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Trivia / Sesame Street

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  • Acting for Two:
    • Caroll Spinney portrayed Big Bird and Oscar before his retirement in 2018. It also counts with Bruno the trashman, a character he created so he could perform Oscar while walking around.
    • Matt Vogel as Big Bird and the Count, after taking over for the former full-time as of 2018.
    • Leslie Carrara-Rudolph plays both Abby and Tango, and they have a few scenes together in the Furry Friends Forever shorts.
    • The "Kingston's House Party" song sequence features a meeting between Kingston Livingston III and Elmo, both of whom were performed by Kevin Clash. Kevin seems to have relished this, as Elmo really enjoys himself at the party and Kingston greets him like a homie (although in all likelihood, another puppeteer was performing Elmo to Clash's vocals).
      • Likewise, the same song, as well as the slightly later "Girls of the World," features both Zoe and Prairie Dawn, characters performed at the time by Fran Brill.
    • Hoots the Owl and Wolfgang the Seal, who were also performed by Kevin Clash, make cameos in Elmo's "In Your Imagination" song sequence (with Clash being able to perform all three due to the characters all being green-sceened in later).
    • For the '90s version of "Take a Rest", Frank Oz's characters Bert, Cookie Monster, and Grover all feature in the song, with all three singing together at the song's end.
    • "Do De Rubber Duck" features multiple characters then performed by Jim Henson (Ernie, Kermit the Frog, and Guy Smiley), Jerry Nelson (Count von Count and Biff the construction worker), and Kevin Clash (Elmo and Hoots the Owl). Each puppeteer performed one of their characters while looping their lines for the rest.note 
      • The Dutch dub has comedian and voice actor Wim T. Schippers voicing Ernie, Kermit, the Count, Biff, and Guy Smiley!
    • Unlike Oz's characters, Jim Henson's characters seldom appeared together even after his death, as both Kermit the Frog and Ernie were taken over by Steve Whitmire until The New '10s, and Kermit also seldom appeared on the show.
    • All characters of the stop-motion animated segment Teeny Little Super Guy are voiced by Jim Thurman.
  • Actor Allusion: This Star Wars parody is a two-fold example. It has Grover in the form of a Yoda expy called Groda. Frank Oz was the original performer for both characters. Eric Jacobson, his successor as Grover, played a parody of Yoda in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.
  • Actor-Inspired Element:
    • One notable example of an element that didn't happen because of an actor. Bob McGrath says it was ultimately his call to not have Bob and Linda get married. In his live concerts his family performed on-stage with him, and he was afraid that people would think that he and Linda were married in Real Life, which would lead to his having to constantly explain why she wasn't there and how it's just a TV show.
    • Crossed with Throw It In! for the origin of Gladys the Cow. She was originally just supposed to be a random cow who showed up at Mr. Hooper's store, but after seeing an issue of Variety on the store's magazine rack, Richard Hunt brainstormed the idea of Gladys as an aspiring actress and ad-libbed her dialogue based on that, which would become the character's signature trait.
  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • A lot of adult viewers criticize Elmo's increase in screentime with him having more than the other characters (especially since he's one of the few that speaks broken English...on an educational show), some even joking that the show had become "The Elmo Show". Later episodes would have him still get a lot of screen time but the other characters got plenty too, especially Cookie Monster.
    • Some parents complained about Don Music's Character Tic of banging his head on the piano because their toddlers were copying it, so they removed the character. This, however, caused some backlash with viewers wondering why they didn't just make him stop doing that instead.
  • Baby Name Trend Killer: The popularity of "Elmo" was well past its peak even before Sesame Street, but that series made it unusable thanks to its strong association with the character of the same name.
  • Banned Episode:
    • Episode 847, where Margaret Hamilton reprised◊ her role as The Wicked Witch of the West is out of circulation. After a few airings in 1976, numerous parents sent hate mail saying it was too frightening for their children, and at least one Wiccan mother complained that the episode represented negative stereotypes of witches. Joe Hennes at ToughPigs.com managed to get a copy of the episode and wrote a review in January 2020.
    • The episode "Snuffy's Parents Get a Divorce" never aired as the test audiences didn't seem to get the concept well. No photographs are known to exist note . Despite this, years later Sesame Street approached divorce again with Abby.
    • Regarding widespread criticism, Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" segment with Elmo has never been aired on television, due to parents on YouTube complaining that Perry's dress was too risqué for a preschool- to kindergarten-aged educational TV show. While the dress did show some cleavage (behind a mesh panel) and seemed to accentuate her chest in a way that makes it look as if the dress doesn't fit her, most viewers who saw the original sketch on YouTube declared that the ban is yet another sign of parents overreacting to sexuality and near-nudity on TV, yet turning a blind eye to violence, gore, and Nightmare Fuel.
    • Episode 4029 was banned because of complaints of child viewers misinterpreting the anti-bullying message of the episode and being more entertained by the fight between Telly and Izzy. When the "You Can Ask!" resource video was released with the street story from this episode, these parts were edited out.
    • According to a person who knew Caroll Spinney's children and commented on a blameitonjorge video on the topic, the segment called "Cracks" was banned from airing after 1980 because Sesame Workshop believed that people might misinterpret the names of the characters in the segment as drug references.
    • According to Alan Muraoka, Episode 3833 (aka the "Mysterious X" episode) only aired once on PBS because it was too scary for the target audience. It did, however, show up on Noggin and Sprout.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
    • Cookie Monster has never used the catchphrase "Cookies are a sometimes food!" It was Hoots the Owl who sang "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food" to Cookie Monster. After the song, Cookie Monster replied, "Me get it, cookie is sometimes food. You know what? Right now is sometime!" and devoured the cookie.
      • He did say "Cookies is sometimes food" during an appearance on The Colbert Report, however.
    • Regarding Big Bird's encounter with Sally on Gordon's shoulders in the first episode, Big Bird is always quoted as saying, "Gosh! You're the tallest little girl I've ever seen!" (even Big Bird performer Caroll Spinney says this). However, in the actual episode, Big Bird's reaction is, "Dah! Oh my heavens! She's 8 feet tall!"
    • While the Sesame Street Old School DVDs state that they are intended for the older collector, the earlier seasons are still nonetheless family productions. As such, they never, ever said that they were for "adults only".note 
  • Breakaway Pop Hit:
    • "Rubber Duckie", as performed by Jim Henson as Ernie, became a Top 20 pop hit in America in 1970. A few years later, "C is for Cookie," featuring Frank Oz as Cookie Monster, was also released and got some scattered airplay though not charting nationally.
    • A couple of years after its debut on the show, a Cover Version of "Sing" became a major Carpenters hit.
    • "Bein' Green", while technically not a hit single, became a standard, with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Van Morrison, among many others, recording versions of it.
  • Breaking News Interruption: The original broadcast date for the second edition of The ABC's of COVID-19 was interrupted at the last minute for coverage of protests over the death of George Floyd. Then, the rescheduled slot for this special wound up turning into a Sesame Street town hall on the subject of racism. The second edition would see an airing on June 13, 2020.
  • Breakthrough Hit: While TV audiences in The '60s weren't unfamiliar with Jim Henson or The Muppets thanks to their many appearances in commercials and on variety shows throughout the decade, the runaway success of Sesame Street was the show that made Henson and his creations into Household Names. Albeit at the cost of typecasting Henson as a children's entertainer.
  • Bury Your Art:
    • Episode 847, which featured Margaret Hamilton reprising her role as the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, was pulled from circulation by Sesame Workshop after a few airings, following complaints from parents that Hamilton's performance had frightened their children. The only time the episode officially resurfaced was as part of a 2019 screening of content from Sesame Street that had been removed from circulation for one reason or another; according to lost media YouTuber Blameitonjorge, who attended the screening, Sesame Workshop is still too embarrassed by the outcry the episode spawned to re-release it. Episode 847 became a holy grail for lost media enthusiasts in the late 2010s before eventually surfacing online in 2022.
    • In 1992, the show's production staff put together "Snuffy's Parents Get a Divorce" in response to a report by the US Census Bureau which claimed that 40% of American children saw their parents split during their upbringing. However, the episode was ultimately withheld — the only installment of Sesame Street to be pulled before it could air — after test screenings indicated that children were confused by its contents, in some cases worrying that their own parents were at risk of divorcing. The episode remains in the vaults to this day, barring a few clips that surfaced at a private screening of cut Sesame Street content in 2019, and the show wouldn't attempt to tackle divorce again until 2012 as part of an information kit for children with absent parents.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Emilio Delgado translated the lyrics for "Sing" into Spanish himself. He also got the chance to show off his guitar-playing a few times, as seen here.
    • Alaina Reed's career began in Broadway musicals. She often took the opportunity to show off her singing chops.
    • Bob McGrath shows off on his piano-playing many times. He also takes every opportunity to show off his lovely singing voice (he began his showbiz career as a wannabe pop idol, although he was a huge celebrity in Japan).
    • Caroll Spinney (Big Bird), an artist on the side, drew the picture of Mr. Hooper for the episode where they discuss Mr. Hooper's death.
      • As Big Bird, Spinney also did some crazy stunts such as roller skating and riding a unicycle.
    • Jerry Nelson was often considered to be the best singer and the real Man of a Thousand Voices of the Muppet performers, and he took the opportunity to show off both skills on the show. In the 1990s, he often sang voiceover songs for non-Muppet segments.
  • Channel Hop:
    • From National Educational Television to PBS, as PBS was taking over NET's functions as a national network (though NET continued to exist as a producer of programs for a time afterward). Not a literal example, as the educational stations airing Sesame Street were the same in virtually every market.
    • In Canada, CBC retained first-run rights to the show throughout its broadcast run, but reruns aired in Ontario on the provincial public broadcaster, TVO. Currently, the show can be seen on the cable channel Treehouse TV. Most Canadians could also still watch first-run episodes on PBS, since most of the country's citizens live close enough to the U.S. border to receive PBS over the air and/or via cable/satellite.
    • Played straight in the United Kingdom, however (when the show moved from ITV to Channel Four, and then to Cartoonito. Due to being their own shows, UK-based coproductions Sesame Tree and The Furchester Hotel do not count as part of this hop, as they both aired on CBeebies).
    • Also played straight in Japan, where the show jumped from NHK Educational Television to TV Tokyo in 2004, also transitioning from reruns of U.S. episodes with bilingual audio to a fully Japanese-language coproduction in the process. After the TV Tokyo version ended in 2007, Sesame was not seen in Japan again until 2020.
    • Starting in 2015, due to PBS having trouble paying the show's licensing fee, the show aired first on HBO (HBO Max as of 2020), whose deep pockets even allow increasing the episode count to 35 per season, before airing on PBS nine months later.
    • The movie rights have jumped back and forth as well. Follow That Bird was released in theaters by Warner Bros., while The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was distributed by Columbia Pictures, on behalf of the Henson Company's short-lived film unit Jim Henson Pictures. The upcoming third film will go back to WB, but they will co-produce it with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
    • While Sesame Street remained exclusively on PBS until 2015 when it came to first run broadcasts, syndication in the United States is a different story. Reruns from the show's early years, alongside more recent seasons began airing on Noggin in 1999. The rights lapsed in August 2005, and would be quickly picked up by Sprout. They handled cable reruns until 2015, when Sprout began phasing out its PBS programming. Episodes would then air on HBO Family as part of Sesame Workshop's partnership with HBO. Sesame Street would be removed from said channel's schedule following the launch of HBO Max.
  • The Character Died with Him: When actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, passed away in 1982, the producers were faced with the usual options for dealing with loss on a kids' show: cast a new actor, or have the character simply leave the show (either with an explanation, such as he retired, or without). Instead, Sesame Street ran an episode where Big Bird understands that Mr. Hooper had died, it was OK to miss him, and that even though life would never be quite the same when someone beloved dies, it will get better. In tribute to him, the portrait Big Bird was going to give him still hangs in his nest to this day, more than 30 years later.
    • One documentary said that the "Mr. Hooper's not coming back" scene was the only scene in Sesame Street history done in a single take because the cast was too emotionally wrecked to do more takes. That the single take captured genuine emotion and showed that grown-ups, too, can feel sad and cry when people they love die, played a huge role in keeping the scene at one take... and also played a major role in the scene's critical acclaim.
    • This episode is also notable for not using a Really Dead Montage. The producers thought that it would be too confusing to talk about Mr. Hooper being gone forever while still showing him on screen. (However, several years after Hooper's passing, a "Really Dead Montage" would be played, usually when a newcomer asks about the store or Hooper himself; the crew seem to have thought that enough time had passed that the older audience who stayed generally understood that Hooper was no longer with his neighbors and friends, and that the new youngsters would at least understand this was a memory and get introduced to the trope.)
  • Character Outlives Actor: After Northern Calloway was revealed to have had a series of health and behavioral issues over the years, he left the show. (Stories vary as to whether he left voluntarily, was forced to resign or was fired.) In the opening Street scene of the Season 21 (1989-1990) season opener, Gordon reads to Elmo a postcard from David, which explained his first few weeks living with his grandmother on her farm, and that he hoped Mr. Handford was taking good care of the store he had just sold to him. Calloway died of a nervous breakdown-induced cardiac arrest on January 9, 1990, less than a year after leaving Street.
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Given that this is a Long Runner aimed directly at very young children, this kind of thing happens a lot.
    • Two words: Veggie Monster. To paraphrase from the link, Sesame Street did a segment in 2005 where Hoots sings a song titled "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food" to Cookie Monster, about eating a balanced diet; at the end Cookie declares that "Now is sometime!" and eats his cookies anyway. The media simplified this and ran with it to the point where to this day, you'll find people complaining that Cookie Monster has been turned into (or even been replaced by) a "Veggie Monster".
    • Before the debut of Kami, the HIV-positive Muppet, news media were in uproar, under the mistaken impression that this character would feature on the American version of the show. However, the character was only ever intended to be used in the South African version, where childhood HIV and AIDS are huge problems. Likewise, despite some of the more extreme claims, Kami's HIV status does not mean she is gay; by definition, the Muppets do not have a defined sexuality. To make this clearer, Word of God is that Kami contracted HIV from a blood transfusion as an infant.
    • This is mostly caused by the fact that Innocence Lost is an irresistible hook for news stories. If Sesame Street is dealing with some sort of thorny issue, then it allegedly demonstrates how much we've changed/failed as a society. This conveniently forgets that the show often tries to avoid Sweetness Aversion and aims to reflect the real world in an honest way.
    • This article from 2011 mentions that Cookie Monster is one of Eric Jacobson's characters that he inherited from the veteran Muppet performers, when he actually took over Grover, Bert, and Guy Smiley, while David Rudman took over as Cookie Monster. Back in the mid-00s, this was corroborated by the Muppet Wiki saying Jacobson performed Cookie Monster in the interim between Oz ending his regular performances of the character and Rudman starting, but this was later debunked. The appearances attributed to Jacobson were just from when Rudman was still finding his voice as Cookie.
    • Caroll Spinney often claimed to have performed Elmo while he was still a nameless background character (colloquially referred to as "Baby Monster") in the early '70s. In all likelihood, Spinney was confusing him with a different minor character also called Baby Monster that he performed in several sketches. Elmo wasn't designed by Caroly Wilcox until 1979, by which point Spinney had long since given up performing minor characters consistently.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Caroll Spinney wasn't fond of the original, more dim-witted Big Bird puppet used in the first season, remarking in an A&E documentary covering the show's history that it was the ugliest thing he had ever saw.
    • A minor one but, as seen here, neither designer Ed Christie nor puppeteer Carmen Osbahr were exactly pleased that Rosita lost her wings. Carmen claims it was due to merchandising decisions, despite Rosita not having much merchandise at the time.
    • Sesame Workshop considered the show's Around the Corner era (1993-1998) as one of its lowest points. Retrospectives tend to skip over this era of the show or only show the barest minimum. Though it was eventually Vindicated by History as 90's Sesame is still well-remembered by those who grew up watching it and many home video releases produced during that era still remain in-print.
    • Longtime writer and puppeteer Joey Mazzarino (most famous for performing Murray Monster) left the show after its 46th season, unsatisfied with the changes that the show was going through.
    • Frank Oz has been very vocal about his disapproval of the direction the show took in the years since he retired from performing with the Muppets, In particular at SXSW 2019, when he was asked about what he thought of the show now:
    Oz: Unfortunately, Sesame Street is only a shadow of what it was. They're just aiming it to little kids. And I'm unhappy about that.
  • Creator-Chosen Casting: As soon as the writers came up with Placido Flamingo, they immediately decided Richard Hunt should play him, since the character shared a love of performing and a larger-than-life personality with Hunt. Notably, Placido was quietly retired after Hunt's death, since no one else could've played him properly.
  • Creator's Favorite Episode:
    • According to this article, one of Caroll Spinney's favorite episodes was "The Good Birds Club", where Big Bird gets bullied while trying to get into the titular club.
    • Probably echoing his castmates' feelings, Bob McGrath cited Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and the "Goodbye Mr. Hooper" episode as his two favorite Sesame Street projects.
  • Creator's Pest:
    • According to Jon Stone in the 1991 book The Story of Jim Henson, Jim disliked performing Guy Smiley, due to the character's voice being hard on his throat.
    • Richard Hunt disliked Elmo heavily when briefly preforming the character, so much so that he ended up throwing the puppet to Kevin Clash during one session, asking him to do something with the puppet, which he very much did, leading to a chain of events that culminated in Elmo becoming the show's Breakout Character.
  • Crossdressing Voices:
    • In the 1970s and 1980s, there were numerous female Muppets performed by males. It's rarely done today due to there being more female Muppet performers than there were back then. One notable example back then is Gladys the Cow, performed by Richard Hunt. Additionally, Hunt, Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz performed many minor/one-off female Muppets, with many of Oz's female characters sounding almost exactly like Miss Piggy.
    • Little Bird was often referred to as a male, though he was typically performed by Fran Brill. Unusually in an early 1990s episode, Little Bird (still performed by Brill) was referred to as a female. Brill also performed a male rabbit named Howie in an early 1970s sketch.
    • Stephanie D'Abruzzo performed the left head of the Two-Headed Monster for the cold open of a Season 47 episode, likely because Eric Jacobson (who's been the left head's performer since 2016) was already performing Bert in the same scene, thus making this example double as The Other Darrin.
  • The Danza:
    • Bob McGrath as Bob Johnson, though the character actually was already named Bobby in the original scripts before McGrath got the role.
    • Linda Bove As Herself.
    • Alan Muraoka as Alan.
    • Christopher Knowings as Chris Robinson.
    • Ruth Buzzi as Ruthie.
    • Savion Glover as Savion.
    • The character of Gordon's last name was eventually penned as Robinson, in honor of original writer/producer and Gordon portrayer Matt Robinson.
    • Miles Robinson was originally played by Miles Orman.
    • The Muppet rock singers were generally named after the performers who did their voices, like Little Jerry (Nelson), Rockin' Richard (Hunt), Big Jeffy (Jeff Moss), Chrissy (Christopher Cerf) and Dr. Thad (Thad Mumford).
    • Even Tony himself has appeared as a guest star.
    • Diva D'Abruzzo was performed by Stephanie D'Abruzzo.
    • Joey and Davey Monkey are performed by Joey Mazzarino and David Rudman.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • Chris Robinson is introduced as being either a high school senior or college freshman, making him 17-18 in his first season. His actor, Chris Knowings, was actually 27 at the time his debut episode aired.
    • Maria celebrated her 21st birthday in 1979. Sonia Manzano, on the other hand, was 29 at the time the episode aired.
    • This also happens to some of the puppets on the show, who are supposed to be children, but are played by adults. Most notably, Caroll Spinney played the 6-year-old Big Bird for 50 years, and was 84 when he retired, making him one of the oldest examples of the trope.
  • Defictionalization:
    • Sesame Place, a theme park located outside Philadelphia, opened in 1980. It includes a perfect life-size replica of the set of the show, and the characters come out to greet guests constantly. Yes, you can take photos. They're actually mainly water parks, and precisely geared to appeal to the core Sesame Street demographic, so you most likely should come during the summer, bring your swimwear, and go elsewhere if you're not trying to entertain someone under the age of 10. Another Sesame Place opened outside Dallas in 1982, but closed two years later (but was around long enough for The Oak Ridge Boys to film the video for "Thank God for Kids"—a song that includes a Shout-Out to Big Bird—there), and a location near San Diego opened in 2022. They're owned and operated by SeaWorld, who licenses the characters and setting from Sesame Workshop.note 
    • For the show's 40th anniversary, a street corner in Manhattan was temporarily renamed 123 Sesame Street.
    • Pinball Number Count was made into an actual game as part of the show's 50th anniversary.
    • In 2019 "West 63rd Street and Broadway" in New York was permanently renamed to "Sesame Street". Particularly fitting given it is the location of Sesame Workshop's headquarters.
  • Died During Production:
    • Jim Henson, of course, though his material retained a presence on the show in reruns for years afterward. Though Steve Whitmire began performing Kermit just a few months after Henson's passing, it would be several more years before he also stepped into the role of Ernie.
    • Richard Hunt's 1992 passing resulted in many of his characters being retired (such as most, if not all, of his Sesame characters) or being reduced to bit parts for many years.
    • Joe Raposo, the show's songwriter, died on February 5, 1989 of lymphoma. New songs that he had written for this show continued to debut until 1990, with one nabbing him a posthumous Emmy.
    • Perhaps the most famous example of this trope was Will Lee, who had a heart attack during a hospital visit while the show was still running. The cast decided to make an episode in response to his death, which became one of Sesame Street's signature moments.
    • Jeff Moss died of cancer in 1998; he wrote his last song, "You and You and Me", the day of his death. The song was filmed in January 1999.
    • Jerry Nelson continued to voice his characters (including the Count and Mr. Johnson) and make occasional on-screen appearances until his death in 2012, though he gave up puppeteering due to failing health several years earlier. New material he had recorded prior to his passing was still premiering as late as 2014.
  • Directed by Cast Member:
    • By circa 2005, Kevin Clash got more involved behind the scenes, both directing and executive producing (the latter mostly applied to the "Elmo's World" segments, and other Elmo-related projects).
    • Other Muppet performers - Joey Mazzarino, Matt Vogel and David Rudman - have directed Sesame projects as well.
    • Alan Muraoka directed the episode that introduces a two-dad family, since he is gay in real life.
  • Dueling Shows:
    • The format for Journey to Ernie is almost similar to that of Blue's Clues.
    • Early on with Captain Kangaroo, particularly because a bunch of ex-Kangaroo staffers were working on Sesame Street.
    • Also Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, though the shows were more like Red Oni, Blue Oni companion pieces (Sesame Street was Red, Neighborhood was Blue), and the shows had a Friendly Rivalry, with Crossover episodes on both shows.
    • R.L. Stine's Eureeka's Castle on Nickelodeon, whose cast was made up almost entirely of Sesame veterans.
    • The street being brightened and cleaned up for Season 25, in addition to the new Around the Corner setting, and the addition of a ton of new human and Muppet characters (Zoe in particular) was all because of the competition Sesame Workshop faced from Barney & Friends.
    • Chez Hélène, a pioneering bilingual English/French children's show on CBC, ended up a victim of the popularity of Sesame in the early 1970s. Although Hélène had been on the air since the late 1950s and was still very popular, CBC opted to cancel it in 1973 to make room for additional French-language content on its version of Sesame Street.
  • Edited for Syndication:
    • The episodes shown on Noggin's "Sesame Street Unpaved" and "123 Sesame Street" shows removed about five minutes of segments to account for Noggin's own advertising.
    • Many episodes were edited after their original airings to replace Spanish-centric segments with alternate bits. These edits were shown on PBS Kids Sprout and HBO Max.
    • Much of the Spanish content was also replaced by French-centric segments in the CBC-broadcast Canadian version (pre-Sesame Park).
    • Due to issues regarding his estate, a majority of Joe Raposo-penned music, aside from the show's theme, was cut from various episodes when HBO first acquired the streaming rights to many episodes.
    • The HBO and HBO Max versions of many episodes cut material for various reasons, from music rights to content being deemed inappropriate for today's children.
  • Exiled from Continuity: Kermit the Frog doesn't appear too often on the show now that he's owned by Disney, but classic clips featuring him occasionally show up (particularly on the Old School DVDs, which have a copyright notice that mentions him in between the credits and the PBS logo). He also appears in "Elmo's World: Frogs" as a treat for Sesame Street's 40th anniversary and shows up in a television special celebrating its fiftieth.
  • Fandom Nod: In case you need proof that Cookie Monster isn't "The Veggie Monster".
    Cookie Monster: You members of media blow story way out of proportion.
  • Fake Russian: Count von Count. He even uses Chekov's W-for-V substitution.
  • Follow the Leader: To the point where viewership decreased and the average age of viewers got younger. Sesame Street is so influential that even its followers have followers.
  • In Memoriam: It was first used at the end of episode 1983 when Will Lee (Mr. Hooper died). This also happened with Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, and other cast and crew members that have died.
  • Irony as She Is Cast: According to Muppet Wiki, Allison Bartlett O'Reilly is allergic to dogs. However, Gina doesn't treat any real ones.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes:
    • Good luck finding full episodes of older seasons. Once a new season begins, the previous one is almost never reran, and episodes are almost never given proper DVD releases. There are Sesame Street DVDs, but most of the ones that aren't Direct to Video specials are just compilations of skits.
    • Elmo's appearances from the era before Kevin Clash became his performer were extraordinarily hard to see for many years, likely so Sesame Workshop could avoid confusing kids with the Early-Installment Weirdness. Eventually, more pre-Clash Elmo segments have found their way to YouTube and elsewhere.
    • Poor, poor episode 847 (the one with the Wicked Witch of the West as a guest character, played by Margaret Hamilton, no less)... that episode is a legendary lost Sesame Street episode. Since that episode got huge amounts of negative reception when it first aired, it was decided that the episode should neither be aired again, nor be released on VHS or DVD. If you have a recording of that episode, by all means, do not get rid of it! Limited copies circulated among fans (the Muppet fan site Tough Pigs was able to review it in 2020) for a while, before Redditor sarsaparilla170170 gave it wide circulation on June 18, 2022. It was presumably downloaded from the Library of Congress.
    • In February 2019, it was announced nearly every episode of the show would be digitally restored and preserved in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The episodes are available for viewing on-site at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and by appointment at WGBH in Boston. Unfortunately, much like the Doctor Who situation, there are at least 53 episodes that are currently missing from Sesame Workshop's archive. However, as described on the linked page, they could be found from other sources in the future.
    • In 2019, it was announced that the streaming service HBO Max will make a broad collection of episodes...selected from the past fifty years--many available to the public for the first time ever. Upon launch, over 550 episodes of the main series were made available, 55 of which were newly available. However, 200 classic episodes were removed on August 19, 2022, putting them in limbo once again.
    • An interesting example was the song "Handful of Crumbs", a country themed song sung by Cookie Monster. Footage of the song was hard to come by, though one could mesh footage of the Spanish version of it with the actual song from a CD which had several songs Cookie Monster sang on it to create a rough version. Eventually, the segment was found and made available online.
    • Several Sesame songs that were once easy to find on YouTube have now been taken down by Sesame Workshop, save for one or two international dubs of the songs. The big victims are early-'90s songs "Don't Throw That Trash on the Ground" and "Sixteen Samba."
  • Kids' Meal Toy:
    • During the mid-2000s, McDonald's featured miniature versions of the Chicken Dance Elmo and Potato Sack Racer toys by Fisher-Price in their "Under 3" toy line. This may have been due to McDonald's being a funding partner at the time.
    • Australia got three sets of toys in 1997, 1999, and 2003.
    • In 1999, Singapore offered a set of 24 mini bean bag toys to promote the show's 30th anniversary. Some of the toys were later offered in Australia during 2002. In the US, these toys were released in specially marked boxes of Kellogg's cereals.
    • In the 1998 holiday season, Arby's sold finger puppets of Elmo, Ernie, and Cookie Monster on top of plastic cups, which promoted the video release of Elmo Saves Christmas and the Elmopalooza soundtrack album.
    • In 1999, Arby's sold a set of five toys to promote the home video release of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.
    • In 2000, Dairy Queen sold a set of four toys based on CinderElmo. There was a matching game, a puzzle book, a CinderElmo finger puppet, and a spinning theater.
    • In 2006, German fast food seafood chain Nordsee produced a set of plush dolls in soccer outfits as a premium. The set included Ernie, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover and Count von Count.
  • Late Export for You: NHK Educational Television initially canceled Sesame Street in March 1982 after season 12 had finished, and re-added the series in April of 1988 (starting with season 18). In the interim, seasons 13 through 16 were belatedly broadcast in 1987 on NHK's BS2 satellite channel, and season 17 was skipped altogether.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The "Old School" line of DVDs, plus the "Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days" DVD.
  • Live on Stage!: Sesame Street Live. Created in 1980 by ex-Ice Follies staffer Vincent Egan's VEE Corporation note , it is the longest-running of these shows, and even has been performed overseas to different-language-audio tracks to promote the many Sesame Street co-productions. Production shifted to Feld Entertainment in 2017, before switching to Round Room Live in 2023.
  • Long-Runner Cast Turnover: During the 1990s, a number of major actors passed away or began to appear less. Season 37 saw the start of another ongoing turnover that was completed at the end of the 45th season with the departure of several longtime cast members such as Bob McGrath, Roscoe Orman, and Emilio Delgado.
  • Meme Acknowledgment: A Tumblr post recounted how they learned from an international groupchat that there are Culturally Translated versions of Sesame Street in other countries because an American user posted a gif of Big Bird, prompting confusion with the other non-American users as to why he looked different. A look at the Muppet Wiki revealed other international Big Birds and that they were cousins of the American Big Bird, and this prompted the Big Bird Twitter to tweet about some of his cousins around the world.
    • When Twitter and TikTok started obsessing over several Elmo appearances (most especially a song about recycling and his feud with Zoe’s pet rock, Rocco), the show’s social media referenced both, including Elmo’s Twitter account commenting on Rocco.
  • Milestone Celebration: Every five years, (save for the 5th, 15th, and 45th anniversaries), Sesame Street has a lot of events celebrating that particular anniversary. The 10th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, and 50th anniversaries all warranted TV specials (the 25th got two), and for its fiftieth, the show became the first television program to receive a Kennedy Center Honor. For further information on Sesame Street milestones, see here.
  • Missing Episode: 53 episodes, mainly from the first three seasons, are considered lost. Also missing is The Grover Monster—Jean Marsh Cartoon Special, a PBS prime time special from 1975, where the titular hosts introduced animated segments from Sesame Street and The Electric Company (1971).
  • Never Work with Children or Animals: Bob McGrath recalled an instance on the show where he was introducing Kermit the Frog to an actual bullfrog. During the scene, the frog ended up peeing on Jim Henson's head, but the crew didn't seem to notice so no one called cut, and they had to keep going as Jim dealt with frog urine on the top of his head. When the scene finally ended, he and Bob both burst out laughing.
  • No Budget: Since 1993, Sesame Street has been under compounding budgetary strain, and it shows, especially with the use of stock footage increasing dramatically, plus the cast shrinking considerably, from the 2000s on.
  • No Dub for You: Although Sesame Street started airing in Japan on NHK Educational Television in 1971, it aired solely in English, without subtitling (with a few exceptions). Sound multiplexing allowed for a Japanese-language commentary track beginning in 1990 (intended for the visually impaired, but it also allowed viewers with limited English skills to follow along), but it was not until 1998 that the show got a dedicated Japanese dub for the first time. In the meantime, NHK published Japanese translations of the dialogue and songs that viewers could purchase. Even the closing credits listed the human and Muppet performers' names in English first, followed by translation into katakana, in addition to information on how viewers could purchase the Japanese translation.
  • No Export for You:
    • British viewers saw the show only intermittently and courtesy of ITV and later Channel Four and Nick Jr., because The BBC had declared Sesame Street was "too authoritarian" to show on British TV. What's more, on the latter channel it aired on, it got harsh treatment and was constantly moved around to death slots so that Nick Jr. could give more time slots to its two highest-rated shows at the time, which were Thomas & Friends and Magic Adventures of Mumfie. For twelve years, the series wasn't shown in Britain at all, although Elmo's World, Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures and Abby Cadabby's Flying Fairy School were shown as part of Channel 5's ''Milkshake!'' strand. From 2008 to 2013 a Northern Irish co-production, Sesame Tree, was shown on CBeebies, with new characters, but classic US sketches appearing on Potto's computer, and in 2014, CBeebies and Sesame Workshop launched the co-production The Furchester Hotel, which features Elmo and Cookie Monster along with an all-new troupe of Muppet monsters. By November 2016, the show came to Cartoonito as a result of TimeWarner partnering with Sesame Workshop to show the show on all Cartoonito channels worldwide. However, a couple of months after it premiered, history repeated itself when the UK Cartoonito pushed the show to late night and early morning timeslots so that they could give Fireman Sam more airtime, leading to said show dominating the schedule. It's currently unknown if either Cartoonito will return it or if another network will pick it up.
    • South Korea also went this as well, owing to the country's history of South Korea being under brutal military dictatorships. The ban on anime and manga, as well as Japanese cultural products in South Korea until between 1998 and 2004 also made it difficult for Sesame Street to get it on air (or have their own co-production) in South Korea. By The '90s, South Korea picked up the American version and broadcast in on their television, rather than creating a Korean co-production.
    • Season 17 was skipped in the NHK Japanese broadcast.
  • One-Take Wonder: After Will Lee died, the show did an episode explaining Mr. Hooper's death in-universe as well. The cast was so emotional, they were unable to do a second take without breaking down.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Three actors played Gordon (four if you count Garrett Saunders, the actor in the original test episodes): Matt Robinson for Seasons 1-3, Hal Miller for Seasons 4 and 5, and Roscoe Orman from Season 6 to today. Dr. Loretta Long (Susan) has mentioned that kids have asked her about the other Gordons, making her feel like she's been hiding their bodies under the stoop. Likewise, Gordon and Susan's son, Miles, was played by three different kids as well, first by Miles Orman, then Imani Patterson, and finally Olamide Faison.
    • Mr. Handford, who took over Hooper's Store after David and before Alan, was played by Leonard Jackson in his debut season, then by David Langston Smyrl for the remainder of his tenure on the show; Roscoe Orman even lampshaded this by comparing the switch to that of Darrin on Bewitched.
    • On the Muppet spectrum:
      • Jim Henson's characters were primarily taken over by Steve Whitmire (Ernie and Kermit; the former in 1993, the latter immediately after Henson's death but didn't appear in new Sesame material until 1996's Elmo Saves Christmas), with the exception of Guy Smiley, who was voiced in a few computer games by Don Reardon and eventually taken over by Eric Jacobson in the mid-Aughts. Whitmire continued to perform Ernie through 2014 (save for the second season of Play with Me Sesame, where he was performed by John Tartaglia) when he was let go due to budget restructuring and the show being unable to keep paying to fly him to New York (where the show was filmed), after which Ernie was passed on to Billy Barkhurst through 2017 and Peter Linz from 2017 onward. Matt Vogel, who took over Kermit in 2017 after Whitmire was fired from the Muppets, only performed him in his cameo for the 50th anniversary special, which also saw one of the few appearances by a Henson Sesame character beyond his major ones (Captain Vegetable, who was now played by Peter Linz).
      • Prior to Jerry Nelson's death, several of his characters had already been passed on to other puppeteers (though Nelson continued to do the characters' voices) due to his failing health. In the late '70s and early '80s, it was due to his being busy with The Muppet Show and then Fraggle Rock and therefore less available for shooting Sesame episodes, leading to the recasting of his two major episodic characters, Mr. Snuffleupagus (Michael Earl, then Martin P. Robinson) and Slimey (Brian Muehl, then Martin P. Robinson, with an electronically pitched-up Dick Maitland providing his voice). After his passing, they were primarily passed on to Matt Vogel (Count von Count, Mr. Johnson, Biff, Fred the Wonder Horse), with additional characters going to Peter Linz (Herry Monster) and John Kennedy (The Amazing Mumford).
      • The Two-Headed Monster has changed hands (or heads, if you will) several times. They were performed in their first appearance by Richard Hunt (left head) and Peter Friedman (right head), only to have Hunt switch heads and Jerry Nelson take over the left head. Following Hunt's death, David Rudman took over his half while Nelson continued performing his, only to be replaced by Joey Mazzarino starting with the "Journey to Ernie" segments. After Mazzarino's departure, Eric Jacobson took over his half.
      • Brian Muehl was one of the few non-death-related examples: he left Sesame in 1984, leaving his original characters to Kevin Clash (Dr. Nobel Price and Clementine) and Martin P. Robinson (Telly Monster). Characters he himself inherited (Barkley, from Toby Towson; and Slimey, from Jerry Nelson) were passed on to Fred Garber (later Bruce Connelly) and Robinson, respectively. Most notably, however, he gave Elmo to Richard Hunt, who never quite got a hold on him and passed him on to Clash, who developed the voice and personality Elmo is most widely associated with today.
      • Clash, in turn, would pass Clementine on to Camille Bonora in the late '80s, and following his departure from Sesame Workshop in 2012, Elmo would be recast with Ryan Dillon (after a one-off voice performance by Peter Linz). Much later on, Hoots the Owl was recast with Christopher Hayes.
      • Another non-death-related example: Fran Brill retired in 2014, passing Zoe on to Jennifer Barnhart and Prairie Dawn (and most of her smaller roles) to Stephanie D'Abruzzo.
      • Frank Oz stopped performing regularly on the show in the late '90s/early 2000s and completely left after 2012. His major characters were taken over by Eric Jacobson (Bert and Grover) and David Rudman (Cookie Monster), while Jacobson also typically played Oz's minor characters if they ever made cameo appearances (save for Lefty the Salesman, whose return in the 50th anniversary special was brought to life by Ryan Dillon).
      • Richard Hunt himself was this for Forgetful Jones (originally Michael Earl). After Hunt's 1992 passing, the only characters recast immediately were Sonny Friendly and Sully (both taken over by David Rudman; the latter was already The Voiceless), with Rudman also taking over his head of the Two-Headed Monster later on. Since Hunt mostly played minor recurring characters, it would take many years for them to find consistent performers, which wound up being Matt Vogel (Forgetful Jones), Jennifer Barnhart (Gladys the Cow), and Ryan Dillon (Don Music).
      • Matt Vogel had been hired as Caroll Spinney's understudy for Big Bird as early as 1997; he made recurring appearances as Big Bird in sketches and episodes (most notably in all the "Journey to Ernie" segments), sometimes doing both the voice and puppetry and sometimes lip-syncing to Spinney's voice. In 2015, Eric Jacobson started understudying for him as Oscar the Grouch; both puppeteers would fully voice the characters starting in Season 48 and took over the characters full time after Spinney's retirement in 2018 and death a year later.
    • Smart Tina from the Roosevelt Franklin's Elementary School sketches was voiced by Loretta Long for the Merry Christmas from Sesame Street album instead of her usual voice actress Sonia Manzano.
    • The character Gabrielle was introduced in the season 48 episode "Hair Training", voiced by an unknown child actress. Starting in 2020, she's now voiced by Megan Phiphus.
    • Papa Bear was performed by Joey Mazzarino from his debut in the early 1990s, but when his performer left, he became silent. He eventually started speaking again in season 51, with Martin P Robinson taking over the role.
    • Rosita's abuela was first voiced by Emilio Delgado during the mid 2000s. In season 44, she was voiced by Sonia Manzano. In season 48, she's voiced by Carmen Osbahr.
    • Pretty spectacularly, one two-part Letter of the Day segment features both an Other Darrin and his replacement: in the first part, Frank Oz performs Cookie Monster, then the second part sees his replacement David Rudman step in as Cookie while Oz performs Grover.
    • A couple of officially licensed book-and-CD sets by a company named Studio Mouse used different voice actors for the characters. Most infamously, Elmo inexplicably has a Puerto Rican accent.
  • The Other Marty:
    • Caroll Spinney recorded his final dialogue for the series as Big Bird and Oscar in the episode "The Disappoint A Meter". For the actual episode, the dialogue is from his successors Matt Vogel and Eric Jacobson.
    • The lead vocals for the song Spanish Me, English Me were done by Matt Vogel during episode 4503. When the song was used again for episode 5025, the lyrics were dubbed over by Frankie Cordero.
  • The Pete Best:
    • Jennie, played by Jada Rowland, was the other adult human Sesame Street resident introduced on the debut episode, along with Gordon, Susan, Bob and Mr. Hooper. She was the street's resident artist, and her segments generally featured her drawing a picture for kids, who had to guess what it was. Rowland also played a lead role on the Soap Opera The Secret Storm at the time, so she could only appear on Sesame Street sporadically, and decided to leave after season 1 because it was getting tougher to squeeze Sesame Street into her schedule. Rowland later became a full-time artist and illustrator.
    • The first three seasons included sketches where a Slapstick human duo would humorously attempt to do basic tasks, ultimately succeeding through cooperation. In season 1 it was Buddy and Jim (Brandon Maggart and James Catusi). In season 2 they were replaced by Larry and Phyllis (played by Alan Arkin and his then-wife Barbara Dana), but they left and season 3 gave us Wally and Ralph (played by Joe Ponazecki, best known for originating the role of Fyedka in Fiddler on the Roof, and Paul B. Price), before the whole segment was dropped.
    • Miguel, played by Puerto Rican actor Jaime Sánchez (best known for playing Angel, the Token Minority member of the outlaw gang in The Wild Bunch and for originating the role of Chino in West Side Story), debuted in season 2 and was the show's first Latino character. Sanchez left at the end of the season, and season 3 saw the debut of Maria and Luis.
    • Several Muppet characters disappeared from the show over the years, like Roosevelt Franklin, Harvey Kneeslapper and Herbert Birdsfoot, though many of their sketches would be re-used into The '90s.
  • Playing Against Type:
    • Many people (especially kids) wouldn't know this, but this is actually what Gordon and Gina were/are for Roscoe Orman and Alison Bartlett-O'Reilly, respectively. Aside from Gordon, Orman has played a variety of different villainous and unscrupulous characters (including the title role of Willie Dynamite) and – on the Law & Order franchise – no-nonsense judges. Bartlett-O'Reilly had been frequently typecast as a tough girl, a tomboy (which she attributed to her Brooklyn roots), a disturbed woman, or – as a regular on The Sopranos – a mobster's girlfriend. Similarly, Sonia Manzano (Maria) has also been typecast as mentally ill (namely on the Law & Order shows) or tough girls. Emilio Delgado (Luis) was generally been cast as a genial person in his off-Street roles, but played a focused, nose-to-the-grindstone editor on Lou Grant. Will Lee, in his younger days, typically played nebbishy or neurotic characters, in contrast to the curmudgeonly-but-big-hearted Mr. Hooper.
    • In an example featuring the Muppet performers, as Kermit the Frog, Jim Henson would often end up playing the straight man to Frank Oz's characters, be it Grover and Cookie Monster here or Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show. As Ernie and Bert, Oz's Bert would often play the straight man to Henson's Ernie instead. It's been said the Bert & Ernie dynamic was more like their real-life selves, with Jim as the sillier one.
  • Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
    • There are MANY urban legends and rumors about the show. The Muppet Wiki even has an entire category about them. Many are also on Snopes and some of the popular ones include an episode where Ernie dies, an episode where Bert and Ernie get married, and Cookie Monster being changed to the Veggie Monster, all of which are false. The rumor about a Muppet character appearing that is HIV-positive is actually true. She does, however, only appear on the South African version of the show, where AIDS is a large problem.
    • Another rumor concerned one of the shorts on the show, "Cracks". Allegedly, according to a rumor, the short was pulled after 11 airings because it scared children. According to someone who knew Caroll Spinney's children, the short actually was banned from airing because Sesame Workshop worried that the names of some of the animals the girl imagines in the cracks could unintentionally be mistaken for a drug reference.
  • Produced by Cast Member:
    • A variation of this. Outside from occasionally directing a Muppet insert, Jim Henson was never involved with the actual production (contrary to popular belief); in 1989, however, when the show celebrated its 20th anniversary, Henson wanted to express his gratitude and appreciation to CTW (now Sesame Workshop) for being a part of the show for all those years, by producing an anniversary special through his then-Henson Associates company.
    • During the 2000s, Kevin Clash, who was already was directing for the show more frequently, began to executive produce Elmo-related Sesame projects, such as the recurring Elmo's World segments on the show, as well as Elmo-driven DVDs and specials; this was mostly because of the impact that Clash had on turning Elmo into the character he's known as today.
  • Production Posse: Showrunner Jon Stone recommended that Children's Television Workshop hire Jim Henson and Joe Raposo because they had been frequent collaborators of his in TV projects of the mid-to-late 60's (most notably the special Hey Cinderella!).
  • Promoted Fanboy: Although the Muppets were nowhere near as big in 1969 as they are now, Caroll Spinney was an admirer of Jim Henson's work, and has often compared Henson asking him to join the company to being a drummer and having someone walk up to him and say, "Well, I'm with a band from Liverpool, would you like to be me drummerman?"
    • Kevin Clash, Steve Whitmire, David Rudman, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Ryan Dillon and a vast number of the Muppet performers after the first few seasons also fall into the same category as Spinney.
    • The same can be said for a number of the live actors who joined the cast within the last 20 years or so, including Alan Muraoka and Chris Knowings.
    • Stacey Gordon, the puppeteer of Julia, was a die-hard Sesame Street fan as a child and wished that she could be on the show as her favorite character, a Twiddlebug. After meeting someone who worked on the show at a puppetry event and auditioning in-person, she was cast as Julia. Her son, who has autism like Julia, is also a big Sesame Street fan and was happy to see a Muppet who was just like him.
  • Quietly Cancelled: The animated spin-off Mecha Builders suffered from this. After the first season concluded in November 2023, no news came about the series' future until Shout Factory released a DVD of the series which called it "The Complete Series" rather than "The Complete First Season", confirming the end of the show.
  • Real-Life Relative:
    • Miles and Gabi were originally played by Roscoe Orman's actual son Miles and Sonia Manzano's actual daughter Gabriela, respectively. Both were replaced by other actors as they grew up, however.
    • Loretta Long's mother played Susan's mom.
    • Chris' twin sister is Christy, both on- and off-stage.
    • Chris Thomas Hayes is the current performer for Hoots The Owl. His mother made a cameo as a doctor in "Heroes In Our Neighborhood".
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Caroll Spinney got injured in a bicycle accident in 1980, forcing him to miss a few episodes. Showrunner Jon Stone dealt with it by rewriting some scripts with the newly-debuted Telly taking Big Bird's place. The episodes got a good reaction and helped make Telly an Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Reality Subtext:
    • Mr. Hooper's death.
    • Kermit was Put on a Bus because Disney bought out the Muppet Show Muppets. He still appears now and then in the occasional cameo or legacy segment.
    • In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, PBS reaired the week-long story arc from Season 32 (2001) - with a new introduction with Gordon explaining to parents that children can be frightened by such devastation, whether directly affected by it, or from seeing the coverage on TV. Since then, with devastating hurricanes becoming more commonplace, as of 2012, Sesame Workshop cobbled together the street scenes from the hurricane saga (specifically, the aftermath of the hurricane) into an hour-long special entitled Sesame Street Gets Through a Storm (also known as Friends to the Rescue on DVD), which was subsequently aired on PBS in response to some major hurricanes, such as Sandy.
    • Elmo is especially delighted to see Mr. Noodle in "The Street We Live On"; the special is dedicated to the memory of Micheal Jeter, who had played Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle. note 
  • Recast as a Regular: In an interesting, the TV special "The Magical Wand Chase", Jennifer Barnhart note  and Violet Tinnierello played a mother and daughter in the background of a few shots. In season 50, Violet would play Charlie while Jennifer would play her mother.
  • Recursive Import:
    • Plaza Sésamo, the Mexican adaptation, airs in the U.S. — the first foreign adaptation to do so. (It's on Univision's sister channel UniMas.) This is justified due to the expansive Hispanic community in the U.S.; why go through the trouble of dubbing or adding subtitles when the Mexican version does just fine?
    • The Furchester Hotel, the CBeebies co-production that airs in the U.K., is available on Sesame Street's official YouTube channel (thanks in part to its Quarter Hour Short format) and also airs on Universal Kids.
    • The Furchester Hotel is itself dubbed in Latin American Spanish, and airs on American television as a large portion of Sesame Amigos.
    • There's also Shalom Sesame, a series which was a crossover with the show's Israeli export, Rechov Sumsum. Shalom Sesame was designed to teach American kids about Israel, and the Passover and Hanukkah specials aired a few times on PBS in 2014/2015.
  • Recycled Set: Common in Muppet segments, and not counting the infamous brick wall sets (which is more or less a multipurpose set.)
    • Two Simon Soundman segments from The '70s use the same store interior set, modified somewhat for a different purpose. In one segment (where Simon wants to buy a saw), it's a general store, with assorted cans and jars on the counter and shelves and with a blue backlight behind the shelves. In the other (where Simon wants to buy a trumpet), it's a music store, with musical instrument props displayed on the counter, wall and shelves, and with a magenta backlight behind the shelves to make it less obvious.
    • Another noticeable example is the schoolhouse exterior from the 1983 News Flash segment about "Mary Had a Little Lamb" being reused for a 1989 News Flash segment about the Big Bad Wolf running a school for huffing and puffing; the "SCHOOL" sign on the schoolhouse facade is replaced with an illustration of the Big Bad Wolf to show its' different purpose.
  • Referenced by...: Has its own page.
  • Renewed Before Premiere: Upon moving to HBO Max, it was instantly renewed for Seasons 51-55.
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Kevin Clash was the Muppeteer of Elmo, Baby Sinclair and numerous others. In 2012, he took a sabbatical from Sesame Street after a young man claimed that the two of them had a sexual relationship when he was 16. Clash didn't deny the relationship but claimed it happened after the young man had turned 18. The accuser later withdrew the allegations, but a series of other accusers came forward in its wake. Sesame Workshop expressed their willingness to support Clash, but he decided to resign to spare them the inevitable media scandal that would have resulted. Ryan Dillon has taken over Muppeteering duties for Elmo since.
  • Romance on the Set:
    • Caroll Spinney met and eventually married his second wife, Debra Quinn, who worked on the series in a number of backstage roles.
    • Martin P. Robinson (Telly, Snuffy, Slimey) married former show writer Annie Evans in 2008.
    • As noted in the 2008 book Street Gang, during the period when Robinson was playing the front end of Snuffy, the writers created a puppy love storyline for him. It was art imitating life as the puppeteer had as big a crush on Sonia Manzano as Snuffy did on Maria. He said that they (the puppeteers) all had crushes on her. So Sonia Manzano was not only a Dude Magnet on the show (Big Bird, Snuffy, the Count, Stinky, Placido Flamingo, Grover, David, and Luis), she was also one in real life!
  • Saved from Development Hell: The second series of Shalom Sesame videos was released from 2010 to 2011, but the content of the street scenes and imported inserts times the original release date to 2004.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers:
    • When Viacom sued YouTube in February 2007, Viacom also claimed Sesame Street clips that had aired on Noggin, because certain clips had the Noggin logo (Viacom owned Noggin, which is part of Nickelodeon). The users that were affected (and got banned from YouTube) were JonnyTBird4789, Nantosuichoken, and many other Sesame Street uploaders. Due to this, Sesame Workshop parted ways with Noggin, and eventually set up their own YouTube account.
    • An even worse example was when Warner Music Group started filing false copyright claims against Sesame Street clips about a decade later, when Sesame Street Records was revived. WMG was so aggressive about taking down videos that eventually, the show’s official YouTube channel was temporarily terminated.
  • Screwed by the Network: Older seasons are often only rerun on PBS a few times after they end. It's for this reason that this show often recycles segments and repackages them into later seasons, ensuring that these segments will still air, just in a different format.
  • Shoot the Money: The smaller version of Zoe, a.k.a. "Homunculus Zoe".
  • Spin-Off Cookbook:
    • The Sesame Street Cookbook by Pat Tornborg
    • C is for Cooking and B is for Baking by Susan McQuillan
  • Technology Marches On: In episode 2043, Gordon, who now believes in Mr. Snuffleupagus, makes a plan to finally meet Snuffy, bringing everything to the Sesame Street sign that he could need so he would not miss him. He ends up having to go in the apartment (which ends up being the moment Snuffy shows up) when Susan tells him his mom is on the phone and Gordon decides he can't justify calling her back later. If this happened nowadays, Gordon would have a cell phone with him (and even if his mother called on the home phone, Susan could tell her to call Gordon's cell phone).
  • Throw It In!:
    • A small-scale version of Zoe was originally built for her role as "Mousey the Hatter Helper" in the direct-to-video Abby in Wonderland movie, but the puppeteers liked it so much that, starting in Season 40, they made this Zoe the de facto Zoe. Sesame Workshop, of course, tested this smaller Zoe by having kids visit the set, and they didn't seem to notice.
    • A good chunk of Muppet dialogue is ad-libbed, or at least used to be. Watch an old "People in Your Neighborhood" sketch to see Jim Henson try to make Bob crack up.
    • One recurring feature was having the Muppets interact with children in unscripted segments, resulting in such classic (and adorable) bits as this one.
    • Done in the episode addressing Mr. Hooper's death. The scene where the adults explain death to Big Bird was to be filmed with the adults maintaining composure. It became clear halfway through the first take that nobody was going to get through it without getting choked up, and the sincere emotions stayed in the final episode to show that even adults (who fully understand the concept of death) cry when someone close to them dies and that it is acceptable to cry, sometimes together, when something tragic happens. According to Bob McGrath, they tried shooting another take but by that point, everyone was so grief-stricken that they couldn't go longer than a minute without crying.
  • Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: Despite being aimed at pre-kindergarten children of both genders, some pieces of Sesame Street merchandise omit female characters like Abby Cadabby and Zoe.
  • Vindicated by Cable: The Sesame Street Unpaved reruns that aired on Noggin from 1999 to 2002 gave episodes from the first few seasons their first airings in decades, and attracted new attention to characters and segments that had long disappeared from the show (especially Roosevelt Franklin).
  • Viral Marketing: Cookie Monster wants to become host of Saturday Night Live, so he's trying to make his audition tape go viral by getting people to spread the video.
  • What Could Have Been: Has its' own page.
  • Working Title:
  • Written by Cast Member:
    • Sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Sonia Manzano expressed concern to executive producer Dulcy Singer that Latin American culture wasn't being represented on the show very well, so Singer, in turn, suggested that Manzano write the material herself (one of the first things she wrote was the memorable "Hola" song for Maria and Luis); since then, Sonia Manzano has been on Sesame's writing staff (and even wrote a number of children's books based on her childhood experiences).
    • In addition to joining the Muppet staff in the early 1990s, Joey Mazzarino also got involved in writing for Sesame as well (his first bit was the Columbo parody, "Colambo"), and from Seasons 40-46, was the show's head writer.
    • Caroll Spinney pitched ideas that were worked onto the show, but ultimately never received any kind of writing credit for them. This includes the unscripted inserts involving children interacting with the Muppets (such as Joey and Kermit, or John-John and Herry), as well as outlining the entire Big Bird in China special.
    • Jerry Nelson created the Johnny Cash-style Muppet Ronnie Trash, and wrote the lyrics to his Green Aesop song "Don't Throw it on the Ground".
    • Alan Muraoka, the actor who plays Alan, pitched the idea for "Cast Iron Cooks".
  • Written for My Kids: The story goes that "I Love My Hair" was written after head writer Joey Mazzarino and his wife adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. They were concerned that questions would be raised about white parents raising a black child.
  • Written-In Infirmity: Maria falling in love with Luis, then marrying him and giving birth to Gabi, was conceived as a way to write Sonia Manzano's Real Life pregnancy into the show.
  • You Look Familiar:
    • The Orange Gold Anything Muppet, though this is because it always has the same features no matter what it is wearing when it appears.
    • Before becoming Mr. Noodle's Brother Mr. Noodle, Michael Jeter made a memorable guest appearance on the show, singing a remake of "Dance Myself to Sleep".
    • Before playing the villainous Huxley in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Mandy Patinkin appeared on the series proper in The '80s as a New York cop helping Big Bird look for his missing teddy bear; unlike Huxley, though, Officer George was incredibly dry and deadpan, leading many people to wonder if Patinkin was in a bad mood the day of taping, or would rather have not been on the show then. Patinkin also made guest appearances as himself on Shalom Sesame, a crossover program between Sesame Street and its Israeli counterpart, Rechov Sumsum.
    • John Candy had a bit part in Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird as a cop who arrests Sam and Sid Sleaze, before reprising his SCTV role of Yosh Schmenge on the series proper.

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