including:

• "Rubber Ducky" Song:

  • Ernie's hit song charted at number 16 on the Billboard charts in 1970.

• "Tickle Me Elmo" Phenomenon (1996):

  • Elmo became an overnight sensation, leading to massive demand, hospital stampedes, and black market sales.
  • Josh Clark notes, "Elmo is the only non-human to testify before Congress."

• Character Adaptations:

  • Maria and Luis: Introduced to enhance Latina representation by season three.
  • Roosevelt Franklin: A black-coated Muppet created to reflect African American vernacular, later removed amid controversy over racial stereotypes.

• Educational Achievements:

  • Described by The New Republic as "the first massive open online course providing educational content to viewers for free."
  • A 2015 white paper lauded it as one of the "largest and least costly interventions."

Chuck Bryant shares a fun fact, "The characters on Sesame Street are some of the most recognizable in the world. 75% of people under 55 told a YouGov poll that they even have a favorite character."

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Listener Engagement and Trivia

Wrapping up, Josh and Chuck engage with listener mail, celebrating librarians' roles in education and highlighting recent initiatives within Sesame Street to address contemporary issues.

Josh Clark encourages listeners to "watch the full compilation of the Pinball Count songs" and mentions Sesame Street's resilience in maintaining its educational mission despite funding challenges.

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Conclusion

We Got to Sesame Street offers an insightful and comprehensive exploration of Sesame Street's enduring legacy. From its inception as an educational tool for disadvantaged children to its global adaptations and fearless tackling of social issues, Sesame Street stands as a testament to the power of media in shaping young minds. Despite facing financial uncertainties, the program's profound impact on generations of children worldwide remains indisputable, ensuring its place as a beloved cornerstone of educational television.

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Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Bryant ([07:00]): "They have won a staggering 221 Emmy awards."
• Chuck Bryant ([38:24]): "The Arabic language version of the show was the 'biggest weapon against Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.'"
• Josh Clark ([07:05]): "As do I. Which I'm kind of surprised. Neither one of us has an Emmy for the work that we've done."
• Josh Clark ([46:32]): "Because it took kids seriously as, as, you know, thinking, feeling individuals."

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and critical moments from the podcast episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And Jerry's here too. And this is Sesame street edition, which this has been a long time coming. Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I don't know if you planned this or not, but our selects episode like the week before this comes out, I believe is Jim Henson.

[Josh Clark]

I did not plan it.

[Chuck Bryant]

What?

[Josh Clark]

No, I really didn't.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

That's Kermit. I mean, kismet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Kersmit, right?

[Josh Clark]

That's really cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. If you haven't listened to those. I mean really, a couple of our greatest episodes ever in Stuff youf Should Know lore are our Muppet episodes and our Jim Henson up. So those are good primers if you haven't heard those yet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because this definitely touches on Jim Henson. Because Jim Henson was a huge driver for Sesame street initially, as we'll see.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But let's talk a little bit about Sesame Street.

[Chuck Bryant]

We should say what it is. Probably.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Although I would be really surprised if basically everyone listening wasn't at least familiar. But for those of you who aren't, that's fine. Sesame street is a long running children's television educational program that started way back in 1969, was season one, and has spread all over the world. I think it's in 150 to 170 countries depending on who you ask.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

And even more than that, in 30 of those countries, at least, there are what are called co productions where they have basically taken the ball and said, going to make our own version of Sesame street in conjunction with the people who make Sesame street and just kind of adapt it to local customs and culture more. So it's a global juggernaut and it's basically globally beloved, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, not by everyone. I'm sure some people hate it.

[Josh Clark]

I hope you're wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I was just kidding.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, good.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think everyone has a soft spot, at least for Sesame Street. I watched it for sure as a kid, but I. I wasn't like, I don't remember years and years and years and years of watching it. I moved on to Electric Company, which was. Felt like a little bit older, more intellectual. Yeah, maybe a little bit. So I moved on to that pretty quickly. But I did. I did love Sesame street and the Muppets, and it was, you know, right in our wheelhouse, even though it was, you know, I guess it started just a few years before I was born, actually. Sadly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But again, it's. It's one of the longest running television shows in the history of the United States. It's up with, like, General Hospital. Like, it's just been going forever. It's in season 55 right now. It's been continuous every year since it started, and it is, at least in the United States, but I would suspect in a lot of parts of the world, it's basically a rite of early childhood. It's a rite of passage. Like, you just kind of grow up on Sesame Street. And then, like you said, I think as you start to age out of it, you move on to other stuff that was also produced by people who produced Sesame Street. Oh, I hope I don't start saying Semese street, because that's just not gonna work.

[Chuck Bryant]

That might be the name of it in some country. You never know.

[Josh Clark]

As we'll see, they do have some great names for it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe we should talk a little bit just out of the gate about some of the biggest characters, most iconic characters, and when they were introduced, because not all of them have been around for the whole run. But from the very beginning in the first season, we got Big Bird. I know we've talked about it, but there's a great documentary on Big Bird that you should watch if you're into that kind of thing. Grover was right away. Kermit was in season one. Although, as you learned, Kermit was already on TV in other areas, such that people are like, Kermit's a little. I don't know if we're over him, but maybe a little overexposed. So they actually removed him after season one for a little while, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think they were concerned that he was too commercialized. He was too associated with advertising and hawking products that they were like, this doesn't really have a place here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We also got Bert and Ernie in season one, Oscar the Grouch, our friend in the trash can, the Cookie Monster. And then a couple of years later, we got Aloysius Snuffalupagus. Snuffalupagus. Excuse me. A nice little factoid for your next dinner party is that he does have a first name, and it's Aloysius.

[Josh Clark]

What about the count?

[Chuck Bryant]

72.

[Josh Clark]

What about Telly Monster?

[Chuck Bryant]

This was 79. I must not have been watching it that much at 8 years old, because I did not remember Telly Monster.

[Josh Clark]

I remembered him, but he wasn't a big deal to me, so I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I guess we crossed paths.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who helped? Was Dave help us with this?

[Josh Clark]

No, this was Dr. Claw.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, well, Laura Clawson. Laura might have been into Tellymonster, so maybe that's why she listed it.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I know he's kind of a big one, but I think even more than Telly. By far, as far as recognition goes, Elmo came along way earlier than I thought. He came along in 1980.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But he was just kind of a background character. I don't even think he necessarily had a name or any big speaking parts. But he eventually kind of caught on and became one of the more beloved Muppets of all time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stay tuned for Act 3 to learn how that happened.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

How about a cliffhanger there?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then I guess let's talk a little bit about the origins. We'll come back to some of the. The Muppet characters later on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We should mention the hardware, though, because they have won a staggering 221emmy awards. I'm not going to degrade it by saying, well, they're Daytime Emmys, but they are Daytime Emmys, and you can rack up a lot of those over the years, but 221 over 55 seasons? I don't care how you slice it. That's super impressive. I have zero Emmys.

[Josh Clark]

As do I. Which I'm kind of surprised. Neither one of us has an Emmy for the work that we've done.

[Chuck Bryant]

11 Grammys, pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then a bunch of Peabodys.

[Josh Clark]

I believe that the last time they got an Emmy, the producer who accepted it, just yawned on stage and walked off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just threw it in a big room with the rest of them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. On the pile. So we should talk about the origins of all this, because Sesame street and the whole idea behind it grew out of two developing things in the mid-1960s. One was President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, which was this ideal policy movement toward ending poverty and inequality, getting rid of crime, helping the environment, making a great society as far as progressives were concerned, that was one thing that was going on. So there was much more of an awareness. There was a little like they literally declared a war on poverty.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So there was much more of an awareness of the difference between the advantaged and the disadvantaged, especially among children in the United States at the time. And then at the. At the. On the other side of the coin, there was this growing awareness among psychologists and other, like, educators that what had been previously neglected and ignored, which was the early childhood years, say between three and five, were really crucial to the intellectual development of a kid.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And so there came this idea to create television programming that was geared toward disadvantaged kids between ages 3 and 5 to help them, to give them kind of a leg up before they started schooling. That's pretty much the premise of where this whole thing came from.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which is. I mean, talk about a noble cause. They were. They were on board from the beginning. And we'll, as you'll see, you know, shortly, they really put their money where their mouths were as far as doing actual research and studies to make sure they were doing what they intended to do.

[Josh Clark]

Precisely.

[Chuck Bryant]

As the story goes, in 1966, as far as the origin, a woman named Joan Ganz Cooney and a dude named Lloyd Morissette were at a dinner party, and they started talking about tv and, like, maybe TV could educate kids. Cooney was in the newspaper biz. She started producing tv, and then as soon as New York City got a educational television station, she came on board and started working for them. And I think a documentary on a Harlem preschool was her first job. And it really just got her hooks. Got its hooks in her as far as, like, hey, TV can do something different.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. She said in a documentary called Street Gang, I think Colin Howey got to Sesame Street. It was from 2021 that she wanted to find out what television would do if it loved people instead of trying to sell to people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And this is a time where the FCC chair, back in 1961, under JFK, his name was Newton Minow, he made a name for himself historically by saying that television was a vast wasteland. And, I mean, he was kind of right. There was some good stuff on at the time, but also there was some really bad stuff, too. And it was. I think what he was ultimately saying, though, is he was. He wasn't critiquing the. The smartness of the sitcoms at the time. He was basically saying, like, there's nothing to be gained from. Like, this is all just dumb escapism and advertising, essentially is what TV is. And we hadn't really come a very long way for a long time.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Well, we. We have and we haven't. One step forward, two steps back, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, man, when they did away with the After School Special, TV took a nosedive as far as I'm concerned.

[Chuck Bryant]

As far as Morissette goes, he was a VP at the Carnegie Corporation. Very smart guy. He had a PhD in psychology from Yale. And his sort of lore goes that he was watching his daughter, his young daughter watch TV test patterns before broadcast started early one morning. And he was like, oh, my God, kids, they'll really watch anything if it's on a screen. This is not good.

[Josh Clark]

No. He said to Joan Ganz Cooney, isn't it ironic, don't you think?

[Chuck Bryant]

Is he related?

[Josh Clark]

No, I think she has an e at the end of her name.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I think you're right. I just wonder, though, because she was in kids television.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You can't do that on television.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I was like, oh, I wonder if there's a tie there. But I guess not.

[Josh Clark]

She got slimed.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they started doing a little research and they got a grant through the Carnegie Corporation because Morissette was a VP there, and he wrote a report about, you know, using TV is a good thing for preschool kids. They got another grant to develop, like a more in depth pitch. Basically did a lot more research. Again, they weren't just sort of writing from the. From the dome. And in 1968, they presented a proposal called Television for Preschool Children. And again, on the premise that, like, hey, all we're doing is, like, trying to sell stuff to people like, what if TV treated them with respect and love instead?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I mean, TV was a great way to get to kids already by the mid-60s. I saw that. I think, oh, I don't remember what year it was, but around the time that these guys were starting, kids were averaging 54 hours a week in front of the television. That's almost eight hours a day. That's a full workday of watching TV for kids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So I mean, they were already tuned in. So the idea of, like, getting to them through the TV in a way that you, like, you were trying to help them to educate them, I mean, it was radical for the time, but it also is just totally sensible. But like you said, they weren't just going on this idea, like, of course it's gonna work. They tested this inside and out, and what became the Children's Television Workshop, which is now called Sesame Workshop, this collaborative of, like, writers, producers, directors for the show, but also child psychologists, sometimes religious leaders, educators, and also of, like, different races, ethnicities, all coming together to basically say, like, here are some things we can. We. Like, here's goals we want to achieve in educating kids. We want them to learn cognitively. We want them to learn social graces. And, like, I think if we try this way or that way, we can actually achieve that. But let's try this way and try that way and test them both and see which works best.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And they had to get kids to watch, though, like, all of this hard work. It would be really, really sad if kids just didn't tune in, because as we'll see, like, PBS and its precursor, the National Education Television, I guess network was maybe not a lot of people watched it at the time, so they knew they had to get eyeballs in front of it. So from their initial $8 million in funding from different foundations and some from the federal government, they spent $900,000 of that 8 million to promote the show, which is a pretty staggering percentage out of the gate. And they had a bunch of, you know, they went to regular media outlets, of course, but they also hit Head Start programs and churches and daycares. I think you found out that when, like, the week before the premiere, they hired trucks with, like, loudspeakers to just drive around a lot of urban neighborhoods advertising that it was coming on. And like you mentioned from the onset, Mr. Jim Henson coming aboard was also a big part of getting people to watch, because the Muppets were already a thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like we said, Kermit was already so commercialized, he basically was removed from the show. But they've been around since the 50s. I think Jim Henson's first puppet gig was out of high school or during high school, and he developed this shtick pretty quickly, but it wasn't. It wasn't associated with kids. He would take it on, like the Steve Allen show or the Jack Parr show, like late night tv, and do, like, puppet skits that weren't at all geared toward kids. And Very quickly started doing advertising with them as well. They just became a thing. Muppets. People knew Muppets before there was Sesame Street. So to land Jim Henson, he wasn't like some megastar, you know, he was no CC deville at the time, but he. He was well known. So it was kind of like they landed a bit of a whale by getting Jim Henson fully involved in developing and executing, or I should say producing Sesame street initially.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know what? I think I got the poison reference wrong in that episode recently. That's why I said that CeCe Deville is a guitarist. Ricky Rocket was a drummer.

[Josh Clark]

You got that straight. Finally.

[Chuck Bryant]

Talk dirty to me.

[Josh Clark]

One of the reasons why, also, Chuck, it was so big to bring Jim Henson on was because from that research, and today this seems totally normal, but this grew out of the Children's Television Workshop research, was that puppets and animation really got kids going. It really jazzed them, really got their attention. And as we learned from the editorial cartoon episode, that's because they're super stimuli. So they jack kids up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then, weirdly, some of the child psychologists involved in the development of the show were like, okay, that's fine. We need puppets. But the humans and the puppets can never interact. They can never communicate. It will scare the bejesus out of the children if they do. And I guess somebody was like, that's a pretty ridiculous thing. And that got thrown away even before the pilot episode ran.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, no, they actually tested it with kids and learned that the kids were not interested in the adult only sections.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they actually had real, real data. So they tried it out and it just didn't work.

[Josh Clark]

No, and they should have known, too. I mean, this, like, Sesame street was pretty groundbreaking in that it was an educational show and. But there are already kids shows like Mr. Rogers had been around for a year before it debuted. Captain Kangaroo had been around since 1955. But what made it different is that those shows were generally, like, anti school, and they encourage kids to explore a life of crime, whereas Sesame street was like, no, let's go to school and be the best kind of people we can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now can we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, great. We'll come back and talk a little bit about what happened on November 10, 1969, right after this stuff.

[Josh Clark]

You should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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Be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total active Prevention system by visiting shop.colgate.com total. All right, so I promised a specific date in mind. November 10, 1969. Again, a year before, roughly before PBS came out, a show like this would air on something called the National Education Television. And that's when it aired. Ta da. And it was a hit right out of the gate. Almost 7 million viewers. In season one, Ernie had a big hit song with Rubber Ducky, actually charted at number 16 on the billboards.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

In September 1970 and was not nominated for a Grammy. And they used to do a ton of these episodes. They had 130 episodes a season for a while. And then further reduction in funding kind of over the years trimmed it down. And by the time they hit the 2000s, they were down to 30 episodes a year. But you know, I mentioned test pilots and James Earl Jones was, you know, it kind of depends on who you talk to. He was in one of those test pilots. So some people say he was the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street. But the actual real episode one, season one, Carol Burnett was featured as the first guest.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And Carol Burnett was laughing while she was counting to 10. James Earl Jones is just staring at the camera doing the Alphabet in almost a really creepy way. Have you seen it? Oh yeah, it's great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that pilot was called. The title of it was Gordon Introduces Sally to Sesame Street. And the other, I mean, in my opinion, oddball human that appeared in episode one, season one was magician James Randi.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Pretty cool.

[Josh Clark]

That is cool. Was he just doing magic or teaching kids to be skeptics?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think he was just doing magic. I didn't watch the whole episode, but I just thought that was kind of fun.

[Josh Clark]

But the reason James Earl Jones was on there and shortly after Harry Belafonte and a lot of other black celebrities very early on was because again, the show initially was geared toward disadvantaged inner city black kids who had just been totally overlooked and forgotten. So they wanted to show people that looked like them on TV and so they could learn from them. So it was really kind of, I don't want to say like geared toward black kids, but there was way more for the average 3 or 4 year old black kid growing up in America at the time that they could find anywhere else on tv. The thing is, it was also designed for everybody, for every kid. So any Kid could come along and enjoy it. And that was actually seen. Apparently Sesame street is based on Harlem, I guess, and they originally had one name for it, which was, I think. Was it 123 B Street or B Avenue?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

I think it was. And so people were like, that sounds really New York. And it's going to turn off. Everybody outside of New York. Everyone in New York will love it. But, you know, so they expanded it to Sesame street eventually so that everybody could appreciate it more.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And part of the racial diversity was a problem in some places in the United States at the time. There was human characters. Gordon and Susan were a black couple. And the state of Mississippi said, not in my state, that's not going to be on television. And because it is a, you know, PBS is. Is a. Is a public thing, the state kind of shut that down. The state commission did and banned. Only took 22 days for that to be reversed. But take heart that a local NBC affiliate stepped up during that three weeks and aired those episodes even in Mississippi.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's so cool, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's great.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, the first, the original human cast were Gordon and Susan, a black couple, and then Mr. Hooper and Bob. Both of them were white. Mr. Hooper ran the store. Bob was a music teacher, Gordon was a science teacher. And Susan originally started out as a housewife, developed into a nurse, and then finally became a working mom later on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it took a couple of years to get Latina representation because initially in the first couple of seasons, Chicano activists and Puerto Rican activists were like, hey, where are we in this show? And so by season three, we got Maria and Luis. You did mention Gordon originally. That was a guy named Matt Robinson. But he left the show. He kind of co created this character with Jim Henson named Roosevelt Franklin. And he was purple, but he was sort of a black coated Muppet because he spoke using African American vernacular English. And while some people was like, no, this is great as a role model and it's real, other people were like, no, that's a negative stereotype. I think it would be different today. But for the time, that didn't go over so well.

[Josh Clark]

No. And fans of Arrested Development will probably recognize Franklin, Joe Bluth's puppet. He was based on Roosevelt Franklin. And because of that, I was. When I started to watch clips of Roosevelt Franklin, the original Muppet, I was like, this is going to be awful. It was not. It's actually quite ridiculous that they got rid of him because he was a really well developed black character. Yeah, it's just perplexing that they caved to that because he was a good character.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Did you say JOB or Go Bluth?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. I said job, didn't I? It's Go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just stop the listener mails right now.

[Josh Clark]

No, it's job.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought it was gob. No, no, it's Job. Or was that just one of the jokes?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah, because his. That's his acronym. George something Bluth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. I thought there was a joke on there at some point about gob, but I might just be wrong on that. It's been a while.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, man, it has been a while. So you could be right, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Don Music was another character they got rid of that was a. Don Music was a composer. He would get frustrated and bang his head on the piano keys. And parents were like, hey, my kid is banging their head on piano keys and stuff. And we. We got to get this character out of there. So they got rid of Don Music pretty early on as well.

[Josh Clark]

Poor Don.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So there's a. That's. This is, like, nothing unusual for Sesame Street. They started doing that from the outset. Right. Like, they started, like, they. It started off with a black and white cast. And I mean, that was still kind of strange or unusual for TV in America, but they keep doing it. And what's kind of saddening is every time they do it, it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe how great this is that they're including this character. And then there's another segment of the public who's like, I can't believe they're including that character. It's just sad either way. I think it's both kind of sad, because what they're doing, what Sesame street does is they say there's a group of people out there who are being neglected, that kids that we're talking to interact with, and we need to bring them on just to normalize them, because they're just normal people, and we need to show that. So they've. They've introduced a number of characters that proved to be controversial over the years. What I like about Sesame street, with the exception of Roosevelt Franklin, they basically just stay mute on it. And they're like, you guys sort it out. We're going to just do our thing over here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And this is, you know, pretty early on, too. In 1978, they had a character with down syndrome who was in preschool. His name was Jason Kingsley and was the son of a writer, Emily Kingsley for Sesame Street. And so all of a sudden, they started having more Kids with, you know, challenges and disabilities. They've had kids that are hearing impaired, they've had kids in wheelchairs over the years. Recently, they've kind of brought it into the modern age for, you know, issues that kids face. Sadly, more and more these days. One character had food insecurity and eventually homelessness.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's Lily.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And another whose father was in prison and then another kid who was in foster care because her mother is battling opioid addiction. So they're. I mean, they've never been afraid to bite off some really, really tough stuff that sadly kids have to deal with. And they know they have to deal with this stuff, so they're not backing away from it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One of the other things that Sesame street does when it introduces like a Muppet like this is shine a light on the fact that this is an actual thing. Like, they're not, like, what obscure, terrible situation can we find and base a Muppet on? Apparently, in the United States, 2.5 million children are homeless at any given time. 2.61 million children have a father or a parent who's in prison. And another 1.4 million have a parent addicted to opioids. So it's not like these are niche topics that niche puppets are built on. These are real challenges that a lot of little kids in the United States face, whether you consider it tasteful or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. You know, we mentioned that they put their money where their mouth is as far as continuing to do research and study about, you know, its effect on kids and potential outcomes. Because that was, you know, that was the mission statement from the very beginning. So they couldn't just be like, we're doing a great job, so we're good. They got into Educational Test, the Educational Testing Service, to do a study after just season one. And they sampled 943 kids from urban areas and then one rural area. And the kids there were disadvantaged kids in urban areas and rural areas. There were Spanish speaking kids. There were advantaged suburban kids in this study. And they found that kids really did learn from the show and that the more you watch, the more they learned and the more they knew, which was pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was season one, right? Yeah. So they went back and said, let's figure out if this worked. There was a 2013 study that kind of recreated it, intentionally or otherwise. But rather than looking at the United States, they took it on an international scale. And it was a meta analysis of 24 studies that had been conducted on the effects of Sesame Street. And all combined this Meta analysis looked at 10,000 children in 15 different countries. So it was a pretty robust study. And they found the same thing, that there were significant positives associated with kids watching Sesame street and that kids who watched more performed better in school and that this effect carried no matter the income level of the country, low income, middle income, high income country, doesn't matter. The effects were the same. And it hit three different outcomes. Cognitive outcomes, learning about the world, and social reasoning. And basically it just turned every single one of these 10,000 children into a super child.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there was one. Well, which is why they have the S on their chest. Right. Sesame Street Superchild, another study. I thought this one was pretty striking to me because they could actually do a fairly direct AB comparison. The American Economic Journal for Melissa Kearney and Philip Levine did a study because they were like, hey, wait a minute, in those early years there were UHF stations and VHF stations and some areas had some. And then, you know, a couple of neighborhoods over another, you know, they might may not have the same access. So they could literally compare districts and elementary schools and outcomes with people who did not have the show at all and people who had it. And they found that the show actually did improve outcomes and that the positive effect of the show was particularly pronounced for boys and black non Hispanic children and children who grew up in other counties who had economic disadvantage. So it was literally helping and targeting the kids that they were hoping to target while also being good for everyone overall.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One specific outcome I saw just for an example in that study was that the kids who watched Sesame street were 14% more likely to be in an age appropriate grade in middle school or high school. So they hadn't been held back, or they were 14% likelier to have not been held back than kids who didn't watch it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's statistically significant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this is a pretty good quote too. The New Republic, their quote is that Sesame street was essentially the first moak massive online open course providing educational content to viewers for free. And a 2015 white paper from the Early Childhood Education Group said it's one of the largest and least costly interventions.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And you might be like, well, New Republic, that's pretty liberal rag. Of course it likes Sesame Street. We found a quote from the National Review, which is the what conservative. And the National Review called sesame street the one great thing accomplished by LBJ's Great Society. Which is a hilarious quote. And that was in 2021.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just one thing. Hey, it's good for Sesame street, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's what I was saying. Everybody loves Sesame Street. So I guess we'll press on Chuck and plug into the rest of the world because like we said, shows up in 150 to 170 countries and there's at least 30 co productions around the world.

[Chuck Bryant]

And.

[Josh Clark]

And it turns out they're really fun to read about and talk about.

[Chuck Bryant]

They really are. Because like you said, you know, depending on the country, they're going to tailor it for their country and have characters that reflect things kids might recognize. So if you go to Israel and watch Oscar the Grouch, you'll see that Oscar's name, Moishe Ufnik. Pretty good name. It means grouch in Hebrew.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But you probably won't see Oskar the Grouch or Count Von Count in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has its own co production called My Best Attempt is Baksh e Simsim. And they have cultural taboos against trash and vampirism. So Oscar and the Count don't really translate to the Afghani version of Sesame Street.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Sim Sims.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if that's the theme.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's the sesame in Arabic. Or Arabic like languages or Arabic related languages. Tsim Tsim or Tsum Tsum has it seems to be what sesame is?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Clark]

So if you ever run across a trivia question that says what is sesame in Arabic? You better say sim. Sim.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. S I M S I M. If spelling counts, one word. If you go to the UK and you said Cookie Monster, they'd say, I think you mean biscuit monster, of course, because biscuits are cookies over there. And if you go to Latin America, you might not see Big Bird, but you might see Abelardo, who is Big Bird's cousin. It's a giant parrot.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So you got like different characters or the same characters with different names or characters that just don't show up. But there's also characters that are just totally new and they kind of follow the original Sesame Street's program of like, let's include people who are stigmatized or left out. And so the South African version of Sesame Street, Takalani. Yeah, I don't know why I had trouble saying that. Takalani. Sesame Delicious. Yeah. They included a character named Kami. Kami is based on the word Kamogelo, which means acceptance in some South South African indigenous languages like Zulu. And the reason they did that is because Kami is a HIV positive orphan of a mother with AIDS who died. And this is a Muppet who is basically playing with other Muppets to show little kids that you don't have to be fearful of having a friend who is HIV positive. It's not dangerous to play with them. And in South Africa, that was very controversial because a lot of people have HIV in South Africa, but it's still very stigmatized. So of course, Sesame street in South Africa was like, let's get commie in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

They could probably have an American version of that same character, or at least in the 80s they could.

[Josh Clark]

I read that there was a letter written by a small panel of congresspeople to pbs, basically saying, don't even think about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, boy. Since 98, there's been an Israeli Palestinian co production which is super unique, obviously called oh yeah, or Shara's Tsim Sim, like you said. And this is pretty great. It's Israeli and Palestinian kids together and they're from separate streets, but they get together and hang out and play and talk. And when they do, the language, you know, either Hebrew or Arabic is translated in subtitles into the other language. And they weren't just like, oh, we'll just pat ourselves on the back for this. They were trying to accomplish something. So they measured outcomes again and did studies, and they found that watching the show made kids in that area more likely to use positive terms to describe kids on the other side of that conflict.

[Josh Clark]

Man, Sesame Street. We should just say that after every great thing we talk about them doing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, actually there's a quote that kind of goes along with that. Andrew S. Natsios, who led USAID under George W. Bush, he said the Arabic language version of the show was the, quote, biggest weapon against Al Qaeda and Islamic extremism.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I, I thought about that too. That like, you're using Sesame street to spread essentially global, good, basic human values in places where those are sometimes in short supply, you know? Yeah, I think that's cool. And then that, that one, the Arabic version you just mentioned, it's called Alan Simpson. They use that in Syrian refugee camps because little kids in Syrian refugee camps schools were canceled because the government dropped chemical weapons on their town. But they're still getting to watch this Arabic version of Sesame street to make sure that they're not left behind.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, since we're here before we break, we might as well mention that the Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit that gets part of their funding through the US Federal government, through the USAID program. And just a couple of months ago, the current administration announced that obviously usaid, and by the way, episode coming up on that soon on that organization is being cut at the, at the behest of the Department of Government Efficiency. So Sesame street is going to lose a lot of funding. And the current president said the Arabic language version was part of hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. But the good news is that it accounts for only 4% of their total funding. So hopefully, I mean, they were pretty much caught off guard and are scrambling a bit. But hopefully that it's not like the end of Sesame Street.

[Josh Clark]

No, I saw in real dollars, about $5 million. But the problem is that's still a significant, like they're operating at a deficit, so they basically need every dollar they can get. So it's still hitting them.

[Chuck Bryant]

4% even matters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So I think in March 2025 they announced that they were having to la, which is not something that happens all the time at Sesame Street. Although I'm sure they've tackled it plenty of times.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, maybe there's an episode about it.

[Josh Clark]

Probably.

[Chuck Bryant]

Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

I just want to throw out one more. We talked about the Afghani version of sesame street in 2016. They featured, they debuted a girl muppet named Zari who goes to school wearing a hijab.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Take that, Taliban.

[Chuck Bryant]

Alright, well we're gonna take that second break and we're gonna wrap it up here right after this stuff. You should know.

[Jerry]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Hey everybody. Here's an interesting fact. The most common disease in the world is cavities. It's also one of the most preventable, which brings us to the Colgate Total active prevention system because it attacks the root cause of oral health problems like cavities and gingivitis yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

It'S some cool science too. The unique technology in the toothpaste was recognized with the Edison Patton Award, which honors outstanding research and innovation.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention system by visiting shop.colgate.com total this episode is sponsored by Liquid IV.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And my buddy, I have to tell you, I love Liquid iv. I use it a lot. It hydrates me very well. I love that lemon lime. It tastes really good. And I put it in my little Dopp kit when I travel and I feel like I'm always pretty well hydrated.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I have a hard time even talking about this one. It was in 1982. Actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper passed away in IRL. And they were like, let's not replace him. Let's use this as an opportunity to teach kids about death and grief. And Big Bird, they aired it on Thanksgiving, so parents were more likely to be home. They got together with, again, they weren't just like, hey, let's just have the writers whip something up. They got together with religious leaders and child psychologists to kind of figure out the best way to do this. And they decided on Big Bird kind of taking the lead in saying very sadly, I want to give Mr. Hooper a picture that I drew when he comes back. And that's when they're like, big Bird, I've got some bad news for you, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Gordon famously rolled his eyes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he's not coming back. Death is permanent. And it was a huge, huge deal for not just Sesame street, but just how we talk to kids about this kind of thing, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because it took kids seriously as, as, you know, thinking, feeling individuals. Because they, they, they discussed replacing him with a new Mr. Hooper and just pretending like it wasn't a different actor or saying, Mr. Hooper retired and he's not coming back, but he's retired, not dead. And they're like, no, let's use this opportunity. It is really tear jerking to watch.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In 1985, another big lesson came along. When, you know, if you haven't seen the show, Mr. Snuffaluffagus is this sort of big, I don't even know what you call it, kind of a big, long haired monster y thing.

[Josh Clark]

It got a touch of wooly mammoth, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But Big Bird Snuffalupagus was Big Bird's imaginary friend. And the adults couldn't see this imaginary friend. And in that episode, he was seen by the rest of the cast and they were like, hey, maybe this can inspire kids who are maybe child abuse victims that you don't need to fear that adults won't believe you if you reveal something to them. And so they tackled it through Snuffleupagus, all of a sudden becoming a real thing to the adults on the show.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because he always had been real. But anytime Big Bird tried to introduce him to people, he would just not be there for some Reason or so he was real. And when they apologized to him, I think Bob the music teacher said, we'll believe you whenever you tell us something from now on. Big Bird, like, they really kind of drove it home, beat the little kids over the head with this.

[Chuck Bryant]

They also tackled 9, 11. Not in a direct way by talking about the Pentagon and the twin towers, but it was a show very clearly centered around kids dealing with a big sort of shared tragedy and how they might go about that.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, let's see, what else? Oh, another part of that, too, is there was a fire at Hooper's store. They didn't show the fire. It was just off screen. They mentioned it. They reference it happening, and some firefighters show up to put it out. And Elmo is just freaked out by this, so the firefighters stop and, like, comfort him and tell him it's okay, and they help deal with that kind of. I don't know. I think the message was, listen to firefighters because they're all right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, great message. Kids love fire trucks anyway, so they're halfway there.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

They also dealt with kids who have parents in the military that are off at war at one point. They've had episodes on hurricanes and, like, dealing with a natural disaster like that. And they even dealt with the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, because kids were at home watching a lot of TV, and, you know, their parents are pretty stressed out. So they had a special episode all about COVID Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Including when the vaccines came out. Big Bird, and I think everybody else got vaccinated, and Big Bird had a band aid on his wing. He said, my wing hurts a little bit, but other than that, I'm okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So you mentioned the problems with the funding. It started in the mid-80s. They had reports that expenses were going to outpace revenues, perhaps. They do a lot of licensing. I think about two thirds of their revenue comes from licensing to, like, books and toys and things. The monster at the end of this book is a classic children's book with Grover as the center character.

[Josh Clark]

My favorite Grover book. One of my favorite books growing up was Grover and the Everything in the World Museum. Did you ever read that one? Uh, it might have been after your time, but I love that book. The drawing in there is so great, and it's just. It's all Grover.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They've been talking about, you know, the recent cuts are one thing, but they've been talking about, you know, reducing funding and have reduced funding somewhat over the years. For a long time, though, I believe 2015, they were operating at A loss, maybe for the first time. And so HBO stepped up and said, hey, you know what? If you give us a jump on pbs, we'll pay you some pretty good money. So they got the episodes nine months before PBS. But in December of last year of 2024, Warner Brothers discovery said, you know what, we're not going to do that deal anymore. We can license backup episodes still, or we want to still, but the deal has concluded. And I think that also put them in a bit of a money bind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So I guess HBO Max agreed to take season 55, which is currently out now, but they're not taking season 56. And yeah, the Sesame Workshops, like, well, we're still going to make a season 56. Who, who wants to buy new episodes? Brand new episodes of Sesame Street. So it's up for, up for auction right now. I didn't see any interested buyers, but I mean, the idea of Sesame street just going away because no one's going to put it on the air is mind bogglingly sad to me. And I just don't think it's going to happen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hmm. A stuff you should know production.

[Josh Clark]

There you go. Do you have like money together?

[Chuck Bryant]

100 million bucks or something? What would that cost?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know, but I'll bet we could get it out of Jerry. I, I don't know. I don't think it's going to be a hundred million bucks because that's like all of their operating costs for a year. And I, I mean, they get a lot of their money from licensing toys and pajamas and all that stuff. So when you buy those things, you're actually directly helping Sesame Street.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's where I get my pajamas.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'll bet we could get it for 20 million right now. The problem is, Chuck, is we don't have anywhere to show it. I think that's a big obstacle we would have to overcome as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

We could cut a deal.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, God knows how much that's going to cost us, but we'll figure it out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe we should finish up with some sort of random sort of factoids that you might want to share with your friends. Here's a pretty fun stat. The characters on Sesame street are some of the most recognizable in the world. And Certainly in the US, 75% of people under 55 told a YouGov poll that they even have a favorite character.

[Josh Clark]

Do you want to know the top 10 in order?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Guess who's your favorite? We never said who our favorites were.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't remember. I used to like the Count.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was great.

[Chuck Bryant]

One, two, three.

[Josh Clark]

Ooh, that's a good count. Cookie monsters, number one. Elmo's number two. Big birds, number three, which I guess makes sense. Grover, number four. Grover is my favorite. The Count. Mr. Stuffalopagus. Ernie and then Bert and then Abby, which is a newer. A newer character, I think. I'm not sure when she came along. And then the Last 1, Number 10 is other.

[Chuck Bryant]

My favorite. So the title, if you're wondering where that came from, it was from Ali Baba and the forty Thieves. Open Sesame. Cooney is on record saying that that was probably the least bad title. And we thought, you know, open Sesame. We felt like we were opening children to knowledge and education. So it's kind of a. Kind of a weird little origin, but it just. I can't think of it as anything else.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and lucky for them, it translates pretty well in Arabic. Tsim Sim.

[Chuck Bryant]

What was the Mexican version called? That had a great name.

[Josh Clark]

Plaza Sesamo.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I do, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Can you tell me how to get there, though?

[Josh Clark]

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I was looking up stuff about the theme song. It turns out there's not much interesting about it other than it debuted on the first episode and has been, you know, toyed with or altered here or there over the years. But it's the same theme song in every episode of Sesame Street. 10 million episodes.

[Chuck Bryant]

We gotta shout out the writers, the music by Joe Raposo and lyrics by Raposo and John Stone and Bruce Hart.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

That was nice of you. And then did we talk about Tickle Me Elmo?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, no. This is the third act reveal.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So we talked about Elmo suddenly becoming very famous. The reason why is because in 1996, the tickle me Elmo doll became like the must have Christmas toy. And I know we've talked about it in one of our Christmas episodes, but let's just briefly mention it again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, thank you, Rosie o' Donnell, for this one. Tickle Me Elmo came on. ROSIE o' donnell. And it was a big, big deal. This may have been a Black Friday episode thing too, because trying to buy those Elmos at the time was a thing. There was stampeding, people went to the hospital. There were people selling them on the black market for, like, really high prices. So Elmo was a overnight sensation, like, you know, 16 years after or I guess 12 years after his debut. Yeah, 14 years.

[Josh Clark]

Also, Elmo is the only non human to testify before Congress.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

On behalf of Music, education and school. I got two more things. Just want to call out Julia, a four year old muppet with autism who's been around since 2017. And then apparently this year, season 55, one of the big themes that they're tackling are big feelings and kids dealing with them. And they're even debuting a new Muppet who's teaching kids, like, breathing techniques to calm themselves down.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's great.

[Josh Clark]

And then, last thing I have is, if you want a little dose of nostalgia, go watch the full compilation of the Pinball Count songs. Remember those?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't remember that.

[Josh Clark]

It came out in 76. So, yeah, you probably have moved on to electric company by then. You're like, that's baby stuff. It's great. You should watch it. The animation in it is beautiful. Beautifully 70s. It's great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I love it.

[Josh Clark]

Anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In 2005, there was a bit of a stir because Cookie Monster, you know, was known for just ravaging cookies and stuffing them in his face and crumbs flying everywhere. And that's the beauty of Cookie Monster. But people were like, you know, maybe it's not such a good idea to have a character that's just binge eating sugar and sweets and treats. So they used Cookie Monster as an impulse control model for moderation. And a cookie became a sometimes food from Cookie Monster. And of course people are gonna be like, what, are you kidding me? Is this gonna be Veggie Monster next? And there were letter writing campaigns and there was a petition and all this stuff. And Veggie Monster was never going to be a thing. They were just, I guess they just filed those complaint letters in the circular file. And it's like, settle down, everybody.

[Josh Clark]

I got one more I overlooked. Do you want to hear it? Sure. This is arcane, but Telly. Remember Telly Monster we talked about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, but no.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so Telly has a hamster named Chucky sue, and he used to have a stuffed animal horse named Clark.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, how about that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Pretty neat, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Total coincidence too. Is from the 90s. Both of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, just like that. Hinton up just coming out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Lots of Kermit Kurzmit. Since I said cursmit, of course, everybody. That means it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There's a little bit on libraries from name redacted. Hey, guys, love the mini on alternative libraries. I'm a member of the board at my local library and my wife is a school librarian. I want to salute and celebrate our librarians, who are largely thought of as old ladies with buns and cat eyeglasses, but they are actually on the front lines of the fight for the First Amendment in many ways. My local library has a teen room whose librarian is collecting the LGTBQ books discarded by other libraries because of certain bad actors. The librarian at the high school I work has sent red cards telling our heavily immigrant population what to say if ice immigrants show up at their door or stop them on the way to school. And apparently his wife, the librarian, has to really get involved in reference searches these days because of like, you know, book banning and just getting rid of certain educational proposals. So one of her favorite T shirts says, what is more punk than the local library? So thanks guys for all you do and keep it up. And that is from Name redacted.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks. Name redacted. I know we talked about that some in our Banned books episode. Yeah, but yes, can't say it enough. God bless librarians for making sure that people are educated as we can be for free.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Perfect fit for this episode too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought so. Well, if you want to get in touch with us like name redacted did, you can tell us your name or not. Doesn't matter. We'll clearly protect you. You can send it via email, probably encrypted, if you want to. Stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartradio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Jerry]

You listen to your favorite shows.

[Chuck Bryant]

Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious.

[Jerry]

That's why we started Dutch.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

With unlimited virtual visits and follow ups.

[Chuck Bryant]

For up to five pets.

[Josh Clark]

You can message a vet at any.

[Chuck Bryant]

Time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vet pets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free.

[Josh Clark]

With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of.

[Chuck Bryant]

Mind when it comes to their vet care.

[Jerry]

Hi, it's Emily Tish Sussman, host of the podcast. She Pivots in honor of Mother's Day, we have some very special guests. I'm Elaine Welteroff.

[Josh Clark]

And I'm Caitlin Murray.

[Jerry]

Both women pivoted out of their careers after having their kids, proving that motherhood is just another chapter in our journey, not the end. Come on over to hear their full stories. You can listen to. She pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.