50 years of Sesame Street: A thousand great things

A bunch of colorful monsters, a curmudgeon who lives in a garbage can, and lots of chaos: Sesame Street has been around for 50 years. Millions of people in Germany grew up with the show.

Who has ever heard a green worm in a hat and a blue doll with a full beard sing a swing number with the meaningless lyrics “U-wa-du, u-wa-du-bio”? It continues with “Ü-Ü-Surprise” – of course in a song on Sesame Street.

Sesame Street was always surprising with its wild ideas and characters. A wolverine in blue, a vampire count and his fluttering bat friends, a green garbage can monster Frog as a reporter who is on duty everywhere always despairing pianist by the name of Don Schnulze – the list of characters who have played their way into the hearts of the audience over the course of 50 years is long.

“Adults enjoy it equally”

The show has a humorous level, but also speaks to preschoolers on an educational level, says Sandra Le Blanc-Marissal. “Adults who watch it enjoy it just as much. They see how it’s parodied, how archetypes act that have meaning for children, but work on a different level for adults.”

Le Blanc-Marissal was an editor at the children’s show for a long time and has done scientific work on German Sesame Street and the original, the “Sesame Street” from New York. It was a great achievement to bring Sesame Street from the USA to Germany in the 1970s.

The first broadcast on January 8, 1973 began with Ernie and Bert and the argument about the fact that Ernie is smaller than Bert, but would like to be taller, “just a little bit bigger, I’ve always wanted that, even when I was was very small”.

Prominent guest appearances

Initially, the American episodes were dubbed. With its own background story with Samson and Tiffy, Sesame Street came closer to German everyday reality at the end of the 1970s, and it has continued to develop: with new formats, new characters, wool and horses, Finchen or Rumpel, a large range of learning opportunities on the Internet.

Numerous celebrities honored themselves permanently or in guest appearances: from Lilo Pulver to Jan Delay. And the response on TV and the web shows that Sesame Street is not losing its importance.

Always fast-paced and colorful – or not?

“Sesame Street was still black and white in our house because of course we had a black and white TV”, tells comedian Bernhard Hoecker in the five-part documentary series “A thousand great things”, with which Sesame Street travels through the decades.

“The opening credits were the best, because he had this…” – he can only snap his fingers. The Jew’s harp begins, followed by organ, bass and drums and then “Der die das”. In the current version, Lena Meyer-Landrut sings by the “Thousand Great Things”.

“Revolutionary at the time”

“A thousand great things” explained Sesame Street with a groundbreaking concept, says Le Blanc-Marissal. “It was absolutely revolutionary at the time, especially in terms of aesthetics.” Puppetry has a strong German tradition. “But what was unusual was that it was cut so fast that it had that commercial character.”

The idea was that advertising works on a certain level for preschoolers. They wanted to take advantage of that and teach them numbers, letters and concepts, mostly through repetition. Unforgettable Grobi’s appearance when explaining “near and far”. The poor guy runs close to the camera from far away countless times.

Ernie and Bert – like ying and yang

Ernie and Bert, who, like yin and yang, form a unity of opposites, are probably the biggest stars of Sesame Street. Carsten Haffke has been playing Bert for 16 years: “Above all, I find it very funny to portray someone who is so incredibly boring.” With his bottle cap collection and fondness for pigeons, Bert is pretty far forward in love for bland things. But maybe he is also a suitable idol for an ever accelerating world?

Haffke says he tries to put characters down after filming, “but it’s difficult with Bert because I can relate to his dismayed attitude toward the world.” But what he above all What appreciates about Ernie and Bert is that, despite their different characters, they always get along in the end.

“I think it’s good to show the children exactly that: It’s possible that you’ll fight and squabble over a toy, but in the end it’s nice when you’ve resolved the conflict and are best friends again. They are no words from me, that’s what Ernie and Bert told me.”

For 50 years, Sesame Street has given space to everything: worries, conflicts, social reality, and it does so with stars, humor and cookies. Almost always. Birthday cake today. Sorry, crumbs. “I’d rather have cookies!”