READING 4 An Innovation in Kids’ TV

The creator of Sesame Street, Joan Ganz Cooney, with some of the characters at the 12th Annual Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala

An INNOVATION in KIDS’ TV

Read the following article. Pay special attention to the words in bold. 10.5

It is one of the most watched TV shows in the world. It is seen in 120 countries and is translated into a number of different languages. At the beginning, the producers were not sure if this program was going to be successful or not. They never imagined that 50 years later it would still be here. Welcome to the world of Sesame Street.

In the 1960s, documentary television producer Joan Cooney realized that children were watching a lot of TV but were learning very little from it. Cooney wanted to investigate how television could be used to educate young children and entertain them at the same time. She thought that she could help prepare them better for school.

At first, TV producers didn’t think that Sesame Street would hold the interest of young children. They thought that small children didn’t have the attention span1 to watch an hour of educational TV. Cooney thought otherwise. “What if it went down more like ice cream than spinach?”

Cooney brought in puppeteer2 Jim Henson. Henson created the Muppets, with such characters as Big Bird and Elmo. Henson wanted to create characters that kids could relate to. Cooney realized that without these characters, learning the alphabet and learning to count wouldn’t be as much fun.

The show was always excellent at helping kids learn the basics of numbers and letters, but it became clear that children’s emotions needed to be addressed, too. After attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the producers realized that kids had become fearful and that they needed a way to express how they were feeling. So the show started dealing with children’s fears. In 2002, the producers of the South African version of the program, Takalani Sesame, thought that it would be a good idea to deal with HIV.3 They understood how frightening this disease could be for small children, so they brought in a five-year-old Muppet named Kami, who is HIV positive.

It is clear that Sesame Street has evolved over the years. But it is still a favorite TV show for preschool kids around the world.

1 attention span: the time that a person can concentrate on something 2 puppeteer: an artist who makes puppets behave like actors 3 HIV: human immunodeficiency virus, or AIDS