Such an encounter with the real Cookie Monster is, of course, always an encounter with one’s own childhood. A kind of touching moment. The monster hanging on the arm of puppeteer Carsten Haffke during a break in shooting in the Hamburg studio looks bigger than it did on television, but its fur is much the same as it used to be: bluer than blue. Nevertheless, times have changed, also for the cookie monster that devoured biscuits by the tin in the wild seventies. In the more nutritionally conscious present, they eat more fruit. And will soon even be cooking on TV. And tells the children something about sustainable nutrition. Those in the know call it edutainment. It is, to put the whole thing appropriately high, also a kind of Saul-Paul story.
“Krümelmonsters Foodie Truck mit Steffen Henssler” is not a Sesame Street offshoot, but its own format, to be seen on RTL + and Super RTL from spring 2023. They’re recording in Hamburg right now, there’s a real kitchen and a smaller second monster that we haven’t seen in Germany before, called Gonger. They explain what’s inside a pizza, they drive to the farms and show them where the tomatoes grow. Chef Henssler, 50, suits the culinary monsters with his handy manner: “I grew up with Cookie Monster and Co. And when I’m standing in the kitchen now and then Crumbs appear next to me – that’s funny, you have to say.”
A media manager is to stimulate the European business of Sesame Street
The Cookie Monster is an icon of pop culture, but nobody can live on image alone – you don’t have to ask a nutritionist about that. So the US parent company “Sesame Workshop” commissioned the media manager Stefan Kastenmüller in 2020 to revitalize the European business. Kastenmüller was previously with the music station MTV and the wrestling association WWE, to call him “very well networked” would be a complete understatement. The cooking show is also his idea. Kastenmüller keeps the myth fresh and is busy preparing for the celebrations for Sesam’s 50th birthday in the coming year. If he doesn’t grab it, the foodie truck just rolls somewhere else.
“Of course we’re happy to staple such a strong brand from Sesame Street to the station and all platforms, let’s call it that,” says Super RTL Managing Director Thorsten Braun in Hamburg, in keeping with the sound of the new era . In front of him is a tray of delicious Cookie Monster muffins that in the olden days would have been devoured whole by the Cookie Monster himself. But the old days are gone.