Come And Play: 'Sesame Street' Celebrates 40 Years

(Soundbite of song, ?Sesame Street?)

Unidentified Group #1: (Singing) Can you tell me how to get, can you tell me how to get, sunny day sweepin' the clouds away, on my way?

DAVE DAVIES, host:

When ?Sesame Street? begins its new season on Tuesday, it will be 40 years to the day since the hugely influential program premiered on public television. Our TV critic, David Bianculli, takes a look at Tuesday's episode and its special guest, first lady Michelle Obama, and assesses the show's legacy.

(Soundbite of TV Program, ?Sesame Street?)

Ms. MICHELLE OBAMA: And Elmo, you and I, we are going to plant some carrot seeds.

Mr. KEVIN CLASH (Actor): (As Elmo) Wow, look at how tiny those seeds are.

Ms. OBAMA: They sure are but these little seeds are going to make some great tasting food.

Mr. MATT VOGEL (Actor): (As Big Bird) Wow, did I just hear right: The first lady eat seeds?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. OBAMA: Well, Big Bird.

Mr. VOGEL: (As Big Bird) Well, I love seeds. I didn't know you ate the too. Are you part bird?

Ms. OBAMA: No, Big Bird, I'm not.

Mr. VOGEL: (As Big Bird) You sure?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. VOGEL: (As Big Bird) You and I are both really tall, maybe we're from the same family.

DAVID BIANCULLI: That was Michelle Obama, the first lady, popping in on ?Sesame Street? to hang out with Elmo, Big Bird and some kids, and to demonstrate one of her pet projects: how to plant your own vegetable garden. Her point is that from very small seeds, some delicious and wonderful things can grow. And in TV terms, ?Sesame Street? 40 years ago was one of those seeds ? and it ended up feeding many generations of young viewers. On November 10th, 1969, when we first heard the theme to ?Sesame Street,? public television itself was a new and largely unproven entity.

There was no cable TV then, no Fox, by and large, just three commercial networks and in each TV market, a local station or two. Children's television wasn't very regulated and certainly, by the end of the ?60s, wasn't very good. ?Sesame Street,? with its simple mandate of educating children as it entertained them, changed all that. We live in such a different technological world now that one of the basic principles of ?Sesame Street? has been, quite recently, overthrown.

?Sesame Street,? was available to any family, no matter how poor, so long as it had electricity and a TV set. Tune in, and even the most disadvantaged preschooler could learn his or her ABCs and count to 10 and begin attending school without feeling left behind. Today, that's no longer true. TV signals are relayed digitally, and poorer families, without digital converters for their TV sets, no longer have access to the ?Sesame Street? neighborhood. Those who can see ???Sesame Street? today, though, will see something very different from 40 years ago or even from last year.

The show is packaged in modules now, like a preschool ?Today? show, and its theme song has been rearranged to sound more modern. This year, in addition, some of the Muppets have gone digital in an even bigger way. Abby Cadabby, a young fairy in training, is seen in adventures that present her not as a flesh-and-blood Muppet ? well, foam-and-fabric, anyway ? but as a computer-generated CGI cartoon. And when Elmo is at his own computer, he watches Grover leading a frog hunt in an intentional approximation of a YouTube video short.

(Soundbite of TV program, ?Sesame Street?)

Mr. ERIC JACOBSON (Actor): (As Grover) Oh, now here - here is a froggy.

Unidentified Group #2: That's not a frog. It's a butterfly.

Ms. LESLIE CARRARA (Actor): (As Abby Cadabby) Butterflies have wings to fly. Frogs don't have wings to fly.

Mr. JACOBSON: (As Grover) I knew that.

Unidentified Person: Ribbit. Ribbit.

Mr. JACOBSON: (As Grover) Did you hear that? That is the sound that a frog makes. There must be a frog around here some place. Froggy.

Unidentified Person: Ribbit. Ribbit.

BIANCULLI: I note these changes but I'm not complaining about them. Instead, I'm reassured by the show's many still-familiar elements. The 40th anniversary hour of ?Sesame Street? still has a cameo by Kermit the Frog, and lengthy sketches that adults in the room are much more likely to laugh at than kids. The show is still brought to us by letters ? this one is sponsored by the letter H - and one of the key words is habitat. And after all this time, ?Sesame Street? is a habitat that continues to attract some very watchable visitors ? not only Michelle Obama and Cameron Diaz, who are in the opener, but others down the road. Me, I can't wait for Ricky Gervais.

The delivery system may be different, the packaging may be different, even the content and theme song may be different, but ?Sesame Street? four decades later is the same happy neighborhood it always was.

DAVIES: David Bianculli writes for tvworthwatching.com and teaches television and film at Rowan University. You can download Podcasts of our show at freshair.npr.org and you can follow us on Twitter at nprfreshair. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.