Sesame Street, A Force For Good

(Sesame Street, the original cast)

Through a relative, I learned that Sesame Street turned 40 years old some days ago. Seeing as I was born in the same year, somehow, this knowledge made me happy.

I credit Sesame Street as one of the reasons I learned to love reading. My mother plopped me and my siblings in front of the TV whenever Sesame Street was on, not only because she believed it was a good show for us, but like other parents from then till now, she thought it would keep us out of her hair. It did. And since Sesame Street regularly encouraged its viewers to pick up a book and read, my mother was pleased no end. Once the show was over, I'd pick up a book and shy away to some corner of the house, quiet, staying out of the way. Believe me, once you're a parent, the gift of those moments when your kid is quietly behaving is going to be treasured. And it's not like I was just atrophying. I was reading, so, you know, I was "Improving my mind", as educators of the 70's and 80's liked to chant.

Quietly behaving kid. Improving his mind. Out of the way. As a parent, what's not to love? :D

I remember many of the old Sesame Street staples: Kermit the Frog's News Flash reports on fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters; the mad painter who went around painting numbers on everything and everyone; Alistair Cookie's Monsterpiece Theater. I saw Mr. Snuffleupagus go from a figment of Big Bird's imagination to reality. And I still refer to repair places as fix-it shops, to the confusion of my younger relatives. I met Mr. Hooper, not in person, but on TV, when he was alive, so when he passed away I was truly sad, and worried for his store; the producers wrote his passing into the show to teach young kids about death. Years later, when Muppet creator Jim Henson died, I felt pain and a sense of loss, and recognized it as being the same kind I experienced years before when Mr. Hooper left the world. I was in my early 20's then, and I remember thinking, "I'm no longer a kid, why should I feel this way? I never even met the man." But I never met Mr. Hooper either, and I did feel it.

For me, the skits and music from Sesame Street are still some of the best written for children ever, credit to Joe Raposo and the show's other composers. Believe it or not, I can still sing (quietly, to myself, so as not to irritate others) the songs "Somebody Come And Play", "Believe In Yourself", "I Believe In Little Things", the Sesame Street theme song, "Everybody Eats" and "Everybody Sleeps", and the ditty popularized by The Carpenters, "Sing".

Here's more: "Would You Like To Buy an 'O'?"; "The Golden AN"; "Rubber Ducky"; "Doin' The Pigeon"; "Wanda The Witch"; "Sammy The Snake"; "'C' Is For Cookie"; one of my favorites: "Imagination", a scene between Bert and Ernie and how to deal with bad dreams.

Thank goodness for youtube.

In college I was laughed at when I was asked why I read so much, and mentioned Sesame Street as an influence. Maybe it was because of the way I talked about it. Instead of saying it lightly, as a joke and with a smile, I must've uttered "Sesame Street" in heavy seriousness. Others talked about parents reading to them or buying them books, getting in with a crowd that also liked to read, and being captivated by certain stories. All those applied to me, too, but as influential to me was the show. Taking my experiences further, a small sector even went so far as to make me feel ashamed that my influences were decidedly Western. Where were the Filipino writers in my reading list? Why, of all things, is the American show "Sesame Street" a major reading influence? Of course, the question of the subject material of what was being written came next ("Western-influenced, again?"), followed by language ("English?"). Blame was laid squarely on Sesame Street. It was enough to make a short, bespectacled kid retreat back into a quiet corner with a book, and to never mention Sesame Street again.

This is why I try my best not to mock people's choices of reading material, having been on the other end of derision. I'd make light jokes, sure, but they are never malicious. Besides, with all the distractions to books offered by video games, TV, movies, music, and sports, I'm happy to just see anyone reading anything at all. What I do instead is to encourage broadening one's tastes to include all kinds of reading material: local as well as foreign; popular and not; fiction and non-fiction; old and older texts, as well as the very new; all kinds of genres; in any language one prefers, or even not.

I'm not afraid to say it anymore: "Sesame Street" is a major reason why I picked up books in the first place. True, I fell in with friends who also enjoyed reading, and my mother encouraged me all the time, but no less telling was the show's constant suggestions to read, read, read. If I could go back in time, I think that instead of becoming sheepish at the mocking tone of others, I'd throw them back a question: What would you suggest that I read, then? Give me the titles and the authors, and I'll head to the library and give it a go, whether Sesame Street is in my history or not. I'd be willing to take their challenge, since it was clear that saying that my reading preferences and influences were a product of my circumstances would not be enough for them. If anything else, I believe that by saying that I was willing to take up the challenge of their lists would at the very least shut them up.

Perhaps it's a bit melodramatic to say Sesame Street is a force for good, but I firmly believe it was exactly that for me. Maybe I would've still become a reader without the show, but that's not the way it went down. That an American show helped influence one boy on the other side of the globe to pick up books--and I don't think I was alone--says something of how much it has helped increase the literacy of many generations. And this is without taking into consideration the show's actual audience, American children.

Sesame Street is not the de facto show of choice anymore that parents opt for their kids. It's been superseded by other shows on 24 hour cable channels devoted to children. Being a PBS-sponsored show, I wonder if it has the same marketing reach as its competitors. But all these other educational children's shows owe Sesame Street for setting the standard in what a good program should be, and if any of them succeed in the same was as it did in getting youngsters to read, well, more power to them. I wish Sesame Street well, and I hope that it lasts another forty years and then some.

In fact, I hope I do too. With something good to read in my hands throughout the years.