How to Get to Sesame Street: The History and Future of Public Television

Charlotte Brooks, 1970, Library of Congress

Alongside Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Ernie and Bert, Kermit the Frog, and Cookie Monster were the original four human characters: Gordon, Susan, Bob, and Mr. Hooper u2013 the Erie Daily Times called Sesame Street a forerunner of improved television in the years to come with the most naturally integrated show on the air.

Move over Breaking Bad. Sorry Sopranos. I still love you, Lucy. But if you ask me my opinion on the greatest television shows of all time? It's a toss-up between Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street.

These two publicly broadcast shows were already well-established by the time I was born. Even at an early age, I understood that there was something different about them, something that made them stand out from shows on ABC's primetime TGIF block or the fun and memorable (but mostly mindless) Saturday morning cartoons.

Entering adulthood, as I better understood the differences between commercial and public broadcasting, the mythologies surrounding these two childhood shows and their creation were even more fascinating to me. Books like The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King, Street Gang by Michael Davis, and Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones provided me with a deeper appreciation for the determination, grit, and genius that went into these productions — as well as the constant battles over funding with those diametrically opposed to the entire notion of public broadcasting.

As early as 1925 with the formation of the Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations (later renamed the National Association of Educational Broadcasters), there was a push for non-commercial educational radio stations, a concept supported by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) following its formation in 1934.

Fast-forward to the television era and the idea expanded to this new medium with the establishment of National Educational Television (NET). In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed the Educational Television Facilities Act into law, which provided much-needed federal funding, while President Lyndon B. Johnson solidified such support with his signing of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which established the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. A major challenge though: funding decisions would be made on a year-by-year basis.

Many in power were downright skeptical that public broadcasting could (or even should) compete against the big three corporate networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC. Of course, many others disagreed. This included a 39-year-old ordained minister and children's television host in Pittsburgh named Fred Rogers.

Mr. Rogers goes national

The first episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood aired on NET on Feb. 19, 1968 — a year before the incorporation of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Fred Rogers, who had studied music at Rollins College, had already made a name for himself with small-market shows such as Children's Corner. He was known for the soft-spoken, yet "disarmingly candid" way in which he explained life's happenings to kids. The Erie Daily Times described him as having a "mind that understands the special world of children and their environment."

To play and use one's imagination, Rogers believed, was essentially a child's job. "They are preparing to understand [the world]," Rogers told the Pittsburgh Press. "Their make-believe friends are very real to them. The TV show or the person must be in tune with them, in harmony."

Rogers' initial deal with NET included 130 half-hour episodes produced by Pittsburgh's WQED. His goal for the show, he said, was to create "an atmosphere in which a child is accepted and allowed to grow." He believed that this was lacking in most children's programming.

"I think that the drama comes from within for all of us," explained Rogers at the time. "And if we deal on the air in a healthy way with the themes of the drama children deal with in their own growing, then the drama is established. You don't need a very flashy display."

Erie Daily Times columnist Ron Wasielewski viewed an advanced screening of the show. Erie's Channel 54, operating as WQLN ("We Question and Learn") since August 1967, was looking to secure local funding to add it to its lineup.

"It is perhaps the first children's show outside of Captain Kangaroo that is really worthwhile and meaningful to children," Wasielewski wrote. Mr. Rogers looked at and talked directly to the camera, to the child watching. He sang songs. He told stories. He talked about kindness. He discussed feelings and fears and changes that children might experience. When the show entered the Neighborhood of Make-Believe by trolley (deliberately separate from the house), they would have imaginary adventures involving puppets, play, and problem-solving.

"Rogers tries to instill in [children] a sense of inner worth and self-confidence that will help them through 'stress situations,'" Parade magazine explained.

"We don't superimpose our own ideas upon them," emphasized Rogers. "We treat them with respect, because they are individuals who are growing up."

Despite making a career out of it, Rogers himself was always skeptical of television. During this decade, preschool-age children were watching over 50 hours of television a week — an era in which half of the country's school districts lacked even kindergartens, let alone preschools. Rogers often said he'd be pleased if children were outside playing rather than watching his show. "I say, 'Great!'" he exclaimed. "Sometimes I feel guilty about adding another show to television fare, but I know that if my program weren't there, something else would be." In May of 1969, Fred Rogers gave his famous speech advocating for public television to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications. In it, he expressed how important his program is to teach children about emotional health, dealing with hard feelings like anger and jealousy, and providing encouragement for children to be themselves.  (Photo: U.S. Library of Congress)

Mr. Rogers goes to Washington

In May 1969, Fred Rogers found himself in front of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications. President Richard Nixon, newly inaugurated, had desired to cut President Johnson's proposed federal funding for public broadcasting in half. With his heart on his sleeve, Rogers calmly and passionately made his case for educational television. He used his show to highlight its value.

"We deal with such things as getting a haircut, or the feelings about brothers and sisters, and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations," elaborated Rogers. "I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health."

"Well, I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy and this is the first time I've had goosebumps for the last two days," Senator John Pastore responded.

"I'm grateful," continued Rogers, "not only for your goosebumps, but for your interest in our kind of communication." He then recited the lyrics to a song that he wrote about how to deal with anger. It worked. The initial federal funding was secured — at least for the time being.

Meanwhile in Erie, local media made it clear how impressed they were with the quality of WQLN's offerings. The Erie Daily Times editors called the "quality of entertainment" on the station as "almost unbelievable."

"Yes, we mean entertainment," they elaborated. "The fact that viewers will also be educated and/or culturally enriched in the process should not deter anyone from turning to [Channel] 54 on what may be becoming less and less an idiot box or boob tube."

They also commended the support from Erie's commercial television affiliates — WSEE 35, WJET 24, and WICU 12 — who did not view WQLN resentfully as competition and had even helped promote WQLN on their stations.

A new neighborhood on public television

That summer, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Woodstock celebrated peace and music for three days in Bethel, New York, while opposition to the Vietnam War intensified across the nation. On network television Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and The Brady Brunch premiered, while radio stations played new music from The Beatles' Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin's second album.

It was during these turbulent times that there was significant hype surrounding the premiere of an upcoming children's show: Sesame Street. The program was referred to as a 130-hour preschool course airing every weekday for 26 weeks for non-commercial television. It had a budget of $8 million funded by numerous sources including the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Office of Education.

Sesame Street was masterminded by Joan Ganz Cooney, who'd been working on the idea since 1966 and founded the Children's Television Workshop in 1968. That was also the year she met a "bearded, prophetic figure in sandals" who entered one of their meetings and sat quiet and expressionless in the back of the room: Jim Henson. While she didn't initially recognize him, she certainly knew his Muppets, known for Sam & Friends, their chaotic commercials, and memorable appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Once Henson was on board — bringing collaborators Frank Oz and Caroll Spinney with him — he was given significant creative freedom to create the show's now iconic Muppet characters while also creating many of the experimental videos which played memorably between segments.

"One needn't be an expert on education, or even children, to know when a production feels right or when it has the clear stamp of know-how as well as having its heart in the right place," a UPI journalist wrote following an advanced screening. "This gentle, witty series ... has the sound and feel of people who love children — and not those whose idea is to exploit them." Its blend of people and puppets, he added, created "with remarkable speed and ease, a sense of neighborhood."

Alongside Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Ernie and Bert, Kermit the Frog, and Cookie Monster were the original four human characters: Gordon, Susan, Bob, and Mr. Hooper. First season guests included celebrities such as James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, Carol Burnett, and Dick Van Dyke.

"This could well be the hottest children's show on the tube," predicted the Erie Daily Times, calling the show "unprecedented" and a "bold experiment." The first episode aired on Nov. 10, 1969. Local media continued their praise. "The biggest hit in television this year can be found on none of the commercial television channels but instead on Channel 54," proclaimed columnist Ed Mathews.

Not everybody wanted to hang out on Sesame Street though. The British Broadcasting Corporation refused to air the show in the United Kingdom. Monica Sims, head of children's programming for BBC, feared the show had "authoritarian aims" and disliked its "middle-class attitudes" and American slang. The show, she alleged, sounded like "indoctrination and a dangerous use of television."

Linguists criticized the dialect. Segregationists slammed its integrated cast. Fiscal conservatives seethed over its use of tax dollars. The feminist National Organization for Women took issue with its depiction of women, particularly in its submissive portrayal of Susan. Educational leaders attacked it as having "little of educational value." One critic claimed to have met a 3-year-old Sesame Street fan who could recite her ABCs, but wasn't potty trained. "This is an extreme but relevant illustration of the potential harm done by the hard-sell of Sesame Street," he claimed.

An influential Cornell professor argued that the show didn't properly portray the realities of inner-city life. "[T]here are no cross words, no conflicts, no difficulties, nor, for that matter, any obligations or visible attachments," he said. "The old, the ugly or the unwanted is simply made to disappear through a manhole." When another prominent professor called the show an "educational mirage," a professor who'd advised on Sesame Street pushed back, calling such criticisms a "tiresome assertion" by someone "who feels he knows the one best way to teach kids."

Many others defended Sesame Street too. Its pacing, its repetition, its zaniness, and the weirdness of some of the segments were all the point. "Sesame Street isn't perfect," published LIFE magazine. "It isn't a substitute for day-care programs, Head Start, open schools, enriched environments, [or] social justice. … [B]ut 'indoctrinating' children with the alphabet and numbers isn't immoral."

New York Magazine agreed. It wasn't "the ultimate perfection of education via television," but due to its experimental nature, it would be able to "refine its offerings, reinforce what turns out to be successful and drop what is not." The show could adapt, evolve, and improve each season.

They further defended the show from critiques by both sides of the political spectrum. Conservatives blasted the show as too progressive while leftists accused it of being "just one more effort to make youngsters the slaves of the middle-class system of schooling for a life of bourgeois imprisonment."

"It faces constant admonition by conservatives that it is too radical, and by radicals that it is too conservative," continued the authors. "More often than not these critics substitute their own feelings for those of their children."

Erie resident Sandra Lenard penned a letter stating that she believed much of the Sesame Street criticism simply came from narrow-minded individuals. "Perhaps I am being too suspicious, but I have an uneasy feeling that this is all a big smoke screen to hide their real objection to Sesame Street, " she wrote, "which is that the program features black people in starring roles."

The Erie Daily Times called Sesame Street "a forerunner of improved television in the years to come" with "the most naturally integrated show on the air."

LIFE magazine added that Sesame Street's creators clearly didn't plan to "employ those children as pawns in an ideological chess game" like some critics. "It is a modest and amusing step in the 'right' direction," they said. "[T]elevision for children that neither bores them to distraction nor clubs them in sensibility."

Described upon first impression as a "bearded, prophetic figure in sandals," Jim Henson and his Muppets were the key component to making the show Sesame Street resonate so well with children. The publicly broadcast show seeks to show children love, educational content, and social emotional skills – and stands out among other commercialized programming. (photo: LIFE Magazine - Oct 31, 1969)

Sesame Street finds its groove

Over the next few years, Sesame Street adapted, evolved, and improved significantly, largely due to not avoiding legitimate criticism. Instead, they learned from it. After scathing criticism over its lack of authentic Hispanic representation, for instance, the show introduced Luis and Maria, who became two of the show's most beloved human characters. The Muppets and people also began interacting more and the street became more vibrant and alive.

Many of the early Sesame Street sketches were instantly iconic: there was Kermit and Joey singing the alphabet, Bert telling Ernie he has a banana in his ear, and the Yip Yip martians discovering a telephone. There were unforgettable songs like Kermit's "Bein' Green," Ernie's "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon," Oscar's "I Love Trash," and Cookie Monster's absolute banger "C is for Cookie."

Just as with Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, there were the more serious moments too. The most memorable of these followed the death of actor Will Lee in December 1982. Lee played Mr. Hooper, the show's beloved grocer, and producers considered their options, even briefly considering having the character retire to Florida. "[W]e felt we ought to deal with it head-on," executive producer Dulcy Singer told The New York Times before the episode addressing his death aired. "If we left it unsaid, kids would notice. Our instincts told us to be honest and straightforward."

It made for one of the show's most compelling and challenging episodes. Titled "Farewell, Mr. Hooper," Big Bird learns that death is irreversible and that he will never see his friend again. It's a moment handled softly and patiently, but also directly as the human characters talk Bird Big through his confusion, grief, and anger towards acceptance and understanding.

"I think it was probably one of the best things that we ever did," reflected Big Bird performer Caroll Spinney years later, saying that what aired was their very first take. "The emotion was so written into the [script] that the tears were real."

The future of public broadcasting

Public broadcasting has had and continues to have its challenges and challengers. From the start, word-of-mouth lies about Sesame Street, for instance, spread such as that the show used vulgar language or that it portrayed children without clothes. Erie's state senator, William G. Sesler, was one of Pennsylvania's politicians who pushed back against such misinformation and consistently fought for state funding for public broadcasting dollars when it turned into a political battle.

On a national level, the Nixon administration was a continuous adversary, while the following decade's Reagan administration slashed tens of millions designated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Meanwhile, kids programming in the 1980s outside of public television became increasingly commercialized and, while remembered fondly by many who grew up in the era (yes, I still love you, Ninja Turtles), such shows served not to educate, but as a mechanism for selling toys, t-shirts, and video games.

"Give up on public broadcasting," economist Reed Irvine wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1986, arguing that there was too much bias from PBS and that the private sector could "adequately supply the public's appetite" for such shows. "The advent of cable, back-yard dishes, and videocassettes has radically increased the availability of news, entertainment and educational programs to the general public. … [T]he time is ripe to ... defund the left-wing bureaucracy that has made public broadcasting its private playpen."

In the decades since, the political battles have continued, but today, the legacy of Mr. Rogers lives on through Fred Rogers Productions, which produces shows for PBS such as Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Peg + Cat, Odd Squad, Donkey Hodie, and Alma's Way. Still, as Variety pointed out in their ranking of Mr. Rogers as one of the top 100 greatest shows ever, there's really never been anyone else quite like the man. "[An]d we're poorer for it," expressed the editors.

As for Sesame Street (which missed Variety's top ten by only one spot with its over 4,700 episodes), their trajectory in more recent years has been far more complicated, usually commercial-friendly pivots related to funding issues. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, for example, was livid when the show accepted a $1 million sponsorship from Discovery Zone in 1998. "That is exploiting impressionable children," he said, adding that the 15-second advertisement for a corporate chain before each episode broke with the spirit of non-commercial television and they ought to change the show's name to Huckster Alley. The producers responded that it was necessary due to cuts in funding to PBS, which had at the time eliminated $3 million in annual funding for Sesame Street.

Then there was, of course, the controversial partnership with premium channel HBO in 2015, described by The New Yorker's Jill Lepore as "a staggering betrayal of the spirit of the show's founding philosophy." While Sesame Workshop maintained creative control, the deal gave HBO exclusive rights to air and stream new episodes for a nine-month window before being aired on PBS. In December 2024, HBO announced it would not renew the deal for 2025, leaving the prospect of future Sesame Street productions uncertain.

There is no question that public broadcasting has plenty of challenges ahead. There are still the usual funding issues, but also many people in positions of political power vocally calling to cease all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Then there is the added challenge of adapting to the new media landscape. Erie's WQLN (winner of 2024's Best of Erie in Production Company and Best Filmmaker) continues to lead the way though, distributing as well as creating their own educational programs, free to access on television and online, including the award-winning Erie-centric historical docuseries Chronicles (2024 winner of Best Filmmaker), programs like Erie Eats and Our Town, and even podcasts such as Next 2.0 with Marcus Atkinson and We Question & Learn with Tom Pysz.

"Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past," Mr. Rogers once said. While the future is unclear, for those of us who grew up watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and countless other shows on PBS, it's important for us to remember and share how these publicly broadcast shows from our past played a part in shaping us into who we are today.

Jonathan Burdick runs the public history project Rust & Dirt. He can be reached at jburdick@eriereader.com