“There’s no question that the introduction of
‘Sesame Street’ was a good thing,” Levine said.
“Early childhood intervention does have the ability
to improve lifelong learning among children.”
Some shows have lasted longer — “Meet the
Press” and “The Tonight Show” among them
— but few have had as big a cultural impact.
“Sesame Street” is shown in more than 150
countries, has won 193 Emmys, 10 Grammys and
will get a 2019 Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime
artistic achievement in December, the first time a
television program will receive the award.
Music has always been a big part of the show
and its song “Rubber Duckie” peaked at No. 16
on the Billboard charts in 1970. “Sing,” which
premiered on the show, went even higher,
hitting No. 3 on Billboard in 1973 when the
Carpenters recorded it.
There have been a few bumps in the road, like
Roosevelt, an early puppet whose stereotypical
African American dialect offended many. Katy
Perry showed a little too much Katy Perry for
some parents in 2010 and Cookie Monster, in the
face of an obesity epidemic, had to moderate his
adoration of cookies to “a sometimes food.”
But the show is still going strong despite an
explosion of cheap online alternatives with
bright colors and songs — like “Baby Shark” —
all competing for preschoolers’ eyeballs. One
recent study found kids as young as 2 had a
daily screen time diet of 3 hours.
“There’s a different version of a wasteland right
now. And in some ways that motivates us even
more to make sure that we, and the industry
at large, doesn’t give into that,” Youngwood
said. “We have to earn their time every day as
opposed to view that it’s the entitlement.”