The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an absurdist, surrealist, burlesque, and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they have become a media franchise encompassing children's films, television, music, and other media associated with the characters. Owned by the Jim Henson Company for nearly five decades, the characters of the Muppets franchise were acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2004.
Sesame Street is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop and was created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. It is known for its images communicated through the use of Jim Henson's Muppets, and includes short films, with humor and cultural references. It premiered on November 10, 1969, to positive reviews, some controversy, and high viewership. It has aired on the United States national public television provider PBS since its debut, with its first run moving to premium channel HBO on January 16, 2016, then its sister streaming service (HBO) Max in 2020.
Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-known, Sesame Street—that have been televised internationally. Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett developed the idea to form an organization to produce the Sesame Street television series. They spent two years, from 1966 to 1968, researching, developing, and raising money for the new series. Cooney was named as the Workshop's first executive director, which was termed "one of the most important television developments of the decade."
The preschool educational television program Sesame Street was first aired on public television stations on November 10, 1969, and reached its 54th season in 2023. The history of Sesame Street has reflected changing attitudes to developmental psychology, early childhood education, and cultural diversity. Featuring Jim Henson's Muppets, animation, live shorts, humor and celebrity appearances, it was the first television program of its kind to base its content and production values on laboratory and formative research, and the first to include a curriculum "detailed or stated in terms of measurable outcomes". Initial responses to the show included adulatory reviews, some controversy and high ratings. By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was broadcast in over 120 countries, and 20 independent international versions had been produced. It has won eleven Grammys and over 150 Emmys in its history—more than any other children's show.
The Jim Henson Company, formerly known as Muppets, Inc., Henson Associates, Inc., and Jim Henson Productions, Inc., is an American entertainment company located in Los Angeles, California. The company is known for its innovations in the field of puppetry, particularly through the creation of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets characters.
Oobi is an American children's television series produced by Little Airplane Productions for the Noggin channel. The show's concept is based on a training method used by puppeteers, in which they use their hands and a pair of glass eyes instead of a full puppet. The main character is a bare hand puppet named Oobi. The first season was a series of two-minute shorts. For its second and third seasons, it became a long-form series, with episodes lasting 13 minutes each. The show originally aired from 2000 to February 11, 2005, with reruns continuing until March 18, 2013.
Play with Me Sesame is an American children's television series, created by Sesame Workshop and Nickelodeon for their former joint venture Noggin. It is a spin-off of Sesame Street hosted by Ernie, Bert, Prairie Dawn, and Grover. The series' backgrounds and animated elements were made by Nickelodeon Digital in New York City. Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop developed the show to expand on Sesame Street by directly encouraging young viewers to interact with the characters. To do this, they combined classic Sesame Street sketches with new segments, where the hosts invite preschoolers to join them in games.
Stephanie Ann D'Abruzzo is an American actress, puppeteer and singer. She has performed various Muppets in the TV program Sesame Street. She held starring roles on the children's TV shows Oobi and The Book of Pooh.
Cro is an American animated television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop and Film Roman. It was partially funded by the National Science Foundation. Every episode has an educational theme, introducing basic concepts of physics, mechanical engineering, and technology. The show's narrator is an orange woolly mammoth named Phil, who was found frozen in ice by a scientist named Dr. C and her assistant, Mike. After they defrost him, Phil tells both of them about life in the Ice Age, including stories about his friend Cro, a Cro-Magnon boy.
Big Kids is a 13-episode children's comedy television series created by Lucy Daniel-Raby. The series was a British-American co-production of the BBC and the US network Noggin. It premiered on CBBC on BBC One on 27 September 2000 and on the Noggin channel on 29 January 2001. All 13 episodes were aired on Noggin's sister channel, Nickelodeon, from 9 to 30 March 2001.
The Upside Down Show is a children's television series produced by Blink Films and Sesame Workshop. It was made for Noggin, a channel co-founded by Sesame Workshop. The series is set in a strange apartment building where the doors lead to a variety of unusual rooms. It is presented by brothers David and Shane, who live in the apartment building with their sidekick Puppet, their neighbor Mrs. Foil, and a group of fuzzy creatures called the Schmuzzies. In each episode, David gives the viewers an imaginary remote control that affects the characters and their surroundings.
Two syndication packages of Sesame Street episodes, titled Sesame Street Unpaved and 123 Sesame Street, were produced by the Noggin cable channel in 1999. At the time, Sesame Workshop co-owned Noggin and many of the company's older programs were replayed on the channel. Unpaved aired until 2002, and 123 aired until 2005.
Rechov Sumsum is the Israeli adaptation of the U.S. children's show of the same name.
Noggin was an American edutainment brand that launched on February 2, 1999. It was co-founded by MTV Networks and Sesame Workshop. It started out as a cable television channel and a website, both centered around the concepts of imagination, creativity, and education. From 2015 to 2024, Noggin was a streaming service.
The N was a prime time and late-night programming block on the Noggin television channel, aimed at preteens and teenagers. It was launched on April 1, 2002, by MTV Networks and Sesame Workshop.
