Click on: EVERYBODY GROWS OLD: "SESAME STREET" TURNS 40 TODAY!

Big Bird, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Bert, Elmo...

Sesame Street is an American educational children's television series, specially aimed for preschoolers, and a pioneer of the contemporary educational television standard, combining both education and entertainment. The series, which has produced over 4,200 episodes, celebrates its 40th anniversary this season, making it one of the longest-running shows in television history.

Sesame Street is well known for its Muppets characters created by Jim Henson. It premiered on November 10, 1969, and is the longest running children's programme on US television.The show is produced in the United States by the non-profit organization Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), founded by Joan Ganz Cooney and Ralph Rogers.

Sesame Street uses a combination of animation, puppets, and live actors to stimulate young children's minds, improve their letter and word recognition, basic arithmetic, geometric forms, classification, simple problem solving, and socialization by showing children or people in their everyday lives. Since the show's inception, other instructional goals have been basic life skills, such as how to cross the street safely, proper hygiene, healthy eating habits, and social skills; in addition, real-world situations are taught, such as death, divorce, pregnancy and birth, adoption, and even all of the human emotions such as happiness, love, anger, fear, sadness, and hatred.

The show is broadcast worldwide; in addition to the U.S. version, many countries have locally-produced versions adapted to local needs, some with their own characters, and in a variety of different languages. The Spanish version is called "Barrio Sésamo".

Have you grown up with them, too?

Have a look at some videos from the programme in English:

Links:

Video Ernie & Bert (=Epi & Blas in the Spanish version): "Cookies in Bed":