Talk:Sesame Street/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Former featured article

I suppose it was inevitable that this article would become delisted. I'm not at all surprised, since it became FA way back in '06, when the FA criteria wasn't nearly as strict as it is now. Very little work has been done here, other than reverts of vandalism, for a very long time. This article, as it stands today, is no where near an FA; I doubt that it would survive a GA review. As a result, I would like to see this article improve to the quality its subject matter deserves.

This article needs at least one committed editor willing to ensure that this happens. As an editor who has led Blue's Clues to GA and The Wiggles to FA (and to the main page), I would like to spearhead this project. To that end, I have archived its talk page, so that we can start anew. The trouble is, however, I have absolutely no idea as to where to start. Since WP is about collaboration, I would like to request help from any and all interested parties. For example, I believe that this article needs a complete re-structuring, but input is required to see what that would look like.

To begin, I will put a to-do list, as WP:CO suggests. Much of what it includes will come straight from the FAR. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

De facto audience age

Why has Sesame Street's de facto age audience gotten younger in recent years?? You might answer with Elmo, but it is believed that Elmo's World was created under the influence of the age audience getting younger. Any less circular reason?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't answer that. However, it could be a good thing to research. GG, why don't you? I mean, one of the weaknesses of this article is reliable sources. (See to-do list.) I intend to tackle that myself, once I find the time. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 00:14, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they really even know for sure, from what I've read. It's just a case of parents introducing their children to TV earlier and earlier. When this trend started, Noggin, Playhouse Disney and other preschool channels weren't available, so Sesame Street would be the youngest-targeted option available. (It's also possible Neilsen didn't track kids this young until recently, and so their "audienceship" was unknown.) -- Zanimum (talk) 14:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

HD title card

Now that Sesame Street has moved to HD, perhaps it's time for somebody to find an HD screen shot of the title card? --Kitch ^{(Talk : Contrib)} 02:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea. But aren't we supposed to be only uploading low-resolution fair use images? What I'd personally like is one without a television station's watermark. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Street Gang

I've just finished reading this marvelous book by Michael Davis; it will prove to be an invaluable source for this article and other Sesame Street articles. I highly recommend it for anyone who intends to significantly contribute to this article. Actually, I recommend it for anyone who has an interest in children's television and its history. Not only does it talk about Sesame Street, it talks about Captain Kangaroo (many of Sesame Street's creative folks also worked with Bob Keeshan), Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and Howdy Doody. It's a great read and at times, inspirational. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Henson image

Jim Henson, (1989), creator of the Muppets. Henson was initially reluctant to become involved with a children's show, but changed his mind after considering the social climate of the late 1960s.

Just curious why this was removed. Multiple sources have said Jim was reluctant to be pegged as a kids entertainer, something he was sure the show would do to him. And multiple sources have said it was the whole tumult of the era that made him think it might be in the public's best interest if he risked it and became involved with Joan Ganz Cooney's project. -- Zanimum (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I was the editor who initially placed Henson's image in this article, and I was the one who removed it. Actually, I removed it after reading Street Gang. See, what you say is true, but Henson was also deeply resentful of the show that gave him so much success because it took a great deal for him to break out of the children's entertainer label. His worst fears about being labeled came true, but fortunately for the world, he resisted those fears and became involved with the show anyway. Street Gang is very clear about that. As I stated in my edit summary, I really think that Henson wouldn't have wanted his image here. However, if consensus agrees that it should go back, I'm fine with that. I think it'd be better if we could find a free image of Henson in the late 60s or early 70s. You'll notice that I kept the same image in History of Sesame Street. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

where is sesame street?

I was just wondering if anyone knew what city sesame street is in?--204.118.241.39 (talk) 01:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I believe that you have just asked the great existential question of our age.

Notice that The Song never answers the question, "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?" I am certain that many a child, when he or she watches the show, does not have to have it answered. Children under the age of 5, who are really the smartest humans in the world anyway, probably watch the show and notice that Sesame Street looks very familiar to them, that it is very much like their own street. They see the characters on the show, both human and Muppet, and perhaps they think, "They are very much like the people in my neighborhood". So, as I say, there is no need to answer your question: Sesame Street is everywhere, and it is nowhere.

If there is an answer to your question, however, I suppose it would be this: Sesame Street is a fictional place, silly. The show, Sesame Street, is filmed at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York City. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 07:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

So in that case it shows that this is in New York City. trainfan01 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.50.10.254 (talk) 14:32, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. Irony truly is a lost art. --Christine (talk) 02:40, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The Bells?

Anybody have anything on the way the show ended in the 1980s with these copyright or disclaimer card on the screen with white on blue background and these awful loud bells being played in...I guess a very intense composition for some reason? Coffee4binky (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Cast information sections

This is me being bold. I have removed these sections and placed them in user space: User:Figureskatingfan/Sesame Street cast. These are badly-written, poorly sourced sections, anyway, and are in need of major improvements. It's my intention to do that, but there needs a lot of research done beforehand. For example, the section discussing The Muppets, as it now stands, consists of a list of character descriptions, and I'm not sure that this is appropriate for this article. There are other articles, such as List of Sesame Street characters that do that, anyway. A more appropriate discussion, however, would be a description of the history of The Muppets, how Henson created and developed them, and how they're built. I may do what I did in improving this article's "Beginnings" section: improve History of Sesame Street, then summarize it here.

By the same token, I'm not sure that a list of all the actors and crewmembers is appropriate here, either. Many of these folks are already discussed in earlier parts of the article, anyway. This kind of information may be better suited over at Muppet Wiki. I need to think about how to handle this, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to hearing them. To be honest, I'm a little surprised that my large-scale edits up to this point haven't been greeted with more than the occasional vandalism. I'm surprised this isn't a more controversial article, but I haven't found that to be the case up to now. --Christine (talk) 20:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so I've had a little while to think about this, and I think the solution I came up with tonight works well. You may notice that I renamed the section and then added all the information gathered thus far about the cast and crew from History of Sesame Street. I recognize that there's a great more to add, like a section about the Muppets, and whatever else about the cast and crew we can find. The previous version remains in userspace, but I suspect that I won't add any of it in because it's poorly sourced. --Christine (talk) 05:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Rumors and urban legends

Tonight I reverted an anonymous IP's removal of this section.[1] Perhaps you're wondering why I did that, taking this edit into consideration, where I basically did the same thing. The difference, however, is that I provided an edit summary and explained my actions on this talk page. It doesn't mean, though, that what the IP did was a bad idea; I suspect that when I arrive at that section, it may be deleted again, because, as I suspect was the purpose of the edit in question, the content may not be appropriate for this article. It's my intention to create either a section or a subsection (under "Reception") entitled "Influence" and perhaps this content belongs better there. I have to write it first, of course. In the meantime, because we may use the information in this section, I reverted the edit and put a warning on the IP's talk page. --Christine (talk) 04:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Number of episodes

The page lists that there have been over four thousand episodes of Sesame Street; I'm quite sure this isn't accurate. IMDB has 182 episodes listed on their site, which also seems extremely inaccurate. Any references to the actual number of episodes would be greatly appreciated! Jhfortier (talk) 07:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I saw a title card of the first episode of the 40th season over on Muppet Wiki just this weekend, and that's Episode #4187. That's where they're getting the information. Kinda original research, but I think it's okay to use as a source. Of course, I'm not exactly sure, so it may be a good idea to ask other editors more knowledgeable about the WP policy on this kind of thing. --Christine (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Holy, that's an INSANE number of episodes. Two per week, every week, for forty years! If thats what the title card says, it seems reasonable to go with that. I don't consider it OR any more than grabbing the name of a TV episode from its title card would be OR. The only other interpretation of that number is that it's season 41, episode 87, but if there were at least 87 episodes per season, you still end up with a crazy number like 4000 for the total number of episodes. Jhfortier (talk) 17:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What's impressive is that for the first several years of The Show, they produced 130 episodes a year! That info really should be expanded some in this article, which is currently in the "Educational goals" section. It does say, over in the History article, that Dave Connell was hired because he was familiar with "volume production" during his time at Captain Kangaroo. Now, mostly due to financial considerations, they "only" produce 26 episodes a year. That's still a lot, even for a kid's show. This is why they needed so much money ($8 million in 1969) at the beginning. Taking just that in consideration, Cooney and her cohorts accomplished a huge, huge thing back then. --Christine (talk) 18:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Just an aside, IMDb should never be taken as a source for anything. Like a wiki, anyone can change the content. Unlike this particular wiki, the people making the changes don't need to cite sources, and it's darned hard to change wrong things back. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

You are correct, sir! This is one of the many reasons infoboxes suck. The number of episodes change each season; as of Tuesday, it'll change again. Can you just see, for the next couple of months (or at least for the next 26 episodes), an editor coming in each day and changing the number? It can get so ridiculous. When I'm confident enough in this article to put it up for GA or a peer review, I suspect that I'll remove the stupid infobox. (Now, mind you, I don't think that all infoboxes suck; only certain ones do. They serve a purpose for some articles, but not for articles about literature, and a TV show falls into that category in a general pop-culturey sort of way.) Removing the infobox will resolve this issue.

In a related note, I've found one source stating another reason (other than financial) the Workshop only produces 26 episodes a year. In the new book about SS, Sesame Street: A Celebration, which just came out last week, it states that repeating episodes over and over again has educational purposes. That will be incorporated here. BTW, it's a marvelous book, and very useful for our purposes here. When I asked for it for my birthday, my expectation was that it was going to be like another coffee table book like Sesame Street Unpaved, a nice book in its own right but not very useful. It's big and beautiful and full of great content. I've already used it in my re-write of International co-productions of Sesame Street. --Christine (talk) 21:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Strong single women quote

"'Sesame Street was also criticized for the presence of strong single women on the show" I'm wondering if this quote could be clarified, because it is a bit confusing when juxtaposed with the quotation from NOW in the next paragraph about the women being too subservient. From the reference, it was a singular Louisiana critic who made the comment about strong single females. Could we clarify it by indicating that it was a minority opinion, especially given the number of women's liberation movements in the 1970s? I'll try to write up a draft a bit later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhfortier (talk • contribs) 18:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest looking at the source for that statement, p. 52 in the Hellman article. Looking at it again, it probably could use some clarification. It's noteworthy to mention here because on the one hand, they were being criticized for being too progressive, and on the other hand, NOW wanted them to go further. This particular criticism came out of Louisiana, and was similar to the Miss. ban. The NYT Magazine article doesn't make that connection, though, so they should be separated in this one. I'll let you go ahead and work on it, though. ;) --Christine (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Checked the Hellman article, did some exploring, and made changes. Moved the "too strong" criticism down to the same paragraph as the NOW items. I made an effort to refer to the critic (name not given in the Hellman article) as a critic from Louisiana without generalizing all Southerners. Look ok to everyone as it's written now? Jhfortier (talk) 02:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Reducing size of "International co-productions" section

I think that the first paragraph in this section is a sufficient summary, especially given that there are two unique articles dealing with international co-productions (one dealing with the series, another addressing the characters). Removing the lengthy list of series and dates would help to shorten this article (which is already tagged as being too long) and improve readability. Thoughts? Jhfortier (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I so agree with this. I've already done some research about the co-productions, and intend to write something about it. I'm waiting for a source to arrive from Amazon, though--a PBS production called "The World According to SS." If you let me, I'd like to handle expanding this section, please. Actually, it's this very thing that has stalled the History article. Some reviewers have requested that more information about the co-productions be included over there, and I wanted to make sure I had all the sources in my hands before I proceeded. As I've done with other sections of this article, after completing the research, I intend on re-writing Sesame Street internationally, which is essentially a list. I need to think about it, but I may get rid of that list, since it's mostly unsourced. Or I may create a whole new article. I haven't decided yet. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and follow your suggestion, J.

So is the plan to expand the "International" section on this page? Or expand the separate article? I thought that because Sesame Street international is such a completely different topic, the main page should have a link to the separate article and then just a very quick summary, but given your extensive experience with this (and other) articles, you know what's needed to put this article back in a position to be a GA or FA. Can't wait to see how it turns out! Jhfortier (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I dunno if I've had an "extensive" experience with WP articles; compared to editors like User:Scartol (he just got another new FA), User:Moni3 (she rocks my WP world!), and User:Awadewit, I'm a lightweight. They're WP content editor gods. But you've got it right--this article should link to the other one, and then have a short summary. That's exactly what I did for the "Beginnings" section here. There are huge sections here that are based upon content in the history article. I'm sure you're starting to see how much more work we need to do here! --Christine (talk) 20:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Lyrics

Thoughts on the placement of the lyrics to the theme song in this article? I'm not sure that they add to or enhance the article overall? Jhfortier (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

They're copyrighted. They don't belong here until they're in the public domain (2064.)

Thank you so much for clearing that up; I hadn't even thought of that (I'm new to WP editing). I'll remove them.Jhfortier (talk) 18:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Merchandising Section

Looking at this article, one of the longest sections is the merchandising section. I think I might create a separate page for the merchandise of Sesame Street, possibly including the home videos as well. I think a quick summary in the main article with a link to the new page would reduce the length quite substantially and increase the readability. If nobody has any objections, I'll start on that in the next few days. Jhfortier (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a really good idea. When you do that, you can nominate it for DYK. I suggest that you use some of the information already in the History article. There's all kinds of research available for the ways the CW has funded the show throughout the years, going from depending upon government grants to corporate underwriters. You should include the controversy around their decision to include the ads before the episodes, too. --Christine (talk) 11:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright then, I'm going to start up the new page. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I can have it read in time for DYK, as that section requires that an article be less than a week old. We'll see what we can do! Jhfortier (talk) 20:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, somebody merged the newly-created Merchandising page to the Sesame Workshop page. That seems to be a pretty good place for it to live; any links should direct there. Jhfortier (talk) 22:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I've resplit it off, as Sesame Street licensing. It needs and deserves its own page, as there's tons of information that can be added. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

production companies

where it lists the production companies on the page there is a typo error, it says megnetic dreams, when in fact it is magnetic dreams —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.124.85 (talk) 02:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks! -- Zanimum (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Google Doodles

I was wondering whether the Google Doodles that are running at the moment should be mentioned in the article...? Billinghamj (talk) 19:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There are all kinds of things going on this week. My inclination is to wait for it all to happen, and then write up something about the different ways the 40th anniversary is being celebrated. It may even warrant its own section. Me, I'm going to sit myself in front of the TV, probably on Wednesday, and watch my recorded copy of the first episode of the season with my kids. --Christine (talk) 20:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the Google Doodles should be mentioned; but I also think it important to remind readers just how short-sighted Google has proven -- yet again -- in privileging the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street over the (infinitely more important) 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

While I wouldn't want to deny the cultural significance of Sesame Street, I think it important for the article to acknowledge the (growing, if web-bound) controversy over this strangely narcissistic move on the part of the Americano-centric Google. In this connection, see this page: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021136.html . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homunculus5 (talk • contribs) 11:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the controversy is better suited at the Google article, not here. I've seen no reliable sources about the "controversy", though. On a personal note, it's interesting how, once again, The Show has found itself in the middle of a cultural debate, even in this small way. It supports the theme of the book Sesame Street and the Reform of Children's Television by Robert Morrow. One of the themes of that book is how discussions about culture have affected The Show, and how it's played into the criticism it's received over the years. It's interesting how today, on the 40th anniversary, that continues. --Christine (talk) 12:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a fair point; indeed, the issue, something of an elephant in the room, seems to have attracted disconcertingly attention. Regardless of Sesame Street's cultural importance, it's an enormous indictment of Google that the search-engine should ignore the significance of one of the most important moments of the twentieth century; and in *this* context, the protracted celebration of a motley crowd of muppets borders on the polymorphously perverse! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.11 (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Whatever. "Motley crew", eh? Leave your agenda at the door, please. The only response I have comes from our own Jimmy Wales, who is quoted in the marvelous new book, Sesame Street: A Celebration:

The work of Sesame Street, in its own way, is similar to my work in the sense that [it's] fundamentally about universal access to preschool education and my work is universal access to knowledge. We both play a role in what I think has become much bigger than the time when Sesame Street started: the world of informal learning" (p. 303).

I also invite you to come over to my house and watch The Show with my two severely developmentally disabled little kids (which will probably be the DVR recording of today's episode, the first of its 40th season, tomorrow morning, before they go to school) the next time you wonder about the "importance" of Sesame Street. Excuse my emotional reaction, but that's my response to that! Boy, you'd really get along really well with Oscar the Grouch! ;) --Christine (talk) 23:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry. What I said was inappropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.11 (talk) 11:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(I got things out of proportion, and reacted in ridiculously pompous and, in the context, unpleasant way; I very much hope that you and your children enjoy the 40th series, and that Sesame Street continues to do as much good for as many people as it clearly has since 1969.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.11 (talk) 11:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem, don't sweat it. My comments were probably a bit over-the-top as well. I'm Elmo to your Oscar, I'm sure, and one thing The Show teaches us is that we are have a place, even those who don't sign their talk page posts. ;) --Christine (talk) 12:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

-) And I'll say amen to that, Christine! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.11 (talk) 12:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Musical guest list?

Hi! I see that Rolling Stone published a list of notable musical moments from the show. Would a page along the lines of List of Sesame Street Musical Guest Appearances be a useful addition to Wikipedia? Seems like it to me, but I thought I'd check with folks who have spent time on the topic lately. Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 06:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Whoa. I did a little more rummaging and discovered that there are quite a lot of them, and that the Muppet Wikia has them covered, although perhaps not in quite an organized fashion as a list. So perhaps that's good enough. Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 06:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly what Muppet Wiki is for. It's been a tremendously helpful and fun place, but I don't think the SS articles over here should be a cut-and-paste situation from there. For one thing, WP has different (and yes, higher) standards for reliability. That's not discounting all the work they've done, of course, since there should be fan sites of that size. If it's possible to do scholarly work on The Show (and after all my research throughout the past several months, I think it is), it should be done here. Trivia is strongly discouraged here, as you know. One thing I personally feel should not go on here is something like, "Oh, I remember that character or musical guest or that skit on SS when I was three". There's a place for that, of course, and that's Muppet Wiki. That being said, there's nothing more fun than to look at the Wiki list you mention, hunt down some entries on YouTube, and watch them. That's one of the pleasures of working on SS articles. In that same vein, it'd be so cool if, after reading this article, someone thinks, "Oh, I remember that" and go watch it. It brings back lots of warm memories, and it reminds us of the Sesame philosophy that we tend to forget as we get older. Like Tim Goodman, a TV critic in San Francisco, says, everyone should watch SS everyday. (No, I don't have the exact reference, and I have looked.) --Christine (talk) 12:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically, every appearance in the list needs a reference. That's a mighty difficult task, best to stick just with the messy and incomplete but okay, List of guest stars on Sesame Street. -- Zanimum (talk) 18:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Neil Postman

An anonymous IP has added the below quote to this article's "Reception" section. I reverted it because it was a direct quote from Amusing Ourselves to Death. A more appropriate edit would be to summarize Postman's criticism. As a matter of fact, it's my intention to incorporate it, but I just haven't been able to get around to it yet. Therefore, I'm cutting and pasting the quote here, for future use. --Christine (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

One notable critic of Sesame Street's standing as an educational milestone was Neil Postman, who explained in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death that "'Sesame Street' encourages children to love school only if school is like 'Sesame Street.' Which is to say, we now know that 'Sesame Street' undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents. Whereas a classroom is a place of social interaction, the space in front of a television set is a private preserve. Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen. Whereas school is centered on the development of language, television demands attention to images. Whereas attending school is a legal requirement, watching television is an act of choice. Whereas in school, one fails to attend to the teacher at the risk of punishment, no penalties exist for failing to attend to the television screen. Whereas to behave oneself in school means to observe rules of public decorum, television watching requires no such observances, has no concept of public decorum. Whereas in a classroom, fun is never more than a means to an end, on television it is the end in itself."

Removing article too long tag

Could we come to a consensus about the "Article too long" tag that's haunting the top of this article? I really don't think that it is too long: a good portion of the page are Christine's (fantastic and in-depth!) references and footnotes. I know for a fact that there are many other articles that are longer, and I just don't think that the tag is really accurate. Thoughts? Jhfortier (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, thank you! The tag in question was placed when the article was too long, and full of unsourced information. Since then, and as I've been slowly researching and improving this article, I removed the weaker sections and replaced it with my improvements. It's my practice to not remove a tag from an article I'm invested in, to avoid appearances of having a vested interest. I tend to agree with your comment, though, so I wouldn't be opposed to you (or anyone else) removing it. I also wouldn't be opposed to anyone's peer review of an important article related to this one, History of Sesame Street. --Christine (talk) 05:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm an univested-enough party to remove the tag, and will do so. I could start peer-reviewing the History of Sesame Street article next week (I've got evil exams this week) if you want a fresh set of eyes. I haven't peer-reviewed on Wikipedia before, so I *definitely* recommend having at least one more experienced pair of eyes on it, but as far as content, sourcing and copyediting are concerned I can definitely help out. Jhfortier (talk) 06:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've seen you have done that. I'd appreciate the PR. It matters little if you've never PRed before, since you know what an article should and should not have. At this point, the article needs work on its prose, like all my articles tend to need. And no hurries--everyone I've asked are students, too, so I knew it was a bad time to ask. ;) --Christine (talk) 13:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

List of episodes

This seems to be the only TV show we have here on this site that does not have a list of it's episodes so I think we should have a page for each season stating each episode. trainfan01 —Preceding undated comment added 01:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Well, knock yerself out there! I must warn you, though--it's a huge task. Forty seasons, and over 4,000 episodes. It's already been done, though, on Muppet Wiki. [2] Personally, I think that WP isn't the place for that kind of thing, and it certainly isn't something I'd spend my time doing. --Christine (talk) 05:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah I wasn't thinking that there were so many episodes and seasons. I should put your said link into the references section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trainfan01 (talk • contribs) 23:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I've added it now to "External Links". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trainfan01 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have had to remove the link because I clicked on it now and the page came up blank with a message saying it needs content, yet it was not like that yesterday. I have no idea what that was all about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trainfan01 (talk • contribs) 02:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the trouble with using wikis as sources and for external link lists. Now, while there are exceptions, this is exactly why wikis aren't considered reliable sources in Wikipedia. I'm not saying that the Muppet Wiki isn't a good source, because it is, but remember that they're subject to different (and more lax) standards than we are over here. Muppet Wiki serves its purpose and we should serve another. One of my goals for this article (as well as other WP articles about The Show) is to ensure that they follow that standard. Currently, they do not. It seems that I'm the only person with that commitment, so it really depends upon my motivation, energy level (which for the last week, wasn't all that high), and how much fun I'm having. Oh, and please sign your talk page posts. Christine (talk) 11:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I have now managed to reinsert this link and it works fine now. trainfan01 6:53, July 28, 2010 (UTC)

UK broadcast history is WRONG!

please look at this link from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8340141.stm

LWT was NOT the first to broadcast

""So Sesame's Street's first British home was HTV and after one series there it was picked up by London Weekend Television in 1971, where it became a Saturday morning fixture.""

it was in fact welsh ITV company HTV! please get it right —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.136.185 (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

*cough* Additionally, claiming this is the longest running kids' TV programme is wrong: see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_peter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.181.197 (talk) 17:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

And I'll add that since I can neither correct this page either via an "anonymous" IP address nor via my perfectly valid account, that I am now opting to believe Wikipiedia is no use in any educational sense.

Funnily enough, I will not correct any more pages.

1,$s/wikipedia/SmallGroupOfWankers/g

So Long and Thanks For All The Fish,

--A (hopefully) regarded contributor.

I'm a bit confused. It looks like the above comments were made by two editors. To respond to the first comment, this article is in a state of (dis)repair. If you see incorrect information, please correct it, but register for an account first, please. Regarding the second comment, I appreciate the Hitchhiker's reference, but I have no idea what you're talking about. You obviously don't have a clear understanding of Wikipedia policies, and don't wish to gain that education. So enjoy your fish, little dolphin. Christine (talk) 04:53, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

History timeline is messed up

In the History section, the text says 1969, then it says "later in 1968" which doesn't make sense, then it speaks about 1969 again as the show's debut. I think someone had a different date for the proposal, like 1967 or something like that. That first sentence needs to be rewritten with the correct date before 1968, whatever that may be. 24.10.25.152 (talk) 21:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch; I went ahead and made the change. You'll notice that there are all kinds of things "messed up" about the article. It was a FA at one time, but was delisted because it no longer fulfilled the criteria for FAs and because it had been neglected for a few years. Since then, I've taken it upon myself to improve this article and others like it, essentially by myself. For example, I created an article about the seminal book about the early days of Sesame Street, Children and Television, by Gerald Lesser, an important force in The Show's history and early research. I've learned a lot about The Show and had loads of fun, but I tend to be somewhat busy, so it's slow going. I also have other Wiki-projects that I've chosen to go alone, so these days I've been neglecting these articles. This section, which I essentially wrote, was derived from another article I researched and rewrote, History of Sesame Street, which I brought to GA.

All this to say that this article needs serious improving. I invite you to contribute. You can see the to-do list at the top of this talk page. I also recommend that you sign up for a Wikipedia account and learn the project's conventions. For example, it's customary to place new conversations at the end, not the beginning. Again, thanks and welcome to the project. Christine (talk) 12:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)