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RUNNING HEAD: RAISED ON THE STREET 1

Raised On The Street: How Sesame Street Communicates Universal Health Topics To Children

Heidi Guggisberg-Coners and Joshua Mims

COM 710 Communication in a Global Environment

Regent University

RAISED ON THE STREET 2

Abstract

The authors analyze three different versions of the series Sesame Street, examining how the

series is presented in North America (Sesame Street), Mexico (Plaza Sésamo) and South Africa

(Takalani Sesame). Each series presents unique challenges, and adapts to address universal

health issues such as disease, cultural and language differences, and death. The different

versions compare and contrast how certain elements become universal to communication and

how cultural and national demands can also lead to significant differences.

Keywords: Sesame Street, global communication, health communication


Raised On The Street: How Sesame Street Communicates Universal Health Topics To

Children

One of the great challenges facing health professionals is in addressing universal topics

across global and cultural barriers. While there are fundamental issues facing any culture, such

as death, disease, nutrition and physical well-being at the same time religious, language,

cultural, and environmental factors can affect the understanding and referential contemplation

of these issues. This study looks at three universal issues in relation to health, death and

disease, as well as in relation to creating content unique to language and culture. These issues

are addressed within the context of children’s television programming Sesame Street.

Three television series were analyzed using a rhetorical analysis, focusing on message

communication surrounding the universal issues across the globe, understanding the context of

communication in terms of settings, characters and actions, and the purpose is to strive toward

a better understanding of the overall rhetorical vision for communicating issues to children.

This study will use fantasy theme method of criticism, first introduced by Bormann in order to

increase the understanding of the metaphor of drama. Fantasy theme seeks to examine drama

as an artifact in terms of settings, characters, and actions (1972). Based on this style of

analysis, a rhetorical vision can then be developed. A rhetorical vision “contains dramatis

personae and typical plot lines that can be alluded to in all communication contexts and spark a

response reminiscent of the original emotional chain (Bormann, 1972, p. 398).

While originally applied to small group communication, Bormann and his colleagues

believed the fantasy theme method of criticism could be applied to public communication too

because the information could be “spread out across larger publics, serve to sustain the

members’ sense of community, to impel them strongly to action, and to provide them with a

social reality filled with heroes, villains, emotions, and attitudes” (1972, p. 398).


Literature Review

According to Cagle, “A fantasy theme is a word, phrase, or statement that interprets

events in the past, envisions events in the future, or depicts current events that are removed in

time and/or space from the actualities of the group” (Cagle). This is especially true in the realm

of television which is innately influenced by outside events, and offers the opportunity to be

timely given that episodic television is written over an extended period of time, can be changed

easily based on input from creative and production crew, and has a fast-paced schedule that

encourages current events influences.

Per Bednarek, comedy and light entertainment, a hallmark of children’s television, has

the power to send a powerful message, as his study of Gilmore Girls demonstrated (2010). It

was Bednarek who demonstrated that there was a cultural bond between the audience and

characters, based on the visual and spoken language, forging a cultural bond between them.

That bond would not only effect opinion, but even perception (2010).

It was Cathcart and Gumpert that argued, using Herbert Meade’s theory of self and the

role of interpersonal communication which helped in creating an individual’s identity (1986).

Television, per Cathcart and Gumpert, framed the television characters in a positive role,

allowing for them to develop an image in the mind’s eye that reflects and shapes the audience’s

own self-image (1986).

It was said best in “Framing Faith”: “In other words, we are and we become what we

watch on TV” (Royall, Abel, & Mims, 2015).


THE TV SHOWS

A HISTORY OF SESAME STREET

Few fundamental cornerstones of the television landscape can lay claim to such a

humble beginning as Sesame Street. Before the letter of the day, the rise of Elmo, or even

celebrities singing the importance of putting down the duckie, there was the Cooney dinner

parties. Timothy was a staff member for New York Mayor Robert Wagner, Jr’s office, while

Joan was a producer for educational television (Wershba, 1988). In his book Street Gang: The

Complete History of Sesame Street, Michael Davis called the pair "a delightfully unmatched

set, a Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn two-some who married despite differences in

upbringing, station, and sobriety" (2008).

In 1951, Joan then Ganz, was working in at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

where she was exposed to Father James Keller’s Christopher Movement, a Christian

inspirational group, who up until 1964 broadcast a weekly inspirational television series aptly

called The Christophers, on ABC. The Alphabet Network went on to cancel the series, and it

moved into syndication (Marty, 1999).

It was the good Father Keller, speaking across the airwaves, who first inspired Joan to

make the world a better place. As she said, “Father Keller said that if idealists didn't go into the

media, nonidealists would" (O’Dell, 1997). Joan bounced from journalism to public relations,

ending up in New York City working for United States Steel Hour. When a colleague left the

series to work for educational television, Joan’s reaction would change the face of television

forever: “What?! There is educational television?!” She would later describe the moment as a

“St. Paul on the highway” (Gikow, 2009).

Joan went on to work as a producer, developing news and political programming for the

New York PBS station. She produced a wide variety of programming, often operating on a


shoe-string budget. Joan would later refer to them as “Little Grandma Moses documentaries”

(Davis, 2008).

In the winter of 1966, Joan and her husband had what she referred to as “a little dinner

party”. At the party were the Cooney’s, Joan’s boss at the station Lewis Freedman, and Lloyd

and Mary Morrisett. Lloyd was an executive at the Carnegie Corporation, responsible for

funding educational research. When the conversation had inevitably turned to television, it was

Morrisett who asked the question "Do you think television could be used to teach young

children?" And, it was Cooney who replied, "I don't know, but I'd like to talk about it." (Davis,

2008, p. 16)

In less than a week, Cooney and Morrisett were meeting to discuss doing a feasibility

study on creating a television program specifically targeted towards educating children. In

1967, Cooney published the landmark document “The Potential Uses of Television in

Preschool Education". The document became the bible on which the series Sesame Street

would be based (Davis, 2008).

In 1968, Cooney became executive director of the recently established Children’s

Television Workshop (or CTW) which would act as the production company, managing studio

and educational center for the new series. Sesame Street debuted on PBS in November, 1969,

and within the first season won three Emmy’s, a Peabody and was featured on the cover of

Time Magazine (Davis, 2008).

It was CTW that hired Harvard professor Gerald Lesser, who was tasked with

developing educational objectives for the series, moving past what Lesser himself went on to

call “window dressing” (1974). Lesser’s responsibility was to create specific goals for the

series, developing creative methods to entertain and educate young children (1974). He headed

up a series of seminars and idea sessions in Boston and New York, with a group of educators,


child psychologists, and professionals of diverse backgrounds. The goal of these seminars was

to develop topics and best practices for the series (Lesser, 1974).

Interestingly, the consensus and most successful idea for the series was to focus on the

social and emotional aspects of childhood development, with cognitive learning being a

secondary goal. The series was set in an inner-city brownstone neighborhood, populated by

brightly colored characters, with a complete absence of negativity. As Lesser would observe

“[despite] all its raucousness and slapstick humor, Sesame Street became a sweet show, and its

staff maintains that there is nothing wrong in that" (1974, p. 95).

Sesame Street was one of the few television series to have a curriculum as part of its

production component. However, the glue that truly held the series together was the work of

one man, a genius who took cloth and wire and made magic happen. The man was Jim Henson,

and the magic was The Muppets.

Jim Henson remembers the arrival of his family’s first television set as “the biggest

event of his adolescence”. It was television which introduced Henson to the puppetry of Edgar

Bergen, Burr Tillstrom, and the Baird’s. It was also television that enraptured Henson, giving

him a driving goal, to create “entertainment for everyone” (Blau 1990).

Henson went on to develop puppet shows for television, first creating the series Sam

and Friends, and developing a reputation for creating puppets for television that had “life and

sensitivity”. Henson went on to produce commercials for Wilkins Coffee, and original product

for shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Jimmy Dean Show (Collins 1998).

Joan Cooney and the Children’s Television Workshop team approached Henson to

partner together in order to provide a new and unique flavor to the series. Originally, the

Muppets appeared separately from the human cast, as experts had advised the CTW team that

having humans and Muppets interact would confuse the children. Instead of confusing them, it


was discovered that the children lost interest in the non-Muppet segments. In a decision that

would launch a programming and licensing juggernaut, the CTW team decided to have human

and Muppet performers interact and exist within the same reality (Davis, 2008).

A key component to the development of Sesame Street was the decision by the CTW to

begin developing licensing arrangements, publications and international sales to establish its

funding. Henson, who owned the trademark on the Muppets, allowed the CTW to market his

work only if the profits were used to exclusively fund the CTW (O’Dell, 1997).

After the success of the first season, producers, educators and officials across the globe

began approaching the CTW team about creating a version of the show for their countries.

Initially, the series was re-broadcast, dubbed into different languages. However, the man who

would shape children’s education globalization was a former CBS executive named Mike

Dann, who became part of the CTW team as vice-president and Cooney’s assistant. Dann

pushed for what would be called the globalization of Sesame Street. Dann insisted on a flexible

model of distribution, working with countries on developing their own unique and original

versions of the show, with country specific sets, characters and curriculum goals. By 2005, the

CTW co-productions of Sesame Street was estimated to have $96 million, and by 2009 had

expanded into 140 countries (Carvajal 2010).

Two of these series, Mexico’s Plaza Sésamo and South Africa’s Takalani Sesame will

be examined in this text, with Plaza Sésamo famously being the first version of Sesame Street

to be an original international production and Takalani Sesame to have one of the most

controversial and important Muppet characters from a health communication perspective.

PLAZA SÉSAMO

Plaza Sésamo debuted in Mexico in 1972, airing on the Televisa network. The series

was not the first international broadcast of Sesame Street, as the translation, dubbing and re-


broadcast of the quintessential American series had begun broadcasting almost immediately

after its 1969 debut. Instead, Plaza Sésamo represented one of the first true co-productions

between a country and the Children’s Television Workshop (Cole 2011).

Much as Sesame Street had done, the Plaza Sésamo team collaborated at a curriculum

seminar, located in Caracas, Venezuela. Their goals diverged from the emotional and relational

development of Sesame Street, instead focusing on problem solving and reasoning. The goal

was to create a program, while based in Mexico, which would appeal to Latin America as a

whole, addressing the educational needs of children in 34 countries (Gettas, 1990).

A key component to educating children that Plaza used, as opposed to their American

counterparts, was to teach reading through the whole language method. This method

emphasized recognizing entire words and phrases, as opposed to the phonetic style the

American version used. The Latin American version also explored concepts of community

cooperation, family life, and nutrition (Gettas, 1990).

This concept of health became critical, particularly in the third season, in 1983, where

the additional goals of instructing children and their families on basic hygiene. This became the

first time a CTW co-production utilized the concept of Sesame Street as a platform to address

the specific needs of children. The goal, as stated in Gregory Gettas’ seminal article for

Educational Technology Research and Development, “The Globalization of Sesame Street: A

Producer’s Perspective” (1990). Gettas, in speaking of expanding the educational goals of

focusing on teaching basic hygiene, he called the issue “a matter of critical importance in an

area of the world where gastrointestinal diseases abound and infant mortality rates are high”

(1990).

While Plaza Sésamo was one of the first to address health issues for children, one of the

most controversial and landmark issues to be addressed was still to come.


TAKALANI SESAME

In 2000, Takalani Sesame premiered on South Africa’s South Africa Broadcasting

Channel (SABC). The series was created, in part, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Agency for

International Development. While the series was recorded in English, segments included

examples from all eleven of South Africa’s national languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele,

Northern Sotho, Sesotho, Swaz, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. The title, Takalani,

is Venda for “Be Happy” (Hawthorne, 2002).

The series kept to the general format, entertaining children with original content while

teaching using the best practices that came from nearly fifty years of childhood development

and education by CTW and its co-production partners. However, it was not until the

introduction of a furry, yellow, five-year-old Muppet named Kami that Takalani Sesame would

gain international attention (Hawthorne 2002).

In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune

Deficiency Syndrome) had become a pandemic, with estimates putting 2 million African adults

in 2002 having been killed by the disease. As a result, the producers of Takalani decided to

introduce a Muppet specifically to address the deadly disease. Kami was the first character on

children’s television to be HIV-positive, orphaned by AIDS, and meant to help three-to seven-

year-olds understand this disease (UNICEF, 2003).

The name Kami, is an adaptation of the word for “acceptance” or “welcome”,

kamogelo, in Zulu, Sesotho, and Setswana. Ed Christie, a designer for Sesame Street and

Henson Associates, had this to say about designing Kami:

We had done a season of South Africa, Takalani Sesame... It was a very successful first

season, did very well. During that time, I remember there were some rumblings about,

is there any way we can affect the AIDS issue in Africa. I'm not part of the Sesame


Workshop concept team, so I'm sure that they went about developing and developing,

and then they came back to Henson, and to me, to talk about the character that can be

developed to represent HIV in South Africa.

They wanted a little girl monster. They didn't want it to be a humanoid character, and

be very specific. When we include monsters in any of our shows, it kind of defuses

specific categories. It doesn't allow it to be categorized, because the monster is very

abstract. And at the same time, because it's very abstract, you interpret it one way, you

interpret it another way, and you interpret it another way. Everyone brings their own

experience to that character and what they get out of it, so it's a very pleasant way of

developing a character.

I think developing the HIV character as a monster allows you to not put a human stigma

on it -- at least, not easily. So when you have this monster with a problem, and she's

adorable, and she's healthy, and she's vibrant, and she's a bright color, and wearing

fabulous native clothing to the country, and she's got a positive attitude, and again,

because she's a monster, it allows you to be more accepting of this character and what

her message is. So that's a very rewarding thing as a designer to participate in, because

you know, based on our past years at Henson and Muppets and our relationship with

Sesame, that these characters work. These monsters, or abstracted weird fuzzy things

that we do, people buy into it. They just love them, because they bring their own

experience with it.

Who wouldn't love this little monster who just happens to have HIV? And when you

love something, you want to take care of it, and when you want to take care of it, it


becomes part of you. So that's the whole philosophy behind it, and I find that very

rewarding (Herman, 2004).

In 2003, UNICEF selected Kami as the global “Champion for Children”, helping to

work with that organization’s “Africa’s Orphaned Generations” program. Kami has appeared

in numerous Public Service Announcements (PSAs), articles and videos, helping children to

better understand how to deal with the disease, and to create empathy for their friends who

might also have this disease (2003). It not only broke the taboo of the disease, but provided a

successful benchmark for future children’s health issues in educational television.

Another legendary benchmark, which would have a tremendous effect on the future of

children’s educational television would come from the tragic loss of a cast member.

SESAME STREET

In the first season of Sesame Street, the children were introduced to four very important

human characters who interacted with and played off the colorful Muppets. Matt Robinson,

played Gordon, who utters the first lines ever spoken on the series “Welcome to Sesame

Street!” and was also tasked with offering children a positive African-American father figure.

Susan, played by Loretta Long, was Gordon’s wife. Susan and Gordon became the

quintessential Mom and Dad for the Muppets on Sesame Street, and provided a stable

representation of family for the children who viewed the series. Their neighbor, Bob, played by

Bob Johnson, was a music teacher who was the adult most likely to sing for the children.

Rounding out this quartet was Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper. Hooper was an older man,

portraying the grandfatherly role for children, and ran Hooper’s Store (Borgenicht, 1998).


These four characters became the main-stay for Sesame Street, though Gordon would

go on to be portrayed by two different actors after Matt Robinson left to pursue his writing

career. First by Hall Miller, from 1972 to 1974, and finally settling on Roscoe Orman who has

continued to play Gordon to this day. Susan went from being a housewife to a nurse, while Bob

became an internationally recognized music sensation and author of the book Everybody Poops

(Borgenicht, 1998).

Mr. Hooper grew from a curmudgeonly shopkeeper to the warm and kindly grandfather

of Sesame Street. He was also able to play straight-man to Big Bird, who constantly got Mr.

Hooper’s name wrong, calling him Looper, Dooper, “but never Pooper” (Borgenicht, 1998).

Will Lee filmed his final programs for the series in November of 1982. Despite failing

health Lee also appeared with the rest of the cast in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

However, in December of 1982, Will Lee died of a heart attack. He was 74 (Fisch & Truglio,

2001).

The CTW team considered long and hard in regards to how to handle the devastating

loss. Not only had Mr. Hooper become the grandfather of the series, but Will Lee himself was

a bedrock for the human and Muppet performers, offering experience and warmth for the

Sesame Street family. The consensus was to be honest and face the problem head-on, to not

pretend Mr. Hooper didn’t exist or that he’d “moved to Florida” (Fisch & Truglio, 2001).

Based on consultation with child psychologists, the episode was aired on Thanksgiving

Day so as to allow children and parents to discuss this issue. Big Bird, the heart of the show

and the representative of five-year-old viewers, was the one who prompted the discussion. Big


Bird struggled with understanding the concept of Mr. Hooper no longer being present and that

death was irreversible (Fisch & Truglio, 2001).


ANALYSIS

Sesame Street, and its contribution to the landscape of educational television cannot be

overstated. Not only did the Children’s Television Workshop revolutionize the concept of

educational-entertainment, but was the first to create children’s programming based on input

from child psychologists, educational professionals, and from children in focus group

audiences. Focusing on educating children through entertainment, allowed the CTW to use

settings, characters, and action to create fantasy themes through which children could begin to

understand their health care. They could also learn about the health care issues impacting their

families. Children determine how to communicate about those health issues in a “chaining-out”

manner by learning from the Muppets and humans who appeared on Sesame Street and

repeating that information to their family and peers.

CTW also developed the flexibility and willingness to adapt their series to the needs of

international audiences, in a global environment, understanding that different cultures and

nations required their own adaptations. Through these adaptations Sesame Street was able to

develop culturally appropriate settings, characters, and actions from which to provide

edutainment for children. The show provided an opportunity for the chaining out of messages

from fantasy themes writers developed to tackle even the most challenging of health care topics

for children to handle.

The CTW also expanded into merchandising and licensing markets, allowing for the

organization to become self-sustaining, instead of relying on outside corporate influences or

government grants. With this self-sustainability, CTW is able to choose settings, characters,

and actions that best communicate health-related messages to children in a culturally

appropriate manner. The CTW and their team of experts are able to create educational


fantasy-themes which can be chained out by the viewing children to their peers and other

family members.

Most importantly, from an educational standpoint, the various series helped children to

understand the issues that most affected them. By creating a world that had a mix of imaginary

and real world influences, the brownstone populated by everyday people and colorful Muppets,

provided a chance for children to learn in a positive and safe environment.

Finally, each of the series addressed a specific issue relating to the health of children

around the world. Languages are an important component of a child’s physical and cognitive

development because being able to communicate with others is a fundamental step in the

growing process. All three shows utilize language in some way, with the American version

having both a Spanish (Maria) and Sign Language (Linda) speaking character (Borgenicht,

1998). Takalani Sesame had programming that referenced eleven different languages, allowing

for children to be exposed to a wide variety of cultures and dialects. Plaza Sésamo was

groundbreaking in that it was the first co-production to use original programming and content,

not simply dubbing over American broadcasts into another language. Disease was addressed in

Takalani Sesame with an HIV-positive character becoming not only an international success,

but also a representative for children affected by the terrible HIV/AIDS epidemic. There likely

would have been no Kami if the CTW had not been forced into dealing with the hard truth of

death when the world lost the one and only Mr. Hooper.


CONCLUSION

Television as a medium has great potential for change. It is far more powerful then film

because it is consistent and like a part of the family. Much like radio, it is a medium that is

invited into the home. However, it transcends radio because audiences are not only able to see,

but also are able to interact with and make an emotional connection with the performers. For

children, whose imaginations allow them to blur the line between reality and fantasy so well,

television is a perfect method of addressing them at their level.

Children have always responded well to the Muppets, with the silly voices and bright

colors. What is amazing, however, is how easily children are educated and informed by these

creatures of felt and wire. To this day, songs like “Rubber Ducky” or “It’s Not Easy Being

Green” are remembered by the children who grew up watching. There are many kids who can

honestly say they were raised on the street.

Finally, consider this quote from author G.K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not tell

children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children

the dragons can be killed.” Perhaps the greatest lesson Sesame Street can teach children is not

that differences, disease, and even death exist in life. Children already know this. Perhaps,

instead, this little show can teach us all how to deal with these different parts of life. Isn’t it

how we learn to handle life that is the greatest lesson of all?


CONFERENCE PRESENTATION

The authors of this paper, Heidi Guggisberg-Coners and Joshua Mims, have written this

paper with the intention of presenting it at the Broadcast Educators Association in Las Vegas,

Nevada. The conference, held every year in April, is scheduled to coincide with the National

Association of Broadcasters convention, a major industry tradeshow. BEA brings together

multiple universities to a conference on a wide variety of topics, including content analysis,

best practices, and changing industry paradigms.

The theme for BEA 2016 will be “Content Is King” and would be an ideal place for a

paper presentation for both Guggisberg-Coners and Mims to present. Not only would the

discussion of Sesame Street as a tool for addressing global issues be valuable, but it would also

be of tremendous interest for all parties to analyze the various methods that the Children’s

Television Workshop has utilized to adapt their content to fit the needs of various countries,

cultures, and current events.

Guggisberg-Coners and Mims are both educators in the communication field and would

greatly benefit from attending the conference regardless of presentation, but presenting a paper

would be an invaluable experience for them both.


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