MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When "Sesame Street" was created in 1969, it was a test - could television teach children? The program was developed with lower-income families in mind, and the set was meant to represent a block in Harlem, in New York. Here's more on how "Sesame Street" got its start from Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, the cohosts of NPR's history show Throughline.
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RUND ABDELFATAH: The first episode of "Sesame Street" aired on November 10, 1969. Millions of dollars had been invested, yet no one knew for sure if the show would work. Nothing like it had ever existed before.
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ABDELFATAH: That first episode opens with weird, animated creatures. One looks kind of like a cross between a unicorn and an alligator, the other an armless, grinning blue guy wearing a bowler hat. It has a very '60s vibe.
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CAROLL SPINNEY: (As Big Bird, vocalizing).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Sally) He's big.
MATT ROBINSON: (As Gordon) Hello, Big Bird.
SPINNEY: (As Big Bird) Oh, hi, Gordon.
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Big Bird is this big, dopey, disheveled-looking creature with sort of creepy eyes - a rough sketch of what we see today.
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SPINNEY: (As Oscar the Grouch) You're letting all the fresh air and sunlight in. Boy, I hate that.
ROBINSON: (As Gordon) Aw (ph).
ARABLOUEI: Oscar the Grouch is orange.
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SPINNEY: (As Oscar the Grouch) Oh, go away. Close my can lid, dear.
ABDELFATAH: In the first scene of the very first episode, you meet the store clerk, Mr. Hooper, Bob the music teacher, and in the background, two kids - black and white - play with a ball. And then Gordon, the guy who owns the "Sesame Street" brownstone, calls into the window of his house.
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ROBINSON: (As Gordon) Susan?
LORETTA LONG: (As Susan) Yeah?
ROBINSON: (As Gordon) Susan's my wife. You'll love her. Susan, come here.
LONG: (As Susan) Hi, honey.
ROBINSON: (As Gordon) I want you to say hello to Sally.
LONG: Susan is not a name that you name Black children, OK (laughter)? I inherited Susan. However, Susan was from the Midwest. She grew up on a farm. She had a father and a mother and a brother. And I used my own story.
ARABLOUEI: Susan is you?
LONG: Yeah, yeah. It's me.
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ABDELFATAH: This is Dr. Loretta Long, who played Susan, starting from that very first episode in 1969. She really did embody what "Sesame Street" has been doing since the very beginning - mixing education and entertainment.
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LONG: (As Susan, singing) One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn't belong. Can you tell me...
ABDELFATAH: In fact, during the first few years the show ran, Dr. Long was earning her Ph.D. in urban education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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LONG: (As Susan) I have a riddle for you. What's closer to you than the air, and what stretches like a rubber band and comes in a lot of pretty colors like white, all shades of brown, black and yellow?
The fact that we could put entertainment and educational concepts together and make it more palatable for children, it fit me like a glove.
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LONG: (As Susan) Well, did you guess? It was skin.
ABDELFATAH: "Sesame Street" was always fun, but behind the scenes, it was also grounded in research about how best to educate kids. The show had support from President Lyndon Johnson, whose administration was laser focused on eliminating poverty and reducing inequality.
ARABLOUEI: "Sesame Street" was born at a time when the government was taking a bigger role in people's lives. Medicaid and Medicare had been created. The Civil Rights Act was passed. And the government was getting involved with what was on TV. "Sesame Street" first aired on the National Educational Television network, which would become the Public Broadcasting System - PBS - the next year, which is why even today, "Sesame Street" can feel so synonymous with PBS.
MICHAEL DAVIS: I was there, man. In 1969, nobody knew what the hell PBS was, believe me.
ARABLOUEI: Michael Davis is the author of "Street Gang: The Complete History Of Sesame Street."
DAVIS: In a lot of markets, you couldn't even find it. It was on a UHF station. And you were lucky if you could get rid of the fuzz and get a decent picture.
ARABLOUEI: But the picture was pretty clear. In its second week, "Sesame Street" was reaching almost 2 million homes. And the reviewers loved the show.
DAVIS: I think the majority of people hailed it and loved it. And, you know, it was an immediate success. It was a blockbuster success. It was everywhere. But there were opponents from the very start.
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DAVIS: Notably, Mississippi public television refused to air the show. Why? Because Black and white children were portrayed as being friends on the show and, you know, did things together, and it was as normal as normal could be. That was not going to fly in Mississippi, until - a-ha - the parents said, wait a minute. We want this show. We think our children should be able to see this show. And they resolved that conflict in the best of all ways - the people spoke.
ARABLOUEI: The ban lasted less than a month. But the Mississippi government wasn't the show's only critic. Some educators themselves were questioning whether a TV show could really do a good job teaching kids.
DAVIS: They thought that the pace was too frenetic. They thought it was going to create a generation of kids with attention deficit disorder. And there were people who were really (laughter) angry with it, suspicious of it - didn't like it one little bit.
LONG: I had a guy say, well, am I supposed to be entertaining my kids in the class? And I said, why not?
ABDELFATAH: But "Sesame Street" was changing the game.
DAVIS: Kindergarten teachers had to rip up their curriculum. They had to start over because no longer were kids showing up not understanding the basics. They showed up ready to learn and to learn more.
ABDELFATAH: A whole generation of kids in the '70s were coming to school more prepared. By 1979, around 9 million kids under the age of 6 were watching "Sesame Street" every day. And it wasn't just reaching, quote-unquote, "disadvantaged children."
DAVIS: Within weeks of its premiere, it was clear that all boats were going to rise as a result of this show.
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DAVIS: A lot of people questioned the idea of the government getting involved in television, and the whole idea of a public television network seemed to them to be, like, just more liberal brainwashing. But once they started watching this show, immediately defended it, immediately took to it, immediately saw that it was like nothing else on television. And, you know, within a year, Big Bird was on the cover of Time Magazine.
KELLY: That was author Michael Davis and original "Sesame Street" cast member Loretta Long, speaking with Throughline hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah. You can hear the entire story on the Throughline podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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