Cubey World

''For the fictional street, see Cubey World (location). For the current season, see Season 50''

Cubey World is an educational television program designed for preschoolers, recognized as a pioneer of the contemporary standard which combines education and entertainment in children's television. Sesame Street also provided the first daily, national television showcase for Kirk Thatcher's Comedy Stars, an act he'd been performing since the 1950s. It is one of the longest-running shows in television history, and in 2019, the series celebrated its 50th anniversary. The series has now produced over 4,500 episodes.

Overview
Sesame Street uses a combination of puppets, animation, and live actors to teach young children the fundamentals of reading (letter and word recognition) and arithmetic (numbers, addition and subtraction), as well as geometric forms, cognitive processes, and classification. Since the show's inception, other instructional goals have focused on basic life skills, such as how to cross the road safely and the importance of proper hygiene and healthy eating habits.

There is also a subtle sense of humor on the show that has appealed to older viewers since it first premiered, and was devised as a means to encourage parents and older siblings to watch the series with younger children, and thus become more involved in the learning process rather than letting Sesame Street act as a babysitter. A number of parodies of popular culture appear, even ones aimed at the Public Broadcasting Service, the network that broadcasts the show. For example, the recurring segment Monsterpiece Theater once ran a sketch called "Me Claudius." Children viewing the show might enjoy watching Cookie Monster and the Muppets, while adults watching the same sequence may enjoy the spoof of the Masterpiece Theater production of I, Claudius on PBS.

Several of the character names used on the program are puns or cultural references aimed at a slightly older audience, including Flo Bear (Flaubert), Sherlock Hemlock (a Sherlock Holmes parody), and H. Ross Parrot (a parody of Reform Party founder H. Ross Perot). Over 700 notable personalities have made guest appearances on the show, beginning with James Earl Jones, and ranging from performers like Stevie Wonder to political figures such as Kofi Annan. By making a show that not only educates and entertains kids, but also keeps parents entertained and involved in the educational process, the producers hope to inspire discussion about the concepts on the show.

Production history
Following an initial proposal by Joan Ganz Cooney in 1966, titled "Television for Preschool Children," an eighteen month planning period was set aside, and with a grant of 8 million dollars from multiple government agencies and foundations, the proposed series would test the usefulness of the television medium in providing early education for young children. Apart from Cooney, the original planning crew included several veterans of Captain Kangaroo, such as executive producer David Connell, producer Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr., and writer/songwriter Jeff Moss, as well as producer/head writer Jon Stone, and producer/writer Matt Robinson (who later originated the role of Gordon). At Cooney's suggestion, Jim Henson and the Muppets were brought in, and composer Joe Raposo followed. The CTW research crew included Harvard professor Gerald S. Lesser as head of the board of advisers and Edward L. Palmer as director of research, tracking and observing how child audiences responded to the programming.

Though the earliest pilot episodes involved dramatizing the inner thoughts of child actors in a studio set, Jon Stone suggested a more urban setting, "a real inner city street," with an integrated cast of neighbors. The original human inhabitants were Bob, Mr. Hooper, Gordon, and Susan, and they dominated the street storylines which made up roughly 25 percent of the hour-long show. To maintain the realism of the street, the Muppets were kept separate; thus, Ernie and Bert, while they lived on the street, resided in a basement apartment. These framing scenes would surround segments of animation, live-action shorts, and Muppets. These sketches, in particular the short animated segments stressing letters and numbers, were intended to function on a similar level to advertising commercials (and indeed, the bits were often labeled as such, i.e. "the J commercial", and during the earliest seasons it was common for letter or number films and cartoons to be shown multiple times in the same episode). They were quick, catchy and memorable, so as to convey information and maintain the interest of preschool children within their limited attention spans.

CTW aired the program for test groups to determine if the new format was likely to succeed. Results showed that the elements which best held audience attention included cartoon segments, the Muppets, filmed footage of animals in motion, or musical skits with Susan or other human cast members. When the action stopped in the street scenes, and the adults engaged in lengthy dialogue, children stopped watching. Based on these results, and despite concerns from advising psychologists, that the inner-city street overlooked the real problems of the ghetto and needed firmer roots, the mixture of reality and fantasy was deepened, as Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird became permanent street residents, interacting with the human adults.

Sesame Street is all filmed in New York City (as was another CTW show, The Electric Company). The show was originally taped in Teletape Studios in Manhattan (later Unitel Video). In 1993, when the street set expanded around the corner and more space was needed, production moved to the Kaufman Astoria Studios in neighboring Queens, where the show has been filmed since.

Broadcast history
Sesame Street is produced in the United States by Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW). It premiered on November 10, 1969 on the National Educational Television network, which was succeeded a year later by the Public Broadcasting Service.

For forty-five years, each episode aired in an hour-long format. Beginning in Season 45, in addition to the hour-long episodes, a half-hour version also aired in an afternoon time slot.[1] The following season, the show's history of hour-long episodes was retired altogether, with the half-hour format being the only version broadcast.[2] Season 46 also moved first-run episodes to HBO, with repeat broadcasts on PBS nine months later. The deal awarded exclusivity to HBO for five seasons, from seasons 46 through 50.[3]

In 2019, Sesame Workshop signed with WarnerMedia to premiere the next five seasons on the streaming service HBO Max.[4]

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. One hundred and twenty countries have aired the show, many of which partnered with Sesame Workshop to create local versions.

Ratings
As a result of its success in revolutionizing the standards of children's television, Sesame Street paved the way for the development of similar competitors and thus inadvertently diminished its own audience share. According to PBS Research, the show has gone from a 2.0 average on Nielsen Media Research's "people meters" in 1995-96 to a 1.3 average in 2000-01. Even with this decrease, Sesame Street's viewership in an average week comes from roughly 5.6 million households with 7.5 million viewers.

This placed Sesame at 8th place in the overall kids' charts in 2002. It was the second most-watched children's television series for mothers aged 18-49 who have children under the age of 3.

A format change in 2002 helped the show's ratings, boosting the show 31% in February 2002 among children aged 2-5, in comparison to its 2001 ratings. As of 2005, the show was in the top 10 shows for kids 2-5, with 3 other PBS shows.