Film director Marilyn Agrelo was a little older than the target age group for Sesame Street when it first aired in 1969.
But, she says, she immediately became aware of the show.
"It was a phenomenon," Agrelo tells RN's The Drawing Room.
"It was watched by university students, high school students."
Agrelo says she watched it and fell in love with characters including Oscar the Grouch.
But it was only when she began the process of making Street Gang, her new documentary charting the first 20 years of Sesame Street, that she realised how meticulously researched this seemingly chaotic show had been.
"They figured out what would hold kids attention, what would be most effective at teaching them," she says.
For example, she says, researchers at the time had found that children were learning to sing jingles from TV ads.
"They took this kind of research and they matched it up with world-class comedy writers," Agrelo says.
"This combination of these two forces was something that had never been done before for children's television."
No ordinary kids show
These days, Jim Henson's name is associated with creating some of our best-loved children's characters.
But prior to joining Sesame Street, Henson really had no interest in going into children's programming.
In the 1960s, Henson was performing with his Muppets characters on late-night talk shows. He was also directing experimental short films and TV commercials, having become known for his comically violent advertisements for Wilkins Coffee.
"He had a very dark humour," Agrelo says. "His sensibility was not a children's sensibility at all."
But Sesame Street was no ordinary kids show.
"The writers that wrote for this show were from the worlds of adult comedy," Agrelo says.
"The musicians who played on Sesame Street were the top jazz, blues [and] rock musicians in New York."
Agrelo says up until the arrival of the show, children's programming in the US was mainly designed to sell toys, candy and breakfast cereals.
But with Sesame Street, the producers wanted to do something radical.
"They wanted to create something that would resonate with black and brown children in the inner cities, who didn't have the same opportunities as white kids did in the suburbs," Agrelo says.
"They wanted to create something that would just blow that open — and something that had never been seen before."
TV show aimed for 'radical change'
Agrelo says the creators of Sesame Street came from the era of the civil rights movement.
"They were very influenced by it, particularly Joan Ganz Cooney, who was the initial creator of the show, and they really wanted to make a radical change in society," Agrelo says.
In the 1960s, children in America's inner cities faced significant disadvantages.
Sesame Street, Agrelo says, was created for them.
"If white kids in the suburbs tuned in, that was great, but the show was really for black children in the inner city," Agrelo says.
Even the streetscape itself was based on the inner-city streets of New York City.
The show's choice of guest stars could also be radical. For example, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson appeared on Sesame Street in 1972.
"He comes on Sesame Street with his big afro and his medallion around his neck and he leads these kids in a empowering almost like a black power chant, and it's amazing to see," Agrelo says.
But when Sesame Street first aired, not everyone was ready for such revolutionary television.
"In Jackson, Mississippi, many parents called in to the TV station complaining about the mixed-race cast," Agrelo says.
"There were many black characters … and they were not prepared to show that to their kids or to look at it themselves."
The local station pulled the program off air. The controversy became national news.
"A commercial station recognised the value of Sesame Street and they aired it, and eventually the overwhelming demand for this programming took over and the public station put it on the air," Agrelo says.
Changing with the times
Sesame Street was very much a product of its time, Agrelo says, and times have changed.
"I think things have gotten a bit more careful," she says.
"I think that the humour that was employed in Sesame Street was very cutting edge … there was also a lot of social commentary in that humour."
But Sesame Street can still cause controversy. Last year Big Bird posted on Twitter about his COVID vaccination. Republican senator Ted Cruz described the tweet as "government propaganda for your five-year-old".
Agrelo says Sesame Street is still progressive but believes the first 20 years of the show, covered in the documentary, are "special".
"It was so new, so passionate and so intentional," she says.
"They really wanted to make society better."
All that passion came at a cost for the show's creators, who worked long hours to create 140 hours of television a year.
"They were really absent parents and marriages dissolved. There was so much that they gave to the show, to this enterprise, they were so committed to it.
"They really thought they were doing something to change the world. And they did."
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