Play with Me Sesame | |
---|---|
Genre | Children's television series |
Based on | Sesame Street by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett |
Developed by | Jocelyn Hassenfeld Karen Kuflik |
Presented by | Steve Whitmire Eric Jacobson Fran Brill David Rudman John Tartaglia Martin P. Robinson |
Music by | Michael Ungar Russell Velazquez |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 104 |
Production | |
Producers | Tom Ascheim Alyssa Cooper Dana Greengross Kenny Miller Jodi Nussbaum Sarah Tomassi Lindman |
Production locations | Kaufman Astoria Studios, New York |
Camera setup | Videotape, Multi-camera |
Running time | 24 minutes |
Production companies | Nick Digital [1] Noggin LLC Sesame Workshop |
Original release | |
Network | Noggin Sprout |
Release | April 1, 2002 – September 2, 2007 |
Related | |
Sesame Street Elmo's World |
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 [1] 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. The series combines classic Sesame Street sketches with new segments, where the hosts invite preschoolers to join them in games.
The show began development in 1999, when the Jim Henson Company still co-owned the rights to the Sesame characters. To start production, Nickelodeon had to seek approval from Henson. Kidscreen reported that "the series marks the first time a State-side entity other than Sesame Workshop has been given permission by Henson to use the Sesame Street Muppets." [2] Noggin shot footage of the characters on a green screen, and animators at Nick Digital added in new graphics. Many of the background designs in Play with Me Sesame were simultaneously used in Nickelodeon's Moose and Zee interstitials.
Play with Me Sesame premiered on April 1, 2002 and ran for three seasons. The show was heavily linked with Noggin's website, featuring a regular segment where computer games from the site were played. At its launch, it was announced that Play with Me Sesame would continue to be produced for Noggin through 2009, [3] but the show instead wrapped in 2007. It last aired on Noggin on September 2, 2007. Reruns moved to PBS Kids Sprout, where it aired until May 14, 2016.
Play with Me Sesame was the first long-form preschool series created by and for Noggin. The show encourages its young viewers to join in on the movement and learning they see onscreen, making television an active experience rather than a passive one. The format was meant to mimic a child's playdate. Tom Ascheim, one of the show's producers and the general manager of Noggin, said "all the things kids do—running around, coloring, playing computer games—are funneled into the experience." [4]
The show's backgrounds and animated elements were created at Nickelodeon Digital [1] in New York. These include the title sequence, the Sesame Computer game segments, and the background designs. The background designs, many of which resemble a child's crayon drawings, are the same ones featured in Noggin's Moose and Zee interstitials. Some of the designs (such as a lion, a dinosaur, and a bird) were featured as part of Noggin's channel logo, both in promotions for Play with Me Sesame and in general use. Sesame Workshop lists Nickelodeon Animation Studio and its former name, Games Productions, as a "project partner" for the series. [5]
The third season's credits list Nickelodeon's parent company, Viacom, as the owner of the "Play with Me" trademark. [6] Play with Me Sesame is unique in that it was a specially made co-production of Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop, [7] rather than a syndication package like Noggin's previous collections of Sesame Street segments.
Nickelodeon extensively promoted the launch of Play with Me Sesame in 2002. Their marketing team created a musical infomercial, performed by Grover and called the "Grover Song," as a sample of the Play with Me Sesame format. In the infomercial, Play with Me Sesame is highlighted as the main attraction of Noggin's lineup, and Grover sings about the different Nickelodeon characters seen on Noggin. The infomercial was aired across all of Nickelodeon's networks throughout spring 2002. In July 2003, the "Grover Song" infomercial won a Mark Award for brand image and awareness. [8]
The show premiered on April 1, 2002. Its premiere was part of a major rebranding of Noggin. [9] When the show's first season was airing, it was Noggin's only original half-hour show for preschoolers; all others were short-form interstitials or simply reruns from Nickelodeon and Sesame's archives. In 2003, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Noggin "filled its days with old episodes of Sesame Street, several Nick Jr. shows and one new series, Play With Me Sesame."
On April 6, 2002, MTV Networks launched a live version of the Play with Me Sesame series. [10] It featured walk-around characters of Bert, Ernie, and Grover performing interactive skits and songs from the show. Marketed as Noggin's Play with Me Sesame Mall Tour, the live show was presented at malls in nine cities. [11] It became a finalist in the 2003 Beacon Awards [12] and received national coverage on CBS's news program The Early Show . [13]
Tom Ascheim said, "We are very excited to bring Play with Me Sesame to local markets across the US...Play with Me Sesame gives kids a whole new way to Sesame with their favorite characters—Bert, Ernie and Grover—and we are confident it will be a hit on Noggin and in the malls." [14]
Pam Arciero, Lisa Buckley, Tyler Bunch, Tim Lagasse, Jim Martin, Carmen Osbahr, and Matt Vogel are also credited as additional puppeteers. The classic Muppet footage features performances by a wide variety of Muppet performers, but they are not listed in the credits.
Nancy Davis Kho of Common Sense Media said that the show "exhibits the high-quality, thoughtful programming that parents have come to expect from Sesame Street," while also taking note that "a smattering of more sophisticated humor in the dialog is a nod to the parents who will likely be watching." [15]
The series' episodes were released onto DVD in the end of 2007 by Genius Entertainment. [16] In Australia and Oceanic territories, the show was released on VHS and DVD by Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Roadshow Entertainment.
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."
Sesame Park is the Canadian version of Sesame Street co-produced by Sesame Workshop and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Nick Jr. is an American morning programming block that airs on Nickelodeon every weekday. It was launched on January 4, 1988. Nick Jr. features a lineup of shows aimed at children aged 2 through 8.
Sesamstraße is a German children's television series that airs primarily in Germany and the surrounding German-speaking countries. It is a spin-off of the first preschool programme Sesame Street. The show has been running on Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) since 1973, premiering on 8 January in that year. Sesamstraße is also shown on the children's channel, KiKa. It is made for children between the ages of three and seven.
Ulitsa Sezam is the Russian production of the children's television program Sesame Street. The show was first released in 1996 and went off the air in 2010.
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.
Julie on Sesame Street was a variety special broadcast in the United States on ABC on November 23, 1973 at 9 PM ET / PT. Sponsored on ABC by technology/telecommunications conglomerate GTE, the special starred Julie Andrews and Perry Como, and they were joined by several of Jim Henson's Muppets from the PBS children's series, Sesame Street. No human members of the Sesame Street cast appeared in this special. Andrews and "special guest star" Como interacted with the Muppet characters, sharing comedic banter and singing songs such as "It's Not Easy Being Green" and "Picture a World" on the Sesame Street "neighborhood" set.
Vila Sésamo is a Brazilian co-production of the first preschool television programme Sesame Street. As of 2009 it airs on TV Rá-Tim-Bum. As of 2016, similar to Plaza Sésamo, new seasons air under the title Sésamo. The series debuted on October 12, 1972, moving from TV Cultura to SKY Play on June 25, 2020.
Galli Galli Sim Sim is the Hindi language adaptation of the American children's television series Sesame Street, for India. The show debuted in 2006.
Sesame Street... 20 Years & Still Counting is a 1989 television special celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Sesame Street. Hosted by Bill Cosby, the special aired on Friday, April 7, 1989, on NBC.
Pamela Arciero is an American puppeteer and voice-over artist. She has performed for Between the Lions and Sesame Street, playing Oscar the Grouch's girlfriend Grundgetta in the latter. In addition to performance work, she worked as a director on the Noggin preschool series Oobi, which featured both writers and performers of Sesame Street. She is also the Artistic Director of the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.
Tim Lagasse is an American puppeteer, puppet designer, actor and director. He has worked on films and television programs for Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, Disney XD, and HBO. He is known for playing the title character on Noggin's Oobi, and Crash on Disney XD's Crash & Bernstein.
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.
A wide variety of characters have appeared on the American children's television series Sesame Street. Many of the characters are Muppets, which are puppets made in Jim Henson's distinctive puppet-creation style. Most of the non-Muppet characters are human characters, but there are many characters that are animated.
Bert and Ernie are two Muppet characters who appear together in numerous skits on the PBS/HBO children's television show Sesame Street. Ernie acts the role of the naïve troublemaker, while Bert is the world-weary foil.
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.
Tom Ascheim is an American television producer and executive. He most recently served president of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics from July 1, 2020 until May 11, 2022. From 1998 to 2003, Ascheim was the general manager of Noggin, which started as a tween-targeted channel co-owned by Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop. Ascheim later held several executive roles for both Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop. From 2013 to 2020, he was the president of the cable channel ABC Family, which was renamed Freeform in 2016.
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.
The newest addition to that sked is Noggin-produced series Play With Me Sesame... the series marks the first time a State-side entity other than Sesame Workshop has been given permission by Henson to use the Sesame Street Muppets.