When Jerry Nelson passed away on Thursday, August 23, everyone at Sesame Workshop — especially those who had worked with Jerry for not just years but decades — was deeply saddened. However, the outpouring of emotion regarding Jerry’s loss spread far beyond the walls of the Workshop. Across the country his fans began penning moving tributes to the artistry and care with which he portrayed iconic Sesame Street characters such as Count Von Count, Herry Monster and Sherlock Hemlock. There were many lovely pieces written about Jerry, too many to read them all. But we wanted to introduce you to a few that the Sesame Workshop family found especially touching.
Our furry friends on Barrio Sésamo: Monstrous Supersanos are going to learn a lot about how to lead a healthier lifestyle now that there’s a new doctor in town. The Spanish version of Sesame Street is getting a brand new character, “Dr. Valentin Ruster.” Dr. Ruster is inspired by the Director of New York City’s Mount Sinai Heart Center, Dr. Valentin Fuster.
Dr. Fuster, who hails from Barcelona, Spain, is the former president of the American Heart Association and the World Heart Foundation. As the Chair of the Committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease for the Institute of Medicine (IOM), he is a prominent advocate for cardiovascular health around the globe. Read More
On Tuesday, August 14, Sesame Street released “Elmo’s Alphabet Challenge,” our latest home video. In it, Elmo, Abby and Telly get sucked into an animated video game world and have to defeat A.B.C.-more at a number of alphabet-based challenges in order to escape.
The challenges are all spoofs of iconic video games: Pac-man, Guitar Hero and Super Mario Brothers, among others, inspired the levels Elmo and his friends must traverse. The animation was created by Magnetic Dreams, an animation company Sesame Street has been working with for almost a decade. Read More
Elmo, Abby and Grover with U.S. Olympian Reid Priddy and his family.
Playing is far more than fun and games: It helps children develop emotionally, socially and physically. That’s why Elmo, Grover and Abby Cadabby headed to London last week to hang out with U.S. Olympians like Allison Schmitt, Reid Priddy and Dawn Harper. Check out their photos from London! From the look of it, everyone had a great time. Read More
Since its founding, Sesame Workshop has been dedicated to making sure kids grow up healthy and strong. In recent years, our partner Sam’s Club has helped us further that goal by in part funding the creation of Sesame Street’s “Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me” outreach kits. The bilingual (English/Spanish) outreach kits include an original Sesame StreetDVD and a family booklet. There’s also additional activities and information at SesameStreet.org/Teeth.
As part of its commitment to the health and wellbeing of children across the country, Sam’s Club is offering free health screenings for children at all locations with a pharmacy. In addition to the screenings, a limited supply of “Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me” outreach kits will be distributed as well, in the hopes of providing children and parents with the information they need to make choices that will have a positive impact on their oral health.
Sesame Street performer Eric Jacobson and his good pal Super Grover 2.0 stopped by this year’s Comic Con to bring smiles to the faces of the conventions youngest attendees. From the look of it everyone had a lot of fun!
Bill Ayres is the executive director of WhyHunger, an anti-hunger organization he co-founded in 1975. Summer is an important time of year to focus on child hunger, which Sesame Workshop’s Food For Thought outreach initiative is committed to battling. Ayres sat down with the Workshop to explain how his organization fights child hunger, why it is such an important issue during the summer months and why his organization utilizes the anti-hunger materials Sesame Workshop makes available.
To put it simply, Why hunger? Why, as Americans, is hunger an issue that we should be concerned about?
Well, that is our name: WhyHunger. We have that name because we are asking the question, why is there hunger in the richest country in the world? Why is there hunger in a world that can feed itself? Hunger is an obscenity. Hunger in America is the ultimate obscenity. There are about 17 million children and 49 million people all together that are food insecure. That means they aren’t starving but they miss meals and they eat less. They don’t get the right kinds of food. That is devastating for kids especially.
Sesame Workshop is excited to announce the launch of the second season of The Adventures of The Electric Company onPrankster Planet, the newest segment on our award-winning show The Electric Company.
The Electric Company has evolved since the iconic program first aired in 1971. Since the show was revived in 2009, we have utilized a variety of media to ensure that the show’s rigorously researched educational material, which has a renewed focus on math, helps six to nine-year-olds acquire the academic skills they need to achieve their full potential. Prankster Planet is at the heart of the show’s transmedia approach.
At the end of each episode, Marcus and Jessica will go on an adventure to try and stop tricky prankster Francine from causing chaos. But the story doesn’t end once the show is over. Kids are encouraged to go online to the new Prankster Planet website where they can play games that help them learn simple math equations, graphing, and data collection, representation and analysis.
Since the introduction of Prankster Planet 1.0 last season, millions of kids have visited the show’s website to have fun, interactive adventures, all the while building up their math and literacy skills. The show has won three Emmy’s for Outstanding Children’s Series in a row – every year since it was revived – and was also a recipient of the Parent’s Choice Gold Award for Television.
In April we featured the work of Associate Design Director Louis Henry Mitchell, who created the wonderful chalk murals on the 8th floor of Sesame Workshop’s office. Many of our readers really enjoyed the post, so we wanted to show you the rest of the chalk art that can be found around the office.
The fun and imaginative wall art was created by our Creative Services team:
Graphic Designer Molly Hein (Bert and Ernie in the Subway, Ernie bowling, Gluten Free),
Associate Art Director Evan Cheng (Bert and Ernie in the Subway, Ernie Bowling, Gluten Free, Grover Michael Jackson)
Senior Design Director Vanessa Germosen (Bert and Ernie in the Subway)
Creative Director Kip Rathke (Super Grover)
Creative Director Janis Beauchamp (Elmo Peaking in)
Vice President Creative Director Theresa Fitzgerald (Super Grover)
Louis Henry Mitchell (Full Cast Welcome Sign, Elmo/Big Bird/Cookie Monster Welcome Sign, Herry)
Each of the artists brings his or her own style and technique to the portrayal of Sesame Street’s iconic MuppetsTM. The entire Sesame Workshop team loves the chalk drawings so much that we decided it was about time we shared them with everyone.
Learn more about our international co-productions, outreach initiatives, technological innovation and research methods by signing up for our weekly newsletter.
When Jerry Nelson passed away on Thursday, August 23, everyone at Sesame Workshop — especially those who had worked with Jerry for not just years but decades — was deeply saddened. However, the outpouring of emotion regarding Jerry’s loss spread far beyond the walls of the Workshop. Across the country his fans began penning moving tributes to the artistry and care with which he portrayed iconic Sesame Street characters such as Count Von Count, Herry Monster and Sherlock Hemlock. There were many lovely pieces written about Jerry, too many to read them all. But we wanted to introduce you to a few that the Sesame Workshop family found especially touching.
Sesame Street performer Eric Jacobson and his good pal Super Grover 2.0 stopped by this year’s Comic Con to bring smiles to the faces of the conventions youngest attendees. From the look of it everyone had a lot of fun!
