More Sunny Days of Sesame Street
Michelle Newman 0:00
Welcome back everyone to an encore today of episode 110 the sunny days of Sesame Street. And you guys, I don't think we've encored our Sesame Street episodes before, and that's just a darn shame, because they are really, really fun conversations about something that's just so beloved to all of us in our generation. I mean, we're the Sesame Street generation, right? Yes, we
Kristin Nilsen 0:26
really are the Sesame Street generation. It is the, probably the one of the biggest influencers of us as children. We just have to recognize how big an influence it was. We didn't have 900 shows to watch. We pretty much had one. We had like one to three, and
Michelle Newman 0:43
it's all we needed exactly. I mean, we've talked, we also listeners. We also do have an entire episode devoted to electric company and zoom and all these other a few of these other great shows that we did have access to, but I don't know that you can really compare. It's apples, oranges, right? Because Sesame Street was kind of its own world, and it's, well, its own neighborhood, its own street. It's something that I don't know about you guys, but when I see some of those OG Sesame Street sketches, and we'll talk a little bit more about this next week, but it today at age 56 it brings me such comfort and such joy. It's a balm. I love them.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:22
Yes, well, think about it. I mean, it was, it was so full of joy, everything from the music to the colors. It was so vibrant. You know, when I think, gotta say, when I think of zoom, I think of not, I think I love the show, but it's more dull. Ish, that's different. It was on the TV. It was at a different angle. But gosh, Sesame Street with Big Bird and Elmo, all those bright, primary, joyful colors. It just, it brought joy. Just watch, just seeing the scenes on the on the screen well,
Kristin Nilsen 1:53
and it goes be just those two things that you mentioned, the the songs, the colors. I mean, just those puppets alone are a creative explosion by a genius, if you think about that, and I think about the we talk about the influence that it had on us, and I think one of the greatest influences is that it really influenced us on a creative level. You can't experience something like that and not absorb all the creativity that it took to make that show. It wasn't just one thing. It was so many things. And it was a riot of color and words and songs and felt and nose and fur
Michelle Newman 2:29
and fur, and it fits. And you guys don't even you know I know how I feel about the puppets, and thank goodness we I mean, and just this whole discussion that we had, and I remember, I'm going to say it was about two years ago, because I remember where I was when this episode came out, and I was on spring break. But if you would have told us two years ago that now we not only know but are friends with the president of television at Jim Henson, Hallie Stanford, who is such a creative genius, and some of the the people she works with that, we were able to meet at Henson studios just this past fall and just go be part of that world, even for an afternoon, that that's what their that's what their life and their livelihood and their passion is. And you know, we also have an episode with Hallie Stanford. If you listeners, go back, it's Harriet the Spy is what you would put in our search box on our website. I'm forgetting what number it is, but she actually says her entire life started with Sesame Street because that then that's what inspired her to do what she does now.
Kristin Nilsen 3:39
It was the number one influence on her entire life, into her adulthood, she became a person in the creative space because of those puppets. But there was a really interesting article that came out this week. And of course, every every time you there's an article with Gen X and the title, everyone sends it to me like crazy. And this was a big one. This was really important. It was in the New York Times. It was called the Gen X career meltdown, and it was about people our age who grew up and became creatives. I am looking at Sesame Street as one of the influences of those people who became creatives. And basically what they're saying, it's really quite dark that we people at this very particular age are some of the biggest victims of how technology has ruined some creative careers, and I'm just gonna read you a little bit of it, because it really shook me pretty hard. He says, if you entered media or image making in the 90s, so that's us, right, we're coming into adulthood. If you were in magazine, publishing, newspaper, journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film or TV, there's a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That's because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand. And this just gets me right here. He says, Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world. World only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It's as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in and the market value of their skills plummeted
Carolyn Cochrane 5:12
my heart and can I tell you, I was one of those people. I was in journalism and magazine, you know, graphic design in those days, and it was very kind of cut and paste, like, literally, not literally, in a bad way, but yes, we were sorry. What? Like, what? No, I don't know. Before I went to graduate school. I mean, my undergrad degree was in journalism, and so I worked in like, PR for a bank and a I basically a media company. Yeah, so, Carolyn,
Michelle Newman 5:45
it's nice to meet you. Yeah, I thought you were, I thought you had an education degree, just like
Carolyn Cochrane 5:50
that was my master's. We could have a whole lesson, or we could have a whole episode on how I wanted to be a teacher in my undergrad. And mom, my mom said, No, you can't remember.
Michelle Newman 6:00
Yeah, yes, we have had that. Okay, so, yeah, just a second, Carolyn, and I need to figure some things out. So, okay, I didn't know, did you use like, rubber cement to like, because I remember, I was on the yearbook staff, and that's literally how we did the yearbook. Okay, if you did, you get the rubber cement and you had to put it on like a grin. Do you
Carolyn Cochrane 6:19
remember, like, the proportion wheel. Like, there was this wheel, and you had to, like, see how big, how much space you had, and then you would turn it. So, anybody that's listening, you remember the proportion wheel? You remember those big, giant, like, layout boards that you would have where you'd have to put the headline and, you know, we had to count, like, how I could go on and on. There was math involved. Yeah. So it was so exciting when you would get everything just right. You get the right headline that fit into the right space. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, and it was so good for your mind, like I think of now how much less you have to use of that creative part of your mind when you're using all of these extra helpy things, where all you have to do is probably put in a headline that's clever and fits this, you know, space on Oh, one magazine and just on Instagram,
Michelle Newman 7:09
not even a magazine. Don't even get us talk started on AI doing all the writing. Yeah, there's four people now, but
Carolyn Cochrane 7:15
we went from and help me here listeners, if we had publisher and then we had, like, page maker, and then, yeah, print shop. Oh gosh, remember those days with the discs and yeah, so we were at the beginning of that. And it's not just those creative fields. I noticed, too. Getting back to being a teacher, Kristen and I recently visited a middle school classroom where Kristen talked about worldwide crush with this great seventh grade language arts classroom. And I walked into that seventh grade classroom and I just was like, who's screwed, dude, and just nip a lightning, because that's where I belong. I really feel like that's where my true soul lies in that age group and literature. And while so much was the same, I was telling the teacher, I don't think I could be a teacher now, because they're talking about a Prometheus board and all this technology that I thought I couldn't get a job now as a teacher, I don't think if I wanted to, because they would just say all these technological education tools now, and I'd be like, No, I just want, you know, some paper And a ballpoint pen and a reason to tear up the That's right?
Michelle Newman 8:24
Well, kind of, I mean, to your point, it kind of goes back to, you want, like, chalk and a pencil and eraser. It's kind of why, this isn't hyperbole here, but like, kids today don't know how to write in cursive. It's this type of thing, right? But what I was going to say is that, you know, like, like he says in the article, every generation is victim to progress. Correct? The difference with Generation X is that, like you said, when we were learning, when we're in college getting our degrees, like in a creative field, yes, you're learning one way. And I don't think any of us you know, can really hate on the progress, because it's made things quicker and faster and whatever. But right is the timing of it. The problem here with our generation is the timing, because when this is all changing over and when all of our generation, full of creatives, are now sort of at a loss, um, we're aging out of being able to get hired so all of these people when they have peak earning time. So, so, for instance, Carolyn, you said, you know how you learned to be a seventh grade, you know, language arts teacher, and how now it's different. My younger daughter is going back to school getting her interior design certificate. It is almost 100% computer classes for interior design, you, that is such a creative field, right? Oh, my God. Now here's the thing like, that's great. That's exciting. She's a total gamer, total computer head. She's excited about comes naturally to her. Comes naturally for her. However, at what point where all will all these programs that she's learning? What? She age out of that. We don't know but, but that's like we talk about that future your problem, right? You don't know. And I want to emphasize
Kristin Nilsen 10:06
too, that it's, there's, there's one, there's, it's one thing to not be able to keep up with the technology. It's another thing when technology makes your job obsolete. And so it's not that Gen Xers are not able to keep up with the technology. We're ready and willing and we're at the forefront of all think about the software programs you just named Carolyn. Those are all the things that we were learning on the fly. The problem is that when we got to the peak of our earning potential, the jobs went away. Yes, because there's a woman, there's one woman in the article who is a prop stylist for photo shoots. She says, There are no more photo shoots because there are no magazines, and everything is for social media, and everything is done by influencers. There's no need for a prop stylist anymore. And she's in her mid 50s. She's like, What am I supposed to do? Well? And
Michelle Newman 10:58
the thing is, is well and what she can do and what she is, you know? I mean, our generation also is super able to adapt to change, because we've had to learn so many different things, right? We started off analog. Our generation has had to be so adaptable. So this woman, for sure, can learn how to do something else and and stay at her salary level and her whatever, but she won't get hired because she's aged out like I just know, and I know you know you're not supposed to talk about that and whatever. But it's true, there's their ageism is alive and well,
Kristin Nilsen 11:31
right? And is ageism, ageism paired with the fact that you can hire they this is from the article as well. There was one guy who was a creative director for in house photo shoots at a Conde Nast magazine, which now, of course, is gone, and he says the top photographers used to earn five figures for a shoot. Now he said, you can hire a 20 year old kid who will do the job for 500 so that woman in her 50s, who can be agile and learn something new, can't make a living because there's a 20 year old who will do it for 110 of what she's worth.
Michelle Newman 12:05
Oh, gosh, can I? Let's listen along, like the puppet makers. Let's bring this back. Because what I want to say is this, well, okay, because you guys know, and a lot of listeners know that I got really into puppets this fall when I spent a couple when I had a couple trips to, you know, Jim Henson Company, the studios, and my husband got me a puppet for Christmas. And I love my puppet. And my first question to him was, where did you even get this puppet? It's going in the Weekly Reader. My puppet, gibbet, is going in the weekly Reaper, weekly Reaper reader. But he said, Etsy. And he said, you know, these, there's still these creatives that this man is, like, a really great kick ass puppet maker, but he probably is our age or older, and now he's just making them to sell this little, small shop, yeah, because that's what he can do. And they're not that expensive. They're like, 70 bucks. It's not like, you know, it's not like he's and I'm gonna sell them for $500
Carolyn Cochrane 13:03
an audience for them to just think,
Unknown Speaker 13:05
well, just us. Well,
Carolyn Cochrane 13:09
you know, it just brings me such joy when you open that puppet and how excited you were. I was just as excited as you were. And listeners, I really do cry. I have a plan for that puppet. I really do want. I can't remember your puppets name, Jim, it's I finally Gibbets. Yes, I do want Gibbets to be a part of the podcast. It's okay, maybe like a guest, a guest co host, when Michelle can't make it one day because her throat. No,
Michelle Newman 13:33
we're in encore season right now. How about next week? Gibbets just does the
Carolyn Cochrane 13:39
well. And you know what? That is not out of the question. Because you guys, I don't know if you know this, but recently, the University of Maryland announced that their graduation speaker this year, the commencement address is being delivered by, and I'm not making this up, Kermit the Frog. Yes, Jim Henson is a graduate of the University of Maryland, and Kermit will deliver the address on May the 21st
Michelle Newman 14:08
Christian and I, I'm putting, uh, Patreon members. This is going on Patreon. Kristen and I hands over mouth. We are, we're about to cry. I've I think I might need to get a ticket to that.
Carolyn Cochrane 14:19
I know how amazing. And you know what? Kermit was really excited about this too. And here is Kermit statement that he gave via Jim Henson studios. Nothing could make these feet happier than to speak at the University of Maryland. I just know the class of 2025, is going to leap into the world and make it a better place. So if a few encouraging words from a frog can help then I'll be there who said
Speaker 1 14:46
that every wish would be heard and answered when wished for the morning star somebody far back.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Can someone believed it
Kristin Nilsen 15:07
to all of you creatives out there who are searching for something different, we see you and we recognize that the bumpy road that it is for you and we celebrate your creativity. Go buy a puppet
Michelle Newman 15:20
and enjoy this encore of episode 110 the sunny days of Sesame Street.
Kristin Nilsen 15:29
Did you know that the pop culture Preservation Society depends on support from listeners like you to keep our podcast up and running? We are an independent operation, creating, producing, distributing and promoting the podcast by ourselves and paying for it out of our own pockets, because we love it and we think it's worth it to preserve the well loved cultural nuggets from our Gen X youth. If you'd like to become a supporter of the PCPs, go to patreon.com P, A, T, R, E, O N, and search for pop culture Preservation Society. Our Patreon supporters are like our pit crew giving us the fuel we need to keep on trucking. And as a Patreon supporter, you'll also get special thank you, gifts like video recordings of our episodes after the episode, discussions, invitations to live events over zoom and the occasional blooper, delivered straight to your inbox. Thank you so much for listening and for being a part of our society. It
Carolyn Cochrane 16:21
was one of the most consistent parts of our lives, if you think about it, besides our families, we could count on it every day at the same time it was there and those characters were there.
Unknown Speaker 16:34
Hello World. It's a song that we're singing. Come on. Get happy. You happy
Kristin Nilsen 16:49
Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who thought every day was brought to us by a letter and an hour
Carolyn Cochrane 16:58
we believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear, like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition, and
Michelle Newman 17:12
today we are saving the show that taught us all about the letters A and K and then numbers four and eight, how to be kind and accepting of one another no matter what color your fur was made us laugh like crazy and showed us that all kinds of wonderful people lived in our neighborhoods, Sesame Street. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists. Come on.
Unknown Speaker 17:37
Get
Unknown Speaker 17:39
happy. You don't get happy.
Unknown Speaker 17:43
Do sunny day sleeping on my way to where the
Unknown Speaker 17:52
air sails.
Unknown Speaker 18:05
The Sesame Street.
Michelle Newman 18:09
Those of us born between 1965 and 1980 are given the distinction of being called Generation X. And over the past two years on this podcast, we've given our generation other names, the big wheel generation, the Brady Bunch generation, the Tiger Beat Generation. And today we're adding another one to the list, the Sesame Street generation, because many of you probably watched the premiere on November 10, 1969 and you might even remember it.
Kristin Nilsen 18:37
I actually have a comment from somebody named Angela on our Instagram feed, who says she remembers her mom waking her up in the morning to watch the first episode of Sesame Street.
Carolyn Cochrane 18:47
That's adorable. Wow. What a fun memory. I'm sure my mom probably did that too. But I don't say, I can't honestly say that I remember that. Oh no, I do not remember that. I do remember the moon landing, though, in 1969 that my mom sat me in front of the TV for
Michelle Newman 19:03
so many wonderful things happened in 1969 didn't it? And I was born today. Michelle, what
Carolyn Cochrane 19:09
else happened?
Michelle Newman 19:11
So good segue, because many of us were alive, but too young to watch. That's me, and many of you listening hadn't even been born yet, but there's no denying the influence that Sesame Street played in all of our lives. And I'm not talking about the ELMO Sesame Street people. I'm talking about the O G the Sesame Street of Mr. Hooper and Ladybug picnic and Kermit and Grover and Ernie, who sounded like Kermit and Grover and Ernie, I don't know who's imposters, yes, yeah, today you listen to him and you're like, that's not Kermit. So Sesame Street was the brainchild of Joan Ganz Cooney, a former documentary producer for public television, and cooney's goal was to create programming for preschoolers that was both entertaining and education. Professional. She also wanted to use TV as a way to help underprivileged three to five year olds prepare for kindergarten. But while we definitely today, we could keep speaking to the history, the format, educational goals, response, writing, funding, etc, we want to instead use our time to speak to the connection we all had and still have to Sesame Street.
Carolyn Cochrane 20:22
Oh, yeah. You know what I was thinking as we were preparing for this episode is, I think this is the defining, at least television show of our generation, like you can ask anyone who is Gen X about Sesame Street. And everybody would know, this is not one of those, oh, I don't think I watched that or, yeah, we didn't, you know, get that channel or whatever. This is something that we all shared. Maybe one of the only things that I could say, I feel, consistently across the board, that people of our age experienced, and that's
Kristin Nilsen 21:01
not necessarily true of subsequent generations. Correct? Our children don't 100% have memories of Sesame Street. Some watched some were watching Bob the Builder. Right? Exactly the same as when we were kids, exactly.
Carolyn Cochrane 21:13
It was one of the most consistent parts of our lives, if you think about it, besides our families, we could count on it every day at the same time it was there and those characters were there. And I think that's another reason it was every day we had the opportunity to interact with these characters.
Kristin Nilsen 21:33
Right when I was watching Sesame Street, I lived in a small town, a very rural area where there were exactly zero black people. There were no apartment buildings, there were no front Stoops. And Sesame Street was my gateway to understanding that there were other people out there who did not look like me, that I was not the only one who mattered. There were lots of different kinds of people who had important things to say, but my understanding of those differences also was pre racial. I mean, that's how little I was. I think I just made up the word pre racial because I often wondered what I would look like when I grew up. I was so curious about what I was gonna look like when I grew up and I didn't know what I look like Jan Brady, or maybe I would look like Susan from Sesame Street I
Unknown Speaker 22:17
didn't know. Or prairie dogs,
Michelle Newman 22:19
yeah?
Speaker 2 22:20
Or maybe, yeah, maybe I would have a felt face. We don't
Michelle Newman 22:25
well. I think, along with Mr. Rogers and electric company, Sesame Street, was the most defining show for me from about age, I would say, like age 319, 72 until I was six or seven. I watched it every single day, you guys, even after I started kindergarten, because I had afternoon kindergarten. And I don't doubt at all that Sesame Street is hugely responsible for my early reading and my love of books and words and letters. And I even think, yeah, television is responsible for my love of television, because I adored the funny skits and the colorful graphics. The humans on the show were like my family. The Muppets were real friends to me. I mean, my favorites were and stellar Grover. Here I'm wearing my Grover shirt, um, Ernie and Bert and Snuffleupagus. And I fact, I still have, I don't know if you can see back there, but I still have my Ernie and my bird you can see Bert a little bit. I have my Ernie and Bert puppets here, right here in my office. But I loved everything. I loved the educational videos, like when they showed us how chewing gum was made, or how they painted lines in the streets. I was learning from that. And Carolyn, like you just said earlier, it was the people and the familiar skits and the puppets, they were things I could rely on. And just the, you know, the repetitiveness of everything was just hugely important to me at that, you know, from age three to six.
Kristin Nilsen 23:50
Yeah, I'm pretty sure my mom was sitting me down in front of Sesame Street when I was, like, 12 months old. I'm pretty sure, I don't think she waited till I was three,
Michelle Newman 23:59
no, and I'm sure it was too it's just my memory, Linda, but it's my memory of it can start at about age three. Well, unlike most children's television programs at the time, the producers of Sesame Street decided against using a single host, and instead, they cast a group of ethnically diverse actors. They wanted them to have distinctive personalities and be reliable characters for the children. When Sesame Street began in 1969 you guys, there were just four people in its cast. Can you name them?
Kristin Nilsen 24:30
I can now, but when I first saw that in our outline, I was like, what four? Four people? But when I when I really drilled down, it became very obvious, Gordon and Susan, Mr. Hooper and Bob, that's
Michelle Newman 24:42
correct. And I think where I was getting confused is because in 1970 we add some more in my memory, we're always there, right? So Mr. Hooper was the first human cast on Sesame Street. He was played by Will Lee. Beloved, Mr. Hooper, right? We loved Mr. Just have a shirt that says Hooper's Store on it that I get these on tea public you guys, just listeners, if you're interested, they have a lot of great Sesame Street teas in the late 40s. I think this is so interesting. In the late 40s, Mr. Hooper Will Lee had been blacklisted by the House Committee on UN American Activities for his refusal to name any fellow actors as communists. You know, we've all heard about that, right? He was one of them. Wow, yeah. So he had been unemployed. He had been unemployed for years, and then he was hired in 1958 on, as the world turns and then, you know, 10 years, 11 years later, on Sesame Street. And actually, people really give Joan Gantz Cooney a lot of credit for hiring one of the former blacklisted actors for that. So that's Mr. Hooper.
Kristin Nilsen 25:44
So they thought Mr. Hooper was a commie. Well, back
Michelle Newman 25:47
in the late 40s, yeah, right, I know, and I love this one, but you can actually date, I think yourself by the Gordon. You remember, because there wasn't always the same Gordon. It was originally played by Matt Robinson, and he resigned in 1972 only because he was a behind the scenes guy. He was a puppeteer. He was they kind of grabbed him at the last minute because their test Gordon hadn't worked out so well. And they were like, Hmm, Gordon. Matt Robinson voiced Roosevelt Franklin. Roosevelt
Speaker 2 26:17
Franklin, what do you say? I say A, B, C, D, E, F, G, just had to get that out. So they grabbed
Michelle Newman 26:23
him and said, Do you want to be Gordon? He said, Sure. Why not? So it was fine. But after a couple of years, he was like, this is this isn't for me, being in front of the camera. I don't know Susan. And then they had someone worse. They had someone named Hal Miller stepped in for a year, but then the Gordon came, who I associate Gordon with, and that's Roscoe Orman, and he played Gordon until 2016 so he's my so funny because
Kristin Nilsen 26:46
I my Gordon is Gordon number one. Okay, I have a lot of feelings about Gordon. I would say Gordon is probably my number one character, which is probably a little surprising. But I also struggled with Gordon because he was the only character whose actor was switched out, and I was not able to understand what was happening. I did not know they were actors. I thought they were real people, right? One day, Gordon shows up, and I'm like, What's wrong with Gordon? And then not only does he have a completely different face one day, but then his Afro falls off, and I'm just like, What can that actually happen? Like, can you wake up with a different face one day? But I think my number one, Gordon's number one status for me, is based completely on Matt Robinson, the afro mustache and beard Gordon. And he took his role very seriously, because he, like you, said he was a puppeteer, and he had brought, been brought into this project Sesame Street, and he felt he was to be a positive role model for black children who lacked a strong father figure. And I'm telling you, that worked on me. Even though I had a completely intact family, I felt very comforted and protected by Gordon number one. So then when Gordon number one left in 1972 do you guys know who was in the running for Gordon to be the Gordon number two, that would be Robert Guillaume Benson.
Michelle Newman 28:06
Oh, I can see that Benson was going to be Gordon. I can see that a young because he was
Kristin Nilsen 28:10
a lot younger then he was a lot younger. But instead, they chose Hal Miller, like you said, and then Gordon number three, you said, was your Gordon, Michelle, um, so Gordon number three was the bald Gordon. The Afro fell off, and he left in 1976 to join the cast of all my children as a pimp named Tyrone. Oh, we know. I totally remember. I remember Tyrone. I'm watching all my children. Yeah, he was Estelle's pimp. And I remember not knowing what a pimp was, but it was very flamboyant, and I knew that was bad, like, somehow this guy was bad. What a
Carolyn Cochrane 28:45
strange casting. Yeah, going from Sesame Street to all my children as a pimp. Because if you're a kid walking around the house or whatever, and all of a sudden your mom's watching all my children, and you're like, but that's Gordon, and he's wearing, like, he's wearing dad and daddy, yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 29:04
yeah, I was watching all my children. Well, I'm also thinking
Michelle Newman 29:09
that you're eight, watching all my children. Yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 29:11
every right, it might be on in the background, is what I'm thinking. Like, maybe that was your mom or your grandmother's watching the soap, and you're you do this double take and, like, okay, maybe. But we
Kristin Nilsen 29:20
do have some confusion, because you said Roscoe Orman played it until 2016 did he play Gordon and Tyrone at the same time? Maybe,
Michelle Newman 29:27
and maybe he left for a little so I have this really great book. It's so giant it doesn't even fit on my screen. If this part's on YouTube or something, you can see it. But it's this great giant Sesame Street coffee table book that was published in 2009 for the 40th anniversary. It is an amazing resource. It's like an in Sesame Street encyclopedia. I'm gonna post some photos from the book on social media this week, but you can still get it. I saw that it's still available on Amazon. It's kind of pricey, though it's like $70 I got it as a Christmas gift, you know, 1012, years ago. Yeah, but it's fantastic. And the pages are just thick, that lovely thick, you know, coffee table, but page, but that's where I was getting a lot of my information from, so I'd have to flip it through. But I don't know. We can, we can fact check that? Krista,
Kristin Nilsen 30:14
yeah, some, some people can help us fact check. They love to tell us when we've said something every time,
Michelle Newman 30:18
every time you say he lost his afro. I'm imagining the wild, the wooly, you know, the little thing that you'd play in car on car trips, with the little magnet, with all the little metal shavings that you could make beard, and you can make the beard, and you can make a little afro, and then you could turn it up, and it would fall right off. That was you could make Gordon one. And Gordon too, honestly, wild
Kristin Nilsen 30:39
wool so it was so hard for me. I'm just looking at that face going, what happened to Gordon?
Carolyn Cochrane 30:45
That would be confusing. Yeah.
Michelle Newman 30:47
So then moving on, Gordon's his wife Susan. His wife Susan was played by Loretta long, and she's the only OG who was still on Sesame Street, or at least she still was a year or two ago, but Loretta long was hired to play Gordon's wife Susan. They originally wanted a real folksy character. They wanted her to be like a Joan Baez type, and she was waiting to audition, and just, they just kept passing her over, passing her over, and finally, at the end, she's like, I came here to sing for y'all Right. Like, let me sing. And she starts singing, I'm a little teapot, completely, like a capella, as if she's singing it to a child. And the story is that was it. Everybody was like, oh, oh, like this. Like, they could see that connection that she would have with children instantly. And she was hired to play Susan, who became a really important and influential role model on Sesame Street, if you think about it. I mean, she started as a stay at home mom, which they they said, you know, they were a little worried at first about the feminists and everything, but just in some of the stuff I've read, if I'm remembering this correctly, they still made her very motherly and everything. But then, you know, Susan goes on to become, I think it's a nurse, right? Doesn't she go on to become a nurse? Yeah, yeah. And actually, Loretta long, the actress who plays her, has her PhD. She's Dr Loretta long, because she has her PhD in education.
Kristin Nilsen 32:14
Oh, my God. No wonder she knew how to sing, my my little teapot. Was it my little teapot? No wonder she knew how to sing. I'm a little teapot in a way that actually connects with children, not in a performance style. Mm, hmm.
Michelle Newman 32:27
And then, of course, Bob, Bob's my, Bob's my Gord like, like, Kristen, you said Gordon is your kind of most memorable Bob for me was my constant. Bob was just, just friendly. And you know, Bob played by Bob McGrath, who, sadly, we just lost last fall. He passed away in the fall of 2022, and his story is so funny because he became so beloved so fast on Sesame Street, and was on for so so long. He was just such a constant on that show for so many of us, but when he was originally approached for this show, he wasn't interested in the least. He was already a singer. He was a vocalist. That's what he his path, he thought was. But a few months later, he saw Jim Henson's work, and he totally changed his mind. And he said, This is something really special, and I want to
Speaker 2 33:16
be a part of it. And then he has the same job for like, 54 years or so. But
Michelle Newman 33:21
you know what, if you love what you do, right? I mean, he was so good at it. And
Carolyn Cochrane 33:24
Kristen, kind of, like you were saying earlier, I wanted to literally be on Sesame Street, not necessarily the TV show. I just wanted to live there, you know, that you could walk to the store, that your neighbors could be that close to you, that you could just get everywhere. Because I grew up, you know, in suburban Houston, in pre planned subdivision where you had to get in your car to go anywhere, and the thought of just like running into a neighbor as you're walking to the store. Oh, I just love that. I mean, even when we looked for a house here, when we were moving to Minneapolis, I said, I want to be able to walk to a store. That was one of the qualifications for my house, my number one qualification. And if you could throw in a post office to more power to you, that was, like, it
Michelle Newman 34:12
was everybody. For me, it was everybody hanging out on their stairs, you know, like, yeah,
Carolyn Cochrane 34:18
community. It would. There was just this sense of community that once we had these ranch houses and yards and all of that, you weren't necessarily out in that close proximity to people on a regular basis. And I just wanted that. I really did.
Kristin Nilsen 34:33
That's so interesting. That's a really good story, Carolyn, because when, like I said, when I was watching Sesame Street, I lived in this rural area, and there was, there was a store called the, well, I called it the pink store because it was pink. Now I'm thinking, do I really know the name of the store? And we thought, maybe it's walkable. Let's try. And so a whole bunch of neighborhood kids got together, and we schlepped to the pink store. And I remember getting home with blisters. Yes, and it was not walkable, but did that plant a seed like I was just dying to go to the pink store and buy some bubble gum, and it wasn't walkable. And now I've, I've rarely lived in a place where I can't walk to a store.
Michelle Newman 35:13
Yeah, well, like I said earlier, so that was night. Those four characters were the original in 1969 and then in 1970 obviously, because I know some of you were screaming at your screaming at your devices. What about Miguel? What about Luis and Maria? What about Molly the mail carrier? Did you guys know Molly the mail carrier was played by Charlotte Ray Mrs. Garrett from facts of life. Oh, my God, she's like, dark haired. I would have never known that. What I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't really remember Molly the mail carrier until I watched some skits with her in it. And then I was sort of like she was friends with Bob. I don't think she was on it a ton, but she was a recurring character starting in 1970
Carolyn Cochrane 35:47
and people were friends with the mail carrier. Yeah. You know, in suburbia,
Michelle Newman 35:52
you just went to people in your neighborhood, yeah.
Carolyn Cochrane 35:55
And when we moved again to to Minneapolis, we had a walking mailman. I was just in heaven. I'd never had a mailman that walked before that. I knew, yeah, I never did. They were always in a little vehicle. So I just loved the coziness of the mail carrier coming to your door putting the mail in our the our one here, we knew his name, you know, gave him real Christmas presents. Yes,
Kristin Nilsen 36:21
yeah. So nice. When we moved to New Hampshire, the mail carrier bought presents for Liam and I thought, and it was really quite heartbreaking, because I was moving to a place where there were no sidewalks and they delivered the mail in a truck. I'm just putting this together now. They did not walk up to our door and give us the mail there. I couldn't walk to a store, and it the pain of leaving this neighborhood was almost unbearable, and I remember when she handed over those gifts. I'm like, that doesn't happen other places. No. People don't know their mail carrier.
Speaker 1 36:53
Who are the people in your neighborhood?
Unknown Speaker 37:01
Say Who are the people your neighborhood, the people that you meet each day? So
Michelle Newman 37:07
besides the adult humans, there were many other important humans on Sesame Street, and that would be the children. Now, this comes from Wikipedia, you guys, but I loved how it was put so much I didn't edit it. I'm just going to read it. According to the children's television workshops research, children preferred watching and listening to other children more than to puppets and adults. I don't know about that, but so they included children in many scenes. Dave Connell, Connell, Dave Connell probably insisted that no child actors be used. So these children were non professionals, unscripted and spontaneous. Many of the reactions were unpredictable and difficult to control, but the adult cast learned to handle the children's spontaneity flexibly, even when it resulted in departures from the planned script or lesson Children's Television Workshop. Research also revealed that the children's hesitations and on air mistakes served as models for the viewers. And what comes to mind instantly for me, at least after reading that, is that one famous sketch from the 70s where it's the little girl, her name's Joey and Kermit, and he's trying to get her to say the ABCs with him, and she keeps interrupting him with Cookie Monster, and then she just laughs her head off over and over.
Speaker 3 38:25
Can you sing the alphabet? Yes, yes, I could. Let's hear you sing the alphabet. A, B, C, D,
Unknown Speaker 38:31
E, after Cookie Monster,
Speaker 3 38:36
you're not singing the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, and
Michelle Newman 38:53
apparently that was all her that they were supposed to sing the ABCs together. And if you go back and watch it, Kermit Jim Henson handled it beautifully. So here's the adult, and I think that puts into practice everything I just read, yeah, that they wanted their hesitations and on air mistakes to serve as models, because that's what kids did. I think this decision
Kristin Nilsen 39:13
to use non actors was pivotal, yeah, because their foibles are adorable. Even to other children, there's and there's nothing worse than a child actor trying to be cute, right? And that's the difference between Sesame Street and Barney. No offense Selena Gomez, and that endeared them to us, even as children. So we could then open our ears and fully understand what they might be thinking and feeling and learning in a way that you wouldn't from somebody who was delivering lines and going,
Carolyn Cochrane 39:43
Yeah, that was all scripted. And I don't know about you guys, but I thought I could maybe be one of those kids like I thought maybe if I go to New York or audition or whatever, I could be on there, I could do that.
Michelle Newman 39:55
I actually have that almost exactly word for word in my notes. Carolyn. In I have, I don't know about you guys, but I just love the children. And any skit where the children got to interact with a muppet, and to your point, Kristen, because they weren't those kind of obnoxious over scripted child actors, that's what made us believe we could be one of them. Yes, and that's what made this whole show so relatable to us. Because sometimes the children are kind of looking at the Muppet like, what's happening to me right now next to me, and that's how we felt. Sometimes at age three, looking Cookie Monster or Grover can be kind of loud and kind of puzzling, and sometimes the kids kind of clam up. They don't say what they're supposed to say, and the puppet, the Muppet does such a good job of bringing that child out of their shell every single time, and even if it gets them to just say one or two words or letters, that was so relatable, and to me, it was like the best kind of make believe magic come to life. I wanted to be surrounded by those humans and by those puppets.
Kristin Nilsen 41:01
Jon, Jon, I think might be the universal favorite of the children on the show. And there's that, oh God, the cheese of John, John. And this the skit with him trying to count with Grover, John, John,
Speaker 4 41:12
could you count to 10? Yeah, I want to count with I want to count backwards. Jump backwards for me, 1234, John John, five. You know what?
Kristin Nilsen 41:36
Even as a child, I thought John John was cute, so I may have been, what, a year older than John John. I wasn't that much older, but even when I'm four years old or five years old, I want to hug John John, your first crush. Oh, my God, John John. I love him. I didn't kiss his little cheeks. And then, I'm sure you've seen this the video of adult John John counting with us. So cute. We should put that in our news. Let's do it. I can watch that 100 times, yeah, side by side with Little John John, and he's wearing like a military uniform.
Michelle Newman 42:14
He became really successful. He was on Sesame Street for many years. I think because he changed. He might, he might have lost some of the cheeks. We might not have recognized that that that six year old was actually John. John, I read a fun story that said one time, I don't know if it was when he was dating the person who became his wife, or if it was just a girlfriend, I think it was the person who became his wife. When she found out who he was, she immediately said, the cheeks. I loved your cheeks.
Unknown Speaker 42:42
Isn't that cute? Imagine,
Kristin Nilsen 42:43
is so adorable and and memorable, like nobody will ever forget John. John. Well, we
Michelle Newman 42:50
can't talk about the characters of Sesame Street without mentioning the very the most important, and we have a little bit, but the Muppets. Now I'm going to, I want you two to take turns and see how many of the original like we're going first year, so we're going 69 to 70. How many of those Muppets you can name? And No, Elmo is not on the list, so don't even try to Elmo me. Okay, okay. Oscar
Carolyn Cochrane 43:14
the Grouch,
Speaker 4 43:15
correct? Big Bird, yes, I'm
Carolyn Cochrane 43:20
gonna go with Snuffleupagus, although I don't know if you know, not in
Michelle Newman 43:25
season one. Oh, he
Kristin Nilsen 43:27
was invisible, or did was he invisible? Or was he not even making appearances? Well, he wasn't
Michelle Newman 43:31
even making appearances on the show yet. But okay, that is a good question. I because I can remember when Snuffleupagus was invisible, but I'm wondering that whole storyline. I need to refresh my memory on that, and I'll have to do that at some point. So
Speaker 2 43:43
frustrating. People would show up. And yeah, I'm just here. Yeah, just right.
Michelle Newman 43:47
Okay, Kristen, okay, so
Kristin Nilsen 43:49
I'll, um, jump in with Bert.
Michelle Newman 43:50
Bert is correct.
Carolyn Cochrane 43:52
Thank you, Kristen, because that gives me, Ernie, you're welcome. Yes,
Michelle Newman 43:57
Ned, did you guys know fun fact? Ernie and Bert were portrayed, during our years by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. And it said Ernie and Bert are a reflection of their personalities.
Carolyn Cochrane 44:10
I always thought of them as The Odd Couple. Like, once the odd couple was on, and my parents would watch that, I would be like Felix and Oscar is Bert. Ernie, yeah,
Kristin Nilsen 44:19
Bert is Felix, yeah.
Michelle Newman 44:21
Okay, you still have about six or seven more, just they start thinking outside the
Kristin Nilsen 44:24
box. Oh, my God. Okay, I know, I know Grover. We haven't said Grover. Well, Grover was,
Michelle Newman 44:28
interestingly enough, and listeners go look this up, and maybe we'll put a link, or I'll put a photo on on social media. This week, Grover was but he was not fully formed until Season Two. So the first iterations of Grover were him and, like their first, you know, puppets they were making. It looks very Grover like, but it's not, it's not the it's not this Grover, so somebody for a dress kind of but he was on season he did show up in season one. Yes. Okay, of
Kristin Nilsen 44:55
course we have Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt,
Michelle Newman 44:58
um, yeah, we did. That cool kid he was on seasons one through seven, cool kid who loves scat, rhyme and to sing the blues.
Kristin Nilsen 45:06
What do you say? Of all the Muppets, Roosevelt Franklin is my favorite Muppet. And I, I know you guys are looking at me
Michelle Newman 45:15
loud, but that's so because I think it's so cute that that, I mean, I we all liked Roosevelt Franklin, but I love that he was someone's
Kristin Nilsen 45:22
favorite, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, he knew everything he didn't. It wasn't just his ABCs. He knew how to count. He knew the days of the week, and he was, like you said earlier, Michelle. He was created by Gordon number one, and he was voiced by him too. And even after Roosevelt, even after Gordon number one left the show, he continued to write and voice Roosevelt Franklin, but like you said, he was dropped, I think, after seven seasons or something, even though he was wildly popular. But people were worried that this classroom of rowdy children that Roosevelt Franklin was often the was often the ringleader of trying to teach them how to sing the ABCs. He thought they thought those rowdy children set a bad example, and that he may have been portraying a negative African American stereotype, which I disagree, but also I'm not an authority on the subject, so shut your mouth. Or people thought he was too black, or some people thought he was not black enough. So Roosevelt Franklin was a lightning rod, but he still kept making cameos on Sesame Street, even after they dropped him. Oh, that's good to know. That is good to know, because people loved him. Yeah, people loved him.
Carolyn Cochrane 46:31
Well, I'm sitting here thinking I'm listening to you, Kristen. Don't think I'm thinking while you're talking. But yeah, I'm thinking that. I don't know if I'd say my favorite, but the character that sticks with me the most is Oscar the Grouch. And I think this is telling of my personality, because I just wanted Oscar to be happy. I just I felt so sad for Oscar. Like, what made him so sad? Why was he so grumpy with everyone? Like, what which kid on there is really gonna snap him out of it? Like, put me on the show. I'll make Oscar happy. And that just always was with me, like, this will be the episode where he's really excited and happy and not always grouchy.
Michelle Newman 47:13
Do you guys remember dad
Speaker 2 47:14
grouchy? Oh, was my dad? Was your dad grouchy? No, my mom was grouchy. Oh, oh, there we go. Okay.
Michelle Newman 47:21
Do you guys remember how exciting it was the episodes where we got to go down into Oscars trash can and see what it was like? Oh, I live for those episodes. It was Carolyn just turned inside out. Carolyn just like became boneless, she said, and a little slimy. But you guys also, one thing that is so brilliant about the creators of Sesame Street, and all of us with our education backgrounds, we understand this, and we appreciate this, is, you know, the character of Oscar, the Grouch, could be grouchy all the time, but yet, anytime Oscar is interacting with someone else, they're not, they're just kind of like joking, don't be such a grouch, but it's just sort they let him be a grouch. And so as a child watching it, you're getting this reflection of, sometimes I can be a grouch, and that's okay, right? It doesn't mean the people around me aren't going to still love me. And it was, I think, you know, Oscar was a really intentional character on this show, I would assume, well,
Kristin Nilsen 48:22
and the placement of slimy is also incredibly intentional, because you have this grouchy dude, but his relationship, I'm talking so specifically, no, but this, I know about slimy, um, but his relationship with slimy, Welcome to Book Club, um, shows that he has heart. Yeah, so he's not a bad person. Oh, nice, just in a bad Yes, he was so, um, he was so warm and and caring with slimy,
Michelle Newman 48:48
like maternal kind of paternal, with slimy, yeah, oh my gosh, in front of us. But see again. Here we are on this podcast, going back at our with through our 50 something year old lenses, able to see things that we we saw we loved the friendship between Oscar and slimy, but we might not have been seeing like now, this was very pointed to show that he's a grouch, but he's a good he does have a good heart, and this is just his exterior, and maybe this is just how he has to project. Yeah. You know, Oscar could have used some therapy. There should have been a therapy. Yes,
Carolyn Cochrane 49:22
well, let me tell you guys all the stuff I'm working on in therapy is coming. It's making sense now why I felt that way about Oscar. Because you just made the comment about he, you know, Sesame Street did this intentionally, like it's okay to be grouchy. I never thought it was okay to be ground. No, I didn't know. I'm still working with that it's okay to feel the feeling like that's not a negative, negative feeling, like all feelings are just feelings. I thought it was my job to get rid of the ground or the sadness or whatever in someone so I think that was what I was why I was drawn to Oscar, because. It's like, oh, I can make you happy. You don't have to be grouchy all the time. Where, if I had had a different perspective, it would be like, it's okay to be grouchy. You can be grouchy, but no, I'm just learning that now
Michelle Newman 50:12
it's I hear you 100% I was I am with you. There was too many other people being grouchy. I there was no space for me to be grouchy. It was my job. I'm gonna just read you the other characters that appeared in season one, because you'll know who they are. And I wouldn't have expected you guys to know this. So don't think I'm like, how did you forget this one? Granny bird. But granny bird, big birds. It was, it was discovered. This was big birds, Colonel, grand grandmother. And it was, this is, you know, we are kind of pulling back the veil now. So hopefully you guys don't have little children. Listen, children listening. But you know, they just took an extra big bird costume and they put a shawl around it and a little gray wig on it. That's granny glasses.
Unknown Speaker 50:49
She had granny glasses. Yeah. Did you have
Carolyn Cochrane 50:51
a purse? Did she have a I don't
Michelle Newman 50:55
know. Go ahead, you guys in this book, though, that I was just telling you about this giant, this Sesame Street coffee table book I have there is the greatest picture of Carolyn Spinney sitting between takes, and he's got the lower half of Big Bird on, so he's got the big legs, but he's just reading the paper so, and it describes you guys how he had to use one arm sticking straight up, and the other arm, and that worked the eyes and the mouth, and the Other arm. Had to work both wings. It's like they said that, and he had to be able to sometimes he roller skated. Let's remember the bird. He danced, he hula hooped, he They said he was nothing short of a genius for being able to bring over,
Carolyn Cochrane 51:34
I know, you know, rub my head and Pat. How
Unknown Speaker 51:37
do you roller skate with your hand in
Michelle Newman 51:39
the I don't balance is off. I don't know fun facts. I have two little trivia questions for you guys about Big Bird. Do you know how tall he was? No, I know this is what I'm learning. Tall. Yeah, he was eight feet, two inches tall, and he was forever. How old he was four? Nope, he wasn't four. No. Little bit older. He was forever, six years old. Big Bird. Okay, so then we have, we had granny bird. Now we have little bird. Do you remember little bird? He was primarily brought on to teach the difference between Big Bird and little bird, but he was often used to foil Big Bird. You can picture him, can't you? Little Bird? He's just kind of little yellow, yeah, with little feathers like Betty Lou. Now Betty Lou is often confused with prayer, with Prairie Dawn. She's pink skin, pink felt skin, blonde braids, often with a little blue bow on top of her head. But the first two years, she wasn't Prairie Dawn, she was Betty Lou and then lefty the salesman. When I saw I recognized the shady looking green salesman with a trench coat and a black hat, and he speaks in a whispery voice. And he's usually seen trying to sell another monster, like a letter, like he'll open his trench coat, and he'll be like, how about this? A he dragged us all Ernie and eight, I remember, yeah, and, or he likes or something like an ice cream cone. Another great resource for those of you listening that just can't get enough Sesame Street. We'll put this in the Weekly Reader this week. It's just the Muppet fan wiki, fandom page, and it's everything Sesame Street, so you can I just searched character by year, and all the characters that showed up, first season, second season, human and Muppet Show up. Sing a
Speaker 5 53:22
song. So
Carolyn Cochrane 53:32
from its earliest planning stages, Sesame Street was designed to be a show that would use music and singing as part of the material being taught. So it was only natural that they were going to release some musical content on records, not only to reinforce this curriculum, but also to get children who weren't watching the show to get interested in watching the show. But they also felt that Sesame Street Music could be enjoyed just for its own sake. It didn't have to go along with the show. You could just enjoy the music on its own. And so the first six albums that they released were released by either Columbia Records or Warner Brothers Records. So these are major labels, and they were colorful. These albums, they came in a gate fold, which is like when the album cover opens up. And sometimes there were posters in there. They had bonus materials, photos, things like that. And I remember, I think my sister had Sesame Street Live. That was one of the first six original albums that came out. And then, believe it or not, in 1975 a different label actually produced a compilation of songs from Sesame Street by various artists. And this would have been K tell, so K tell actually produced one Sesame Street record, which I thought was super interesting, so cute. Now, one song, this was one of my rabbit hole things that I'm so excited. Excited about one song that is featured on several albums is the song Sing, yes, that sing the song that the carpenters covered in 1973 so you might remember from the carpenters episode that we did that they selected sing to be their debut single from the Then and Now album, and it actually peaked at number three. And everyone thought they were crazy to want to do this. And Richard was like, this is something. And I'm just so glad that they did. And also now I understand why I always think Karen was singing it with big bird or something about in that Carpenter's episode, we
Michelle Newman 55:38
thought we could find it. We
Kristin Nilsen 55:39
were like, Yes, I had in my there's a false memory living in my head with Karen Carpenter singing, sing with Muppets, with Kermit with little children. That never happened. It's
Michelle Newman 55:51
not just you, though, because I have that same
Carolyn Cochrane 55:55
picture in our heads. Yeah, a lot of other artists did come on Sesame Street and sing alongside different Muppet characters with that song, but Karen was not one of them. Everybody
Unknown Speaker 56:08
did it except Karen,
Michelle Newman 56:10
the one who covered it. She would have been so sweet on there, too, and she's
Kristin Nilsen 56:14
the only one I remember. It was a bob song, wasn't it? I think it was a bob song. Was it
Michelle Newman 56:19
like a big bird song, isn't it? And my album, it was a big bird song, but maybe Bob was.
Carolyn Cochrane 56:23
There were a lot of covers of that song. Yeah, a lot of different album. I just characters and people from Sesame Street covered that song. So there were actually 62 albums produced from 1970 to 1980 so I'm just looking at that 1962 and 62 album years. Yes, now some were kind of rebranded a little bit. So it was maybe the same album from early on, but different cover, maybe some different songs added and some taken out. But 62 was how many there were. And one of my favorites was one called Susan sings songs from Sesame Street. Try to say that really
Unknown Speaker 57:05
by the letter S, yeah, exactly.
Carolyn Cochrane 57:09
And let me tell you, this would have been the first album that I remember owning, and ever, just in your whole life, ever, ever like a true album, because it, again, was one of these gate fold albums, which meant it opened up. So the cover is Susan with a bunch of kids in what I imagined was like Central Park. It was like the neighborhood city park, this cool thing in my head. And again, I wanted to be there like that. Looked like fun. Look at all those kids. And then you open it up, and it's same thing, those kind of photographs. And I would play this album and just stare at these photographs and just pour over them and think I could be in those pictures. Yeah, it is such a visceral, visceral memory for me that when I went on YouTube to listen to some of the songs, I found the soundtrack on there, I truly felt like I was in one of those time machines where I was getting, like, zapped back like you would see all this, like stuff spinning around, and honestly, for probably a good 10 seconds. I was six years old. I was in my bedroom. I could see my bed spread. I could see myself even, like my feet in the air, laying on the floor, just looking at that album and then that song, you guys, happiness is on this album. And when I heard this, the pictures I had in my mind then just flooded back, because it was like happiness
Speaker 6 58:32
is two kinds of ice cream, finding your escape key, telling the tongue such a visceral
Michelle Newman 58:40
memory of your Good Man, Charlie Brown. And I remember it, though, more from Sesame Street, I think, than I do too, from anything. Absolutely, yes,
Carolyn Cochrane 58:48
totally. It was just again. Took me back. Unlike really, I almost want to say anything we have done so far, because I think it might be my earliest PCPs memory of something that we're actually talking about in an episode that just came flooding back. The album actually reached number 86 on Billboard's Top LPS for that year, which I thought was pretty impressive, and was nominated for a Grammy, but the Sesame Street book and record beat out. Susan sings songs.
Michelle Newman 59:24
That's the one I had. You know what? It's not. It's not really that surprising that Loretta Long's album, The Susan sings, was so successful because, don't forget, when she auditioned, all she did is sing, I'm a little teapot, and all of the people in the room, almost just like stopped breathing, and we're like, Oh, it's you. It's you. We finally found you. So, you know, to have her make an entire album of these songs was genius. That's
Carolyn Cochrane 59:49
exactly right. The songs were not actually Sesame Street songs. They weren't songs you would have heard on Sesame Street. They were kind of like, we just said happiness came from You're a good man Charlie Brown, and they're. Other Broadway show songs that are on this album. And, yeah, there are other Broadway songs that are on this album, well, but,
Michelle Newman 1:00:08
but the brilliance in it too, though, is calling it Susan sings. It's not a Loretta long. It's not Loretta long singing. Her characters
Unknown Speaker 1:00:15
were real people, right?
Carolyn Cochrane 1:00:17
I don't think I knew she had a real name until, no we did this research, of course. Sorry, that's Susan. That was my favorite Sesame Street album. And really one of my fondest childhood memories
Unknown Speaker 1:00:31
for happiness
Unknown Speaker 1:00:34
is anyone that's he
Speaker 5 1:00:42
loves. But
Speaker 1 1:00:49
most of all, you make me
Kristin Nilsen 1:00:55
happy. That's so beautiful. The album that I had was the one that you just mentioned, the Sesame Street book and record original cast recording from 1970 so it sounds like that's the one that won the Grammy that year. Yes, most of the time it's just referred to as the original cast recording. And like you said, it was repackaged over the years into different things like Sesame Street one or, I'm not exactly sure, but it would have a different cover and even a different the songs would be in a different order. And if you look it up on any streaming services, the songs are, are there some that are missing? They're not in the same order. So if you don't have the original vinyl pressing, it's gone. That memory is gone. Oh, so, of course, I found out on eBay, and it's on its way to my house right now. Yeah. So just like you, Carolyn, the only way to listen to this because you can't stream it in its original form on streaming services. You have to dig it up on YouTube, and somebody just plays the record on their record player and takes video of it. And when I first listened, when I started listening, I thought, I must not have listened to this record for very long, because they didn't have the song order memorized. You know how you can start singing a song before it begins? Because you know exactly the order of the songs. But then they flipped the record over, and I got Husker dude, hard, hard. I had very sad feelings listening to this record, and I wasn't sure why. And then it all started coming back to me, it was one particular song that triggered this cascade of memories, and I'll share what that song was in a minute, my record got warped. I left the record out on my floor, and it got warped in the sun, and I got in big trouble because I hadn't taken care of my records, and that was a big deal in my house. So the record wasn't replaced. Nobody ever bought me a new one. I ruined it, but it stayed in my collection, and I just couldn't listen to it, which always made me feel so ashamed that I couldn't I had
Michelle Newman 1:02:54
hearing it, listen to it. That brought that back to you. Yep, music amazing.
Kristin Nilsen 1:03:01
It's, it's science, you guys, yeah, it's so bizarre. So then I remembered, as I'm being Husker dude by this song, I remember being previously hoosker Dude by this song, when I was still a child, like nine or 1011, or, you know, 1011 years old, I got smacked in the face with this song when I was still little. I heard the song wafting out of somebody's bedroom when I was at a friend's house. Probably it was a little sister, a little brother or something. And I got to use Michelle's terminology, a twisty feeling in my tummy. I got man, a load at age 10, I was like, Where is this coming from, and what does it mean to me? And I didn't know. I just knew that I felt a little bit like crying. And it's the first song on side B. It's called, Somebody come and play. I love that. And it's this plaintive request by someone who is alone, for someone to choose them and be a playmate, which is, you know, let's be honest, this is a chronic condition of childhood that everyone has To deal with at some point in their life. Today.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:20
Me come and play today.
Kristin Nilsen 1:04:24
And although it's not a sad song, it does give you a lump in your throat. It's a hopeful song. The child in the song is not complaining. It's a hopeful song, but you get a lump in your throat. And Sesame Street was so good at getting inside the heads of children to know what weighed on them, they were able to see situations through children's eyes and not just through the adult eyes. They want to paint childhood as just rainbows and unicorns all the time, and that's not true. So this same album also has it's not easy being green, which has the same flavor, right? We all knew that Kermit was sad, but. He was trying to see the bright side, because he knew he can't change his color. He can't change who he is. Both of these songs with this this melancholy flavor, are written by Joe Raposo, the musical director for Sesame Street, and I think he must have been writing from a very personal place. He wrote about half the songs on this album, and the others were written by a man named Jeff Moses. And these Jeff Moses songs have a completely different feel to them. He wrote rubber ducky. These are the people in your neighborhood. He wrote, everybody wash. He wrote, going for a ride. And it's like these two men had two very distinct jobs. One needed to be bright and funny and teach a concept. The other had to identify feelings and validate them. And it worked. Yes,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:05:45
think about it, when they stuck with
Michelle Newman 1:05:48
us. I know last night, when I was doing some last minute prep for this episode, I was wandering around the house singing, Somebody come and play, and my husband from the other room, you could hear him going, Somebody come and play today, and then we're singing it together. And I'm like, have the two of us ever sang that song in you know, the 88 years we've known each other? No, no, but we both know it. Okay. Well, how about we take a trip down Carolyn's rabbit hole? I like it. You you.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:06:26
There could have been a lot, but I picked my favorite interesting facts that I thought you all would enjoy. So the name Sesame Street, the title for the show, did not just roll off the tongue. It was not something they studied really hard and thought would make the perfect title, because in early spring of 1969 the press conference that was going to announce the show was going to be coming out on PBS, and they still had not made a decision about the title of the show. They had gone through all of these different titles, and actually, I'm going to tell you a couple of them, and you can think, like, what? Like, one being the video classroom, another being that's the title of the show. That was one of the Yeah, one of the options. Thank you. Exactly, fun Street, which that just doesn't do anything for me. And it was getting a little frantic. The publicity. People are like, we need a name for this show. And eventually, they kind of settled on 123, Avenue B, that that was one that that got a little traction. However, that name was eventually rejected for fear that the show's title would not appeal to viewers outside of New York City. They thought that was, I guess, a little because, oh, average is
Kristin Nilsen 1:07:42
a New York thing. See, we don't know that. We just think it's, it rhymes, right,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:47
exactly. So the name Sesame Street is actually credited to one of the writers Virginia shown, Who threw that name out. And basically it got time to let the publicity people know what the title was, and they basically picked the least worst option they felt, which was Sesame Street. And that's what they went on. They went with it, and they thought that was the least bad title.
Kristin Nilsen 1:08:14
Well, I heard that. Never questioned it, ever No, if you think about it, why sesame? It's like a sesame. Well, it was like, sesame, yeah, oh, I've never even questioned it. It's just such a thing that always existed. I've never right.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:28
And that iconic sign when we, you know, when it opens and we see it exactly, and you can't imagine anything, the alliteration with the two Sesame Street, it just, it really goes. But when you think about it was like, All right, just give us one. Because, you know, PR is bothering me, and let's just what's the least worst, and it ends
Kristin Nilsen 1:08:48
up being history. Yes, exactly which I saw Cavalier,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:52
yeah. So that was a fun fact. Another was, do you know that there was actually an episode that had to be removed from there was so much complaint. There were so many complaints about it that PBS actually had to take it off of the air. Not many, not many days after it was on, it was so controversial. Any idea what that is, I bet you, Michelle, is that our era? Like? Yes, it was our era. It was in 1976 Yeah, you might not know, because it was pulled so quickly you've been unable to find it. It hasn't been anywhere for you to go and guess loot and find it. I know I read about it. Well, it was pulled because parents thought it was too scary. So here it was, episode 847, features Margaret Hamilton reprising her role as the Wicked Witch of the West. That is nearly four decades after the Wizard of Oz premiered. It was episode, it was it was banned for being too scary for kids, and for decades, like I just said, it was difficult to find anywhere the appearance was actually uploaded about well, June of 22 Go to YouTube, so now you can see the first time, yes, for the first time, and within like six months, it had like 500,000 views, because no one had seen it before. And basically the segment is she flies in on her broomstick, and she threatens to turn Big Bird into a feather duster and charms Oscar the Grouch. And it had, it ended up being about, like, I think was about being clean or something. I can't even remember that whole thing of it, but it, and I could Margaret Hamilton scared the bajibies out of my even when she was the vultures woman. Do you remember she was like, the coffee spokesperson, oh, he just almost went Yes, yes, yes. So in poor Margaret Hamilton, because she did go on Mr. Rogers, but as herself, like as Margaret Hamilton, the actress, but, and here she was, the Wicked Witch of the West. So anyway, that yes, that was taken off, and unless you were lucky enough to see it the day it aired, and you never saw it back, yep, they never did you see this on YouTube, though, yes, so we
Michelle Newman 1:11:04
will put that in the Weekly Reader. For sure. Yes, for sure.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:11:09
All right, now you both know, or if you don't know by now, I don't know where you've been, that I love a good crossover. You know? I love when somebody from Fantasy Island shows up on the Love Boat or whatever. So it was interesting for me to find out that there were some times that some of our electric company friends, toodle on over and they were on Sesame Street, Rena Moreno would come on as Millie the milk lady. Morgan Freeman reprised his role as easy reader. And this is perhaps the most interesting of all. Another thing that's difficult to find in 1974 ABC had a TV special, and it was called out to lunch. Okay? Now out to lunch featured not only the characters from Sesame Street, all of our Muppet friends and all of our friends, also from the electric company. It also included Elliot, Gould, Barbara Eden and Carolyn Burnett. The premise of the show was that ABC newscasters had all gone to lunch, and it was up to the electric company cast and the Muppets to make up an hour of programming. So they've, like, taken over the ABC Studios for an hour, and Carolyn Burnett's kind of trying to help them and all of that. So it, again, was really, really hard to find, and I don't think you can, you can find the entire episode, but you can now find some segments of it. So again, I will, we'll provide those links on in our Weekly Reader. But can you imagine? I just think that's like, would be so fun. And the last thing I wanted to share was something the current producers have said about these shows that we're talking about in our episode, those shows of the 70s, and says that some of those could not be produced today or put on the air today. He cites cookie monsters, dietary choices, and including a pipe that he he smokes after a while, which I don't remember the he does. He smokes
Michelle Newman 1:13:13
a pipe. That's what
Unknown Speaker 1:13:19
my dad would do. I
Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:23
guess that's a pipe smoker
Michelle Newman 1:13:27
eating a million cookies. That's so right. So he's gonna have to eat vegetables.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:32
Yeah, the
Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:34
children shown riding their bikes without helmets. Oh, come on, and running through construction sites, which I have vague memories of, that like when the kids were just like, set free and, oh, I would think
Michelle Newman 1:13:46
that's how I grew up. My sister and I ran through construction sites all the time where they're building new houses. We would go in the houses that were just drained, oh, and just jump off the stairwells and stuff. Oh, for sure, we did. Probably nails were everywhere we were in, like flip flops. Who knows,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:02
right? And I don't, I again, I guess because of who we were. I know, I never thought this was anything. But this producer goes on to say, and in the opening scene of the very first episode, a young girl is being shown around Sesame Street by a grown man, Gordon, who is not her father and is holding her hand.
Speaker 2 1:14:23
That's, that's so sad that that would be something that people would get upset, or you'd have to that's, yeah, think twice about since
Michelle Newman 1:14:29
her time. So,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:30
yeah, I thought those were some, um, some funny little facts that you might not have already known. Those are
Michelle Newman 1:14:36
fun facts. Those are great. Carolyn, thank you. You're welcome. C is okay.
Speaker 7 1:14:41
That's good enough for me. C is for cookie that's good enough for me. C is for cookie that's good enough for me. Cookie, cookie. Cookie starts with C.
Kristin Nilsen 1:14:53
You guys, it makes me very proud to be the inaugural audience for Sesame Street. We were the guinea pigs. We were the recipients of this historic experiment. And despite Sesame Street's historic run public television, I fear we may never see anything like it ever again, though,
Michelle Newman 1:15:10
you know HBO? Yeah, I know a little bit about the story you guys, and it's HBO pulled up because they want to make room for all the new stuff coming in,
Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:19
and even our own kids, you know, again, this being experience that I wanted my kids to have, Sesame Street, right? But at that time, there were some other choices. Cable TV had come out, you know, we had other options. We had, I think, Disney Junior or whatever, and Nickelodeon and some other things. So it wasn't the only thing, which for us, there wasn't really an option, right? That's right.
Michelle Newman 1:15:41
My kids definitely watched it, but it wasn't the only like it was for us, right? So
Kristin Nilsen 1:15:47
let's cheers to Sesame Street and say thank you to the universe for that divine timing. We were alive when Sesame Street was introduced to the world. Thank you for listening today and tune in next week, because guess what? We're not done when we'll share your favorite Sesame Street moments in a countdown of the top 10 best skits, songs and sketches from this groundbreaking show.
Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:07
And please subscribe to our weekly reader if you are not already subscriber, because this week is going to be full of fun video links to some of those sketches and songs that we talked about in the episode. You can sign up for the weekly reader on our website, pop preservationists.com or at our Lincoln bio on Instagram.
Michelle Newman 1:16:28
And if you'd like to see see portions of this episode, we are excited to tell you that we now have clips of our conversations on our YouTube channel. That's right, we can be found at pop culture Preservation Society on YouTube. It's always fun to see behind the curtain, isn't it? I think so you can see our resting, our listening faces that are always horrify us when we see them. You guys who thought this was a good idea, and today's episode was funded by our supporters on Patreon, and we like to thank you by name. Everyone who joins our supporters on Patreon gets a shout out on this podcast, because they are what makes all of this happen. Today, we'd like to give a big thank you to Amy, Dee, Kimberly, Anisha, Robert, Emily and Mendel. And lastly, if you like what you hear, and we really hope you do. Thank you for taking a moment to leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or rating wherever you listen, that helps our podcast get heard by others.
Kristin Nilsen 1:17:31
In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Threes Company, two good times, two
Michelle Newman 1:17:36
Happy Days, Two Little
Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:38
House on the Prairie. Cheers. Cheers. The
Kristin Nilsen 1:17:41
information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu, Nanu, keep on trucking and may the Force be with you.