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Sesame Street Cartoons 101: Overview and the first show
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The clay animated intro to the first episode of Sesame Street
This week, the internet and the media in general are abuzz with the fact that Sesame Street is celebrating it's 40th anniversary. In fact, next Tuesday, November 10th, will mark precisely forty years since the first proper episode aired, over NET (which eventually became PBS). The day will be marked with the premiere of the 40th season and a DVD release, Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days. The project began as an experiment to use television to teach children and especially assist those who didn't qualify for "head start" programs or were otherwise struggling, relying upon extensive research, curriculum goals, and careful testing of all segments, cast members, and characters to hold kids' attention while teaching. Decades later, it has become a cherished institution, with current viewers including grandkids of the original audience, and with countless international co-productions in many languages (including the popular Mexican co-production Plaza Sésamo, broadcast on El Paso station KCOS on Sunday mornings and viewable on several Juarez channels at various days and times).
Yes, Big Bird and company are officially 40, except in the sense that fictional characters are timeless (at last check, Big Bird's official age was six, where it's been for over twenty years). While cast members and Muppets have gone, curriculum goals have been re-appraised, target age groups adjusted, and formats altered (particularly with the arrival of "Elmo's World" in 1998), much has remained the same. In particular, the three basic elements are still there: live action street segments with a friendly human cast, Muppets (who went from a subcontracted subsidiary element to the stars of the show), and short inserts, utilizing live film (now video) or animation. Over forty years, Sesame Street has served as a sort of anthology series, a haven for independent animators, up and coming artists, contributions from notable National Film Board of Canada artists as well as the then young computer studio Pixar, and utilizing every technique from cel animation to stop-motion to sand to pixilation, creating memorable new characters as well as playing host to established cartoon icons, from Beetle Bailey to the Simpsons.
In fact, cartoons were as crucial if not moreso to the early years than the Muppets, and in a segment from a test pilot, the two even collided: Bert and Ernie, arguing over what to watch on TV, are suddenly interrupted by the animated Batman, then starring on CBS's The Batman/Superman Hour in original footage supplied by the same studio, Filmation. Batman mediates the friends' dispute by suggesting they take turns. Animation was also used in the openings, before the main "Sunny days" theme song, as during the early seasons, a brief cartoon title card would reveal the show title and episode number, as with the clay critters who graced the premiere.
The street's most notable use of cartoons over the past four decades, however, has come in the form of snappy animated commercials. As Sesame Street creator and Children's Television Workshop founder Joan Ganz Cooney stated in a pitch reel sent to member NET TV stations, "Fast action, humor, and animation have become established means of attracting children's attention to television, and we're using these same techniques to motivate children to absorb the curriculum content of our series. You'll note in one or two of the animated cartoon sequences... that the short, simple 60 second form used by TV advertisers in commercials to sell products is used here to teach numbers and letters." This was exemplified right from the start (and the commercial hook made even more explicit through the closing announcement that "Sesame Street is brought to you today by the letters [this and that] and the numbers [such and such]..")
The first episode (available on the DVD Sesame Street Old School: Vol. 1, while a full segment guide can be found on Muppet Wiki) contained no less than sixteen animated interruptions (two were repeated within the same show to reinforce the concept) plus two number song/falling baker segments with flashy animated intros (compared to a total of 11 segments featuring Muppets, and a brief baker film cameo by Muppet crocodiles). Notable segments from that first show include the W sponsored tale of Wanda the Witch, an alliterative, linear story reminiscent of Edward Lear's nonsense poetry, about a witch who wears a worm and washed her wig on Wednesday. The segment was one of several animated by Tee Collins, notable as the first African American to establish his own studio in New York City.
Other cartoons included a series of simple graphic bits using dots (mopstly illustrating early, late, and color patterns), the first appearance of short-lived recurring know-it-all Alice Braithwaite Goodyshoes, and an animated number segment involving jazzy Grace Slick vocals and footage of spies and race cars (more on that series later). Perhaps the single most impressive insert, however, came from the acclaimed husband and wife team John and Faith Hubley. Hubley was a former Disney art director who had worked on Fantasia and Bambi and then went to UPA studio, where he created Mr. Magoo, before becoming a blacklist victim. With his wife, film editor Faith Elliotte, he established his own studio producing commercials and independent shorts and features, including the Academy Award winning animated short The Hole (1962). The pair contributed many shorts to Sesame Street and its sister series The Electric Company. Their work lent a vibrant tone to Sesame Street, and in turn the fees from the Sesame Street assignments helped finance the Hubley's own independent shorts, creating a symbiotic relationship which has benefited the series and countless animators through recent years. The Hubleys were represented in that first hour show by the following, a dream-like bit focusing on the letter E but also expressing a world of imagination and language backed by soothing violin strings.
Of course, that first show was only the beginning. Upcoming articles in this column will look at other aspects of Sesame Street's animated landscape, including creators, characters, and special guests. Next time, Jim Henson's own forays into animation will be examined, as well as other Muppet people who moonlighted in animation (either for the show or elsewhere). Hopefully this series will bring back memories of classic moments, from the Ladybug Picnic to the "noony noony noo" typewriter, many of which can be found on next week's anniversary DVD set (and even more for free on Sesame Workshop's own incomporable online video site, a constantly growing archive).
Have a favorite Sesame cartoon segment? Mention it in the comments!
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