The Gospel According to Sesame Street: Learning, Life, Love, and Death

By Gary C. Dreibelbis

Even more than the animated features of Walt Disney and certainly more than The Simpsons, Sesame Street has had a deep and enduring role in shaping young minds about faith and morality--well beyond Patti Labelles stirring gospel version of the alphabet. Gary Dreibelbis thoughful analysis of the Sesame Street Gospel is long overdue.

- Mark I. Pinsky, The Gospel According to Disney,

The Gospel According to The Simpsons

What a unique and insightful book! Who would have imagined that behind the scenes of a cute kids program there was a deep reservoir of theological truth and moral teaching that has shaped mnds and hearts of millions of children? A fascinating read.

- Robert Lupton, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those they Help and How to Reverse It.

Not only is this a lesson in television history, it takes an iconic show and delves deeper into the moral and spiritual themes that lie just below the surface, giving us a new way to look at a special place called Sesame Street.

- Tony Rossi, Director of Communication, The Christophers and National Catholic Radio Host

During its forty-five seasons on air, Sesame Street has not only taught children letters of the alphabet and numbers, it has also taught children lessons in faith, equality, and social justice. Most of all it has taught children in subtle ways to follow The Golden Rule and that all people are created equal. It is without doubt one of the most significant television programs of all time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512751147

Gary C. Dreibelbis

Gary C. Dreibelbis EdD has taught communication courses at Bradley University, Northern Illinois University, The University of Georgia, San Francisco Theological Seminary, and Solano College. He is the coauthor and editor of Watching What We Watch: Prime Time Television Through the Lens of Faith and author of The Video Performer.

Book preview

Advance Praise for The Gospel

According to Sesame Street

What does Big Bird, Elmo, and the production team of Sesame Street have to do with faith? Everything when you look deeply into the show with the eyes of love. Dr. Gary Dreibelbis has given us a new reason to love an old, wonderful show. Teresa Blythe, author, 50 Ways to Pray, and director of the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Development.

Some fascinating illustrations are drawn from Jim Henson’s Big Bird and Kevin Clash’s Elmo…There is scarcely an aspect of life and death experiences that Dreibelbis does not discuss in his fine presentation of The Gospel According to Sesame Street: Learning, Life, Love, and Death. Edwin Hollatz, PhD, Chair Emeritus, Department of Communication Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

SESAME STREET:

LEARNING, LIFE, LOVE, AND DEATH

GARY C. DREIBELBIS

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Copyright © 2016 Gary C. Dreibelbis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-5113-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5114-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016912237

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/19/2016

Contents

Joan Ganz Cooney: The Virtuous Woman

Jesus Didn’t Hang Around With the Cool Kids

The Gospel According to James: Henson That Is

The Soul of Elmo: Kevin Clash

Sesame Street is Not Toxic Charity

Big Bird the Big Yellow Seeker

Food For Thought: Lessons From Daniel and Give Peas a Chance

Strength in Weakness: Sesame Street and Disabilities

Ducking Moderation

There is No I in Team and Lessons in Leadership

Here Comes the Bride: The Marriage of Luis and Maria

Goodbye Mr. Looper, (That’s Hooper, Big Bird)

Make a Joyful Noise…

It’s Not That Easy Being Green: Diversity and Sesame Street

Doubting Thomas and Those Who Doubted Big Bird

The Great Commission and Sesame Street

Bring The Children to Me, And They Did

Afterword: Sesame Street is Brought to You By the Letters H, B, and O

Acknowledgements

Sesame Street is arguably one of the most significant television programs of all time and the most significant children’s program in television history. Now entering its forty-fifth season, the program has few equals as to longevity; mostly news shows and soap operas.

The program was the brainchild of two people, Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. Prior to developing Sesame Street, Cooney was a producer of documentaries for WNET the educational television station for New York City. In 1965, she won a New York Emmy award for an in-studio teach-in program concerning anti-poverty. Prior to her experience at WNET she had worked at both the NBC and CBS networks as a publicist.

Lloyd Morrisett was the vice-president of the Carnegie Corporation. Morrisett and his wife Mary had two children and they were amazed at the hold that television seemed to have on their two daughters. There were times when the children would arise early in the morning and stare at the television screen watching a test pattern before regular programming would air. This, of course, was in the days before twenty-four hour programming and the myriad of choices offered by cable and satellite.

In February of 1966, Joan and her husband Tim hosted a dinner party with the Morrisetts, Lewis Freedman, who was the program director of WNET, and two others as guests. During the course of the party the discussion turned to television where Freedman stated that he felt that the potential of television to educate had not been tapped. Morrisett listened to Freedman’s comments with great interest because he too wanted to use technology for teaching and learning. He had earned a PhD in education at Yale University and had studied with Carl I. Hovland in Yale’s Attitude Change Program. Cooney also had an interest in education as she had a B.A in education from The University of Arizona.

By the end of the evening both Cooney and Morrisett’s interests were peaked as to the idea of television as a teaching tool with Morrisett being the most interested in developing a television program for preschoolers. He suggested that some of his representatives at Carnegie meet with Cooney and Freedman to discuss details and planning for a children’s program. The dinner party would turn out to be one of the most historic events in television because it planted the seeds for Sesame Street.

In the months that followed, Joan Cooney traveled throughout the nation interviewing some of the leading authorities in education as to what they thought could be taught on television. Based on her findings, she developed a blueprint for a program that would teach cognitive skills for preschool children. She and Morrisett presented her findings to The Office of Education in Washington, D.C. and to private sector funders such as The Carnegie Corporation and The Ford Foundation. Eventually, she and Morrisett would raise $8 million for production costs and promotion of the program, an unheard of amount for a children’s television program.

During the summer of 1968, Cooney and Morrisett gathered some of the best minds in early childhood education along with some of children’s television best production people to confer as to what would be the curriculum of the program that would eventually become Sesame Street (as a piece of trivia, the title Sesame Street was determined at the eleventh hour just prior to the debut of the show. The story goes that Virginia Shone’s New York preschool class came up with the title). One of those in attendance was Jim Henson whose Muppets would become the face of the show. Interestingly enough, Cooney had never met Henson and when she first saw the bearded puppeteer walk into a meeting she thought he was a terrorist. Many members of the production staff came from the staff of the popular CBS children’s program Captain Kangaroo.

After three years of planning, discussion, and fundraising, Sesame Street went on air November 10th 1969 on commercial station WPIX in New York City, as well as the educational station WNET. The first words spoken on the show were by Matt Robinson as the Gordon character, You’ve never seen a street like Sesame Street. Everything happens here. You’re gonna love it. The words turned out to be prophetic.

Sesame Street received instant critical acclaim from the New York press including The New York Times and its television critic Jack Gould. Gould was arguably one of the most influential television critics in the nation. Other television critics across the country such as Ron Powers of the Chicago Sun Times echoed Gould’s enthusiasm. The only state where the show was not popular was Mississippi where it was banned by the board of education. The reasoning was that Mississippi’s children were not ready to see children of various races playing together on the screen.

It is interesting to note that Sesame Street was originally intended to educate children of poverty. Both Joan Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett felt that children of poverty were disadvantaged upon entering grade school because they did not have the same advantages as children from middle and upper class homes. Many of these children lived in single parent homes where the parent had little or no time to read or sing to their children. Cooney’s theory was the old self fulfilling hypothesis—if the teacher thinks you are smart you will be treated as smart. If the teacher thinks you are dumb, you will be treated as such.

A massive publicity campaign preceded the airing of the program. Evelyn Davis, one of the show’s publicists led campaigns in underclass neighborhoods throughout the country. She used large soundtrucks in Harlem, visited churches, and 500 watt radio stations in urban neighborhoods. In Philadelphia, families in underclass neighborhoods were paid $100 a piece to watch pilots of the program. The program bombed in Philadelphia primarily because the writers did not mix The Muppets in with the human actors and kept them in separate segments. The writers fixed this matter as The Muppets walked the street along with the live actors.

While the show was intended for disadvantaged children, it became an immediate hit with children of all classes as well as their parents. There was enough humor in the show that adults could relate to that they would often look over their children’s shoulders and laugh at the screen. College students in student centers across the country were often seen watching and laughing at the program.

Sesame Street has never discussed religious themes in its forty-five seasons; in fact, in its first few seasons the program never addressed issues concerning feelings or affective goals or values. The reason given by Joan Cooney and others was that in its early seasons, Sesame Street was supposed to teach cognitive goals. There was concern that because they were receiving substantial government funding, they must show quantifiable results that the program was teaching children and reaching the disadvantage child. As the show grew in popularity and weaned itself from government funding, it was able to address more affective or feelings issues.

However, a similar argument for Sesame Street and faith can be made as the argument Mark Pinsky the former religion reporter for The Orlando Sentinel and Los Angeles Times, made for Walt Disney in his book, The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust. In the introduction to his book he writes the following:

Mickey Mouse and faith? The world’s most famous rodent and his animated friends say more about faith and values than you may think—they’re not just postage stamps. Peter Pan told us that faith, hope, and pixie dust, can leave your cares behind. Jiminy Cricket showed Pinocchio (and millions of movie-goers) that when you wish upon a star dreams come true." Bambi stimulated baby boomer support for gun control and environmentalism. Cinderella became a syndrome. The Little Mermaid illustrated the challenges of intermarriage. The Lion King hinted at the Hindu tradition of the Circle of Life. Walt Disney wanted his theme parks to be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.

For Sesame Street, statements of faith and values are numerous. As was previously mentioned, the program was produced with the intent of being a head start for under privileged children and there was a strong feeling of social justice surrounding it. It was created during the 1960’s during the era of The Great Society. This turned out to be a major reason why the program was able raise so much federal government funding. Another byproduct of the 1960’s is that several members of the staff came on board due to the events of the time. David Connell, who would become the director of Sesame Street decided to do the show shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

If one watches closely, a number of faith and values themes in the show. Sesame Street’s creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, matches the description of the virtuous woman found in Proverbs 31, Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies. This is the theme of Chapter Two. Cooney is not now a practicing Catholic, but she did grow up in the Catholic Church and she describes herself as a little Catholic worrier. The seeds of social justice may have been planted by her mother who would give homeless men sandwiches during the depression era when they came to her home in Phoenix, Arizona. She was also raised in part by a black housekeeper who had three children who became surrogate siblings to Joan. Joan, the housekeeper, and her children were forced to sit in the balconies of Phoenix movie theatres which were segregated during the 1930’s. The theatre balconies were referred to as Crow’s Nests.

Cooney was influenced by her Jesuit instructors who taught her the art of debating, a skill that would serve her well as one of the guiding forces for the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), the producers of Sesame Street. As a young woman, she was influenced by the teachings of Father James Keller of The Christopher Movement, a movement that stressed that people of faith should become involved in education and the media.

As a producer and later head of CTW she became a major influence upon the television industry. At CTW she was one of the few woman executives in television. She rose through the ranks of the industry starting out first as a publicist at NBC, one of the few positions available for women at the time, and eventually became a documentary producer at WNET in New York City before assisting in the creation of Sesame Street. In many ways she exhibited some of the characteristics of one of the great women of the Bible, Deborah the judge and prophet.

Joan Cooney is also a model of support and generosity. After divorcing her alcoholic and abusive husband, she continued to support him financially for twenty-five years until his death in 1999. Hers’ was a test case in the state of New York for a woman giving alimony to a man. She was at his bedside the night before he died.

Chapter Three’s theme is Jesus Didn’t Hang Around With the