HOW THEY GOT TO...

Long before Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and Elmo were cultural icons with a generation of loyal followers, they had a mission.

In the late 1960s Joan Ganz Cooney, a producer at a New York City public television station, became convinced that the medium could be used for early childhood education.

Targeting her efforts especially towards 3 to 5-year-old children from low income families, Cooney drove the creation of Sesame Street. First airing in 1969, the program aimed at preparing underprivileged preschoolers for kindergarten.

Celebrating its upcoming 30th season, Sesame Street went on the road this year. "Sesame Street Unpaved," a college tour, brought members of the cast and crew to Harvard's Graduate School of Education (GSE) in a sort of homecoming this May.

Several decades ago, many scholars from the GSE as well as Harvard's psychology department, were integral in shaping the now famous program.

Jeanne Chall, a Harvard researcher involved in the planning of Sesame Street, says the reasons for the show's success are simple.

"This was a show, not by actors, writers, or performers. No, from the beginning and throughout it was the scholars."

Can You Tell Me How to Get...

For all its levity, Sesame Street grew from a very extensive research base.

Planning for the show began in 1967. At the time, Headstart programs were just beginning, and scholars were faced with a mounting bulk of evidence showing that children in poverty were doing poorly in school.

"The whole idea was to help lower income children," Chall says.

Alfred Hyslop, one of the first producers of the show, says "the basic idea was that since kids apparently learned a lot from animation, we [could] use commercial techniques [like animation] to teach."

Hyslop, along with Sesame Street's creators, praise the unique skills Cooney used to realize her brainchild.

"She had skill at getting the right people together. Also, she was able to raise money, and persuade people to put millions into children's programming. That's hard to do, even now," Hyslop says.

Recognizing that the show required a sound research base, Cooney, an entertainment executive, interviewed a number of developmental psychologists, seeking someone to serve as the intermediary between the researchers and those working in the entertainment industry.

People in Your Neighborhood

Cooney turned to Harvard's Gerald S. Lesser. Lesser was her first choice because the University was a leader in the field of developmental psychology at the time and Lesser was unique in that he had experience in children's television as well as developmental research.

Lesser was appointed chair of the Board of Advisors, and he coordinated the show's research from then on.

The resulting 18 month planning process included a series of five seminars, two of which were held at the GSE, the other three in New York.

Each seminar had a particular focus, honing in on social development, language, numerical reasoning, problem solving and perception.

Based at the University, Lesser says he naturally "turned to all my colleagues at Harvard" in his quest for researchers.

The seminars brought together entertainers and scholars. According to Lesser there were about 30 people in each seminar, about half of whom were involved in the television industry, and the other half in academia. Producers, authors of children's books--including Maurice Sendak--teachers and scriptwriters all participated.

"We're not kiddie entertainers," Hyslop says. "People with skills in adult areas brought grown-up skills to address how you do an intelligent and loving show for kids."

Chall credits Lesser with being able to bring together people with "definite ideas" and find ways to iron out their differences.

One of Cooney's important early production decisions was the move to hire away Captain Kangaroo's production team. This was a key decision, Lesser says, because "there were very few people with experience with hour-long daily shows except Captain Kangaroo people."

As an added bonus, the Captain Kangaroo crew knew Frank Oz.

"[Oz] and Jim [Henson] worked together and they invited Jim and Frank to the seminars for their creative input," Lesser says.

Henson and Oz proved "so helpful we knew we had to have them," he says.

The seminars in effect came to serve as informal auditions, as the team searched for "Creative people who really understand that this is an educational program," Lesser says.

"Jim immediately hooked onto educational thinking," he says. "While it was fairly easy to find either scholars or creative people, it was difficult to find both in one person."

According to Chall, it was finding these unique people and bringing them together that was Lesser's strength.

"By happenstance and good fortune they formed a good team. Each of them brought unique creativity and talent. All you need is that and luck," Hyslop says.

Introducing the Letter "J"

The seminar series was a painstaking process of melding research and creative energy.

"Nothing was laughed at, it was all taken seriously and investigated," Chall says.

Sheldon H. White '50, a developmental psychologist at Harvard then at the GSE who was involved in the seminars says the team relied on observational research.

"There was work going on with someone watching four year olds near TV sets to see what draws children to the set. For example: animals do, talking down to them doesn't," he says.

White explains that the researchers assumed that children, having short attention spans, would be playing near the television set, focusing alternately on their games and the show.

"We had to design a program to draw a child to the television set and pay attention," he says.

At the time, Chall had just finished reviewing literature on how children learn to read and had written a book concluding that phonics are "quite fundamental in learning to read."

Based on her findings, she pushed for including the alphabet in the show. Many had resisted the idea, criticized learning the alphabet as a useless rote exercise.

The major disagreement among the show's planners Chall says "was between those who wanted it to be primarily social, and they very much resisted any type of academic learning."

But, Chall insisted and the alphabet became central to Sesame Street.

"It was a fabulous show right from the start. It [the alphabet] was more fun than anything else. They had celebrities reciting the alphabet," she says. "Children learned."

And, according to Chall, the response teaching the alphabet garnered was one of the first indications of the show's viability.

Cooney received mail from parents who said their learning-disabled children were learning their ABC's--and the parents were proud.

The early curriculum also included the numbers 1 through 10, along with social skills and problem solving.

Multiculturalism was also a theme almost from the start. Chall says its inclusion was linked to the concern for lower income children.

"I always used to call it [cultural diversity] the "hidden curriculum," says Loretta Long, one of the original cast members who plays Susan on the show.

The inclusion of such socially relevant themes as race and gender issues in a sense make the fantasy-based show quite realistic.

"Even though we hang out with eight-foot yellow birds we are more reality based than other shows," Long says.

Sunny Days

After the initial planning phases were completed, there were weekly meetings to design the animation and live "bits" along the lines of a children's vaudeville show, White says.

But, the show needed a home base. "I said the home base should be a city street," he remembers.

The name "Sesame Street" was suggested in part because it "has a hocus-pocusy sound. Children like hocus pocus. But it has an adult meaning as well," he adds.

Dual appeal was theme throughout the planning process, according to White.

"The show appeals to adults as well as children and draws parents to watch with their kids," he says.

All the planning resulted in five one-hour segments.

But these did not test well, and Lesser says the group "went back to the drawing board."

After they made revisions to the setup, the team went on to make a full year of one-hour shows, with each show composed of six serious "bits" and one muppet insert.

Planning included, the first year of programs came with an $8 million price tag.

"It came out with no seams, almost perfect. That took doing," said Chall.

To date, each show is written to meet curriculum goals which are set yearly. The 29th season's main curriculum goal was space science, with theme weeks on laughter, literacy, music, health and safety.

After the show's first year, Robert G. Myhrum '48 became director and altered both the set and the production schedule.

The set was transformed from a single "street" into two shorter segments which frame the famed central courtyard.

Myhrum, well-known as an efficient director who maintained high standards, upped the production schedule from one to two shows per day, allowing for the current schedule of 130 hour-long shows per year.

Myhrum remained director for thirteen years before retiring.

Another Harvard alum, Christopher B. Cerf'63, joined the staff as a composer at the same time as Myhrum. In addition to composing he was also in charge of choosing "products."

Chall credits Cerf with Big Bird.

"I fought him on the size of it until I saw it. The whole charm was the big size of the bird," she says.

Cerf continued to have an immense impact on the tone of the show with his songs. "They [the researchers] tell us what to teach and let us go crazy," he says.

Cerf is still with the show, continuing to "be very silly," while effectively and entertainingly meeting all curriculum goals.

Sesame Street Now

But other than Cerf's continued direct involvement with the show, as the years have progressed, the Harvard contingent has become less central to the show.

Chall continues to work on children's television, but is now working with Lesser developing a new show for WGBH called "Reading Between the Lions." The goal of this new show is to teach reading to children in first through third grades.

Lesser is also involved in consulting with foreign co-productions of Sesame Street. The first of the co-productions was launched in 1971, when Mexico began a Spanish program which is now shown in 16 Latin American countries.

Since then Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, Russia, China and Spain have all begun their own productions.

Sesame Street cast and crew, including Lesser, Executive Producer Michael Loman and Elmo muppeteer Kevin Clash travel to new sites to help production teams plan out their curriculums.

All of the topics for regional productions are derived from issues of local importance. The American team serves simply as consultants.

Most recently, Lesser has been involved in advising the new Israeli-Palestinian co-production which went on the air less than a month ago.

In the works are both a South African and Egyptian programs, Lesser says.

While Sesame Street is almost universally acclaimed, one persistent criticism has been that it caters to and encourages short attention spans in children.

Chall responds that this has been a criticism from the earliest days of the show, and that it is "a criticism that should be investigated."

She also notes that addressing this critique is complicated by the current distance between Harvard and Sesame Street. Independent researchers are now less involved in the show which makes it harder to objectively evaluate it, she says.

Taking the Street on the Road

"Sesame Street Unpaved" is our way of thanking those of you who have grown up with Sesame Street for being loyal fans," Pam Green, vice president of Children's Television Network, said during the Harvard presentation earlier this month.

Green congratulated the 65 million Sesame Street graduates, over 400 of whom were crammed into the GSE auditorium.

Long greeted the audience of Harvard students by declaring in a proud parental tone, "You guys turned out pretty well."

While there are many imitators of the Sesame Street paradigm, none have yet come close in originality or in the unique ability to appeal to both children and their parents which comes from the exhaustive, painstaking research of many scholars.

"It was quality from the start," Chall says, "People don't realize that scholars and artists had a lot to say. It paid off."