Night Music: Sunday Morning Coming Down

Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first episode of Sesame Street – a program that changed an entire genre of entertainment. It came along too late for me (although getting really stoned and watching the colourful characters bounce around had its moments) but my kids sure loved it and were taught by it.

One of the reasons it worked so well was also a source of controversy.  The show was originally banned for screening on the PBS station in Mississippi because of its “highly [racially] integrated cast of children” which “the [local] commission members felt … Mississippi was not yet ready for.”

It is a wonder these days that a TV show so acutely focused on the good and happy side of life could survive fifty years in the marketplace.

CNN has a good gallery of early Sesame Street photographs.