Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street

Popular children’s series Sesame Street turns 40 years old today. Season 41 of the public television show also launches today with an episode featuring first lady Michelle Obama. Show airs at 7 a.m. on KCET if you want to watch. And if you prefer instead seasons long ago viewed, Robert Lloyd has written a nice reflection for the LA Times.

“Sesame Street” … was conceived from the beginning as an instrument of learning and uplift — a Head Start of the Air that would, by a sort of pedagogical jiujitsu, use the force of an addictive medium to its own higher ends. It was largely, though never exclusively, meant to give a leg-up to disadvantaged kids, and to get parents involved by putting on a show that was also attractive to them. I was no longer a child nor yet an adult when “Sesame Street” began, but I was certainly attracted: It looked like nothing else on television, showcasing independent animation at a time when that art was elsewhere reaching new lows. And it had Muppets, who came from the world of grown-up show business and added — although it’s odd to say — sophistication to the mix.

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