![]() With Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in 1968 and Sesame Street the next year, PBS started on the mission to use what was at the time still a new and untested medium to teach children. It launched (and has never abandoned) the notion that entertainment for children didn’t have to be junk. ![]() A revolutionary ideaīut Sesame Street has endured for half a century for more than just its wit and humor. This ethos is one Pixar and many others have cribbed in the intervening decades, but one that Sesame Street continues to nail. The revolutionary idea in 1969 was that children’s programming didn’t have to be flashy and annoying it could include jokes aimed at the grown-ups in the room while still appealing to kids. Part of what hooked me and kept me a devoted fan of the show was exactly what it was designed to do: communicate with children in a way that adults would also enjoy. In fact, long after I no longer needed the lessons about counting, letters, and life skills, one of my elementary school friends and I confided in each other that we still secretly watched the show until fourth or fifth grade (many of the jokes and parodies were just so good). But no other show left the kind of impression on me that Sesame Street did. Like many children of the 80s, I probably watched a lot more television than I would ever allow for my own children. I grew up in the 1980s in a working-class, single-parent household.
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