Here's how we got to 'Sesame Street'

Oakland Tribune, Oct 24, 2006 by Jackie BurrellSTAFF

ERNIE AND HIS SAXOPHONE. Big Bird at the conductor's podium. Cookie Monster devouring the letter W ... These "Sesame Street" images aren't just childhood memories. The series -- with its trademark blend of high culture, urban grit, soft-pedaled education and gentle whimsy -- is woven into our culture.

Today, the show's lines are quoted in Supreme Court arguments, its parodies show up on YouTube and its melodies are heard in nearly every home -- and in 120 different countries.

This week marks the DVD release of the show's first five "experimental" seasons, and the chance to see Kermit's debut and Ernie's very first ode to his beloved Rubber Duckie. But watching those early episodes is more than an exercise in nostalgia. It's an opportunity to see a cultural revolution in the making.

Also, PBS-Channel 9 airs "Independent Lens: The World According to Sesame Street" at 9 tonight. The show follows three producers from the Sesame Street Workshop to Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa, exploring the drama and complexities behind producing international versions of the program.

More than 74 million Americans watched "Sesame Street" as children, and millions more watch it with their children now -- but the show is so popular and so beloved even among teens and 20- somethings that there are blogs devoted to favorite Muppet moments, and an online homage to Teeny Little Super Guy, the plastic cup superhero with the irresistible tagline, "You can't tell a hero by his size."

Even Ali G, the gangsta wannabe persona of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, riffs on Sesame Street's appeal, "Man, that show rocks! And I's

thinking, listen, why don't they do a 'Sesame Street' for kids?"

It could be argued that "Sesame Street" was the first kid- oriented program that offered subtle, sometimes sly humor that also appealed to adults. A montage on the letter Q is followed by a "Me, Claudius" parody, for example, or by former San Francisco Symphony music director Seiji Ozawa directing the operatic muppet Placido Flamingo.

"You don't realize they're parodies when you're a kid," writes "Mike Fireball," a 25-year-old blogger on ProgressiveBoink.com. "Then you grow up, somebody mentions Placido Domingo, you think of the opera-singing flamingo and go 'Wait -- ohhhhhh, I see what they did there!' It's great."

The blogger calls Sesame Street "the other street I grew up on," and recalls an immersion so strong that "when I'm 85 years old, permitting that my dentures are strong enough, I'll still bite into a cookie in such a way that it looks like the letter C, without even realizing what I'm doing. And if that's my fate, that's good enough for me."

Ernie is his same irrepressible, adorable self in the pilot episode, and Bert's just as grumpy. But all the adults are impossibly young, and one's heart skips a beat when Mr. Hooper, whose heart attack in 1982 inspired an emotional, Emmy Award- winning episode, opens his store.

Oh, and Oscar the Grouch is orange.

"It's really shocking, the first show," laughs Caroll Spinney, Big Bird and Oscar's alter ego for the last 37 years. "How bad Big Bird looks! I thought my moves were going to be cute, but I flailed about."

But it's the same eclectic, barrier-transcending mix, though Oscar turns green by the second season and Big Bird evolves. Originally, he was supposed to be a silly grown-up, like Mickey Mouse's pal Goofy, but midway through the first season, Spinney revised the character.

"Who wants a big dopey guy hanging around with your kids?" says Spinney, by phone from New York. "Having him be the child worked. (Children) saw him as a fellow child, even though he's such an absurd bird."

Absurd, maybe, but beloved and very famous.

As "Sesame Street's" popularity grew, so did its mission. Classical music and jazz were woven into skits, and celebrities, musicians, actors and political figures begged to do cameo appearances. The Boston Pops orchestra -- and then orchestras across the country -- invited Big Bird to conduct.

"Arthur Fiedler handed me his baton," says Spinney. "He said, 'Raise the baton and bring it down and they will play.' That was my whole music education. I did it for the laughs."

The blend of music, Muppets and education didn't just win hearts - - it inspired future artists, including renowned violinist Joshua Bell, whose first piece was the theme song.

Berkeley's Mike Axinn, who produces "Doof," a children's cooking show for public television, says it was the show's eclectic mixture that caught his attention and influenced his career.

"There's a sense of storytelling, a great sense of the diversity of the world -- that's one of the things 'Sesame Street' does really, really well," he says. "'Sesame Street' is famous for its eclectic nature, just jumping into something, not always worrying about how it fits together."

His favorite moment? He loved all the Bert and Ernie vignettes, but his favorite was when Ernie tried to go to the moon.