Sesame Street Sign

This green and yellow wooden street sign decorated the set of Sesame Street until 1979. The top of the sign reads “CTW” for Children's Television Workshop, with “Sesame Street” painted below.

Sesame Street (1969-present) is the longest-running children’s television series in American history, and one of the most influential and impactful programs in the history of the medium. First developed by producer Joan Ganz Cooney to use all the entertaining tools of commercial television to teach preschool aged children, the series was also a notable effort to use public television to reach minority and low-income communities who otherwise lacked educational opportunities. The series combines live action sequences set in a Harlem-like neighborhood of urban brownstones and small businesses with animated segments, catchy modern music, popular culture parodies, and integrates Jim Henson’s Muppets, a memorable mélange of entertaining scenes that have made Sesame Street a favorite of children and parents alike. Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop (known before 2000 as the Children’s Television Workshop) and premiered on the National Educational Television (NET) network in 1969 before that early educational broadcaster transitioned to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1970. Since 2016, Sesame Street has aired new episodes on HBO although reruns still air on PBS.

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