Early Years
(1966-1979)
Mr. Roger's Neighborhood (1966-2001)
In 1966 Rev. Fred Roger's began production of his signature children's television program that was originally known as Misterogers’ Neighborhood on KQUED Pittsburgh. By 1968 it was being distributed nationally by National Educational Television (NET). After the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) succeeded NET in 1970, the program was renamed Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Mr. Rogers began each episode by changing into one of his trademark cardigan sweaters while singing the show’s theme song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” He then addressed the topic of the day and in the process taught children how to get along with others, feel good about themselves, understand how society functions and cope with their fears. Besides producing, writing the scripts, and serving as host, he wrote about 200 songs (including the theme song) for the program, some 1,000 episodes of which were broadcast between 1968 and 2001.
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The work of the children's educator is continued by the Fred Rogers Company that, in consultation with PBS, produced Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood that drew upon the characters and locations from Rogers’s “Neighborhood of Make-Believe” to introduce a new generation of viewers to Rogers’s social and emotional curriculum.
Sesame Street (1969-Present)
This Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit education organization behind Sesame Street, which has been teaching and inspiring children since its first episode aired on November 10, 1969. Sesame Street’s groundbreaking research-based methods, dedication to entertaining educational content and outreach to families in underserved communities established a legacy for educational television and for public media as a whole. Supported by the two-year old Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Ford Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation, the well-budgeted show drew upon a decade’s worth of experience in TV education to build a new audience: preschoolers.
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“Sesame Street changed the landscape of children’s media at a time when television was viewed as a ‘vast wasteland’ and transformed a medium that strongly appealed to children into a source for knowledge and social development for our youngest citizens,” said Sesame Street co-founder Member Lloyd Morrisett, Jr.
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According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s Sesame Street the show had become "an American institution." The cast and crew expanded during this time, with emphasis on the hiring of women crew members and the addition of minorities to the cast. The show's success continued into the 1980s. Sesame Street's curriculum has expanded to include more affective topics such as relationships, ethics, and emotions. Many of the show's storylines were taken from the experiences of its writing staff, cast, and crew, most notably, the 1982 death of Will Lee—who played Mr. Hooper and the marriage of Luis and Maria in 1988. By the end of the 1990s, Sesame Street faced societal and economic challenges, including changes in viewing habits of young children, competition from other shows, the development of cable television, and a drop in ratings. After the turn of the 21st century, Sesame Street made major structural changes. For example, starting in 2002, its format became more narrative-focused and included ongoing storylines. After its thirtieth anniversary in 1999, due to the popularity of the Muppet Elmo the show also incorporated a popular segment known as "Elmo's World." In 2009, the show was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Emmy for its 40 years on the air.
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n late 2015, in response to "sweeping changes in the media business," and as part of a five-year programming and development deal, premium television service HBO began airing first-run episodes of Sesame Street. Episodes became available on PBS stations and websites nine months after they aired on HBO. The deal allowed Sesame Workshop to produce more episodes, about 35 new episodes per season, compared to the 18 episodes per season it aired previously, and provided the opportunity to create a spinoff series with the Sesame Street Muppets and other educational series.
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When Sesame Street marked its 50th anniversary, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the WGBH Educational Foundation, announced that Sesame Workshop has donated a collection of digitized episodes from the past 50 years of Sesame Street, to be preserved for posterity. Over the next few years, nearly 4,500 episodes from the first 49 seasons of the iconic children’s television program will be incorporated into the AAPB’s extensive archive of public media from across the United States. The Sesame Street collection will be available to view on-site at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and by appointment at WGBH in Boston.
The Electric Company (1971-1977; 2009-2011)
The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series created by Paul Dooley and produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) for PBS in the United States. PBS broadcast 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. After it ceased production in 1977, the program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. Its had roots in Motown, Broadway and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The Electric Company drew attention for six years as the most popular instructional television show. It would win an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Series, and its soundtrack album earned a Grammy. Notable members of the original cast included Morgan Freeman Hattie Winston, an actress and singer who later appeared on the show Becker.
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The Electric Company employed sketch comedy and various other devices to provide an entertaining program to help elementary school children develop their grammar and reading skills. Since it was intended for children who had graduated from CTW's flagship program, Sesame Street, the humor was more mature than what was seen there.
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A new version of the show debuted in 2009 and had similar short animations, sketches, and music videos to those seen in the original show, but each episode also features a story line designed to teach four to five vocabulary words with a mix of hip-hop- or contemporary R&B-style music.
Each story revolves around the Electric Company, a group of tween literacy heroes who battle a group of neighborhood vandals dubbed the Pranksters.
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In the show's nod to the original series, each episode's opening has a Company member or a Prankster to call the others to assemble by yelling "Hey, you guys!" Other nods to the original series include appearances by Paul the Gorilla and updated versions of the soft-shoe silhouette segments in which words are sounded out. The revival includes interactive Web elements and is promoted and extended via community-outreach projects.
Full Episodes
1971-1977
2009-2011
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Episode 1
ZOOM (1972-1978; 1997-2005)
From 1972 through 1978, WGBH produced one of the nation’s most celebrated and best-loved children’s television shows, ZOOM. Aimed at an audience of children from about seven to twelve years of age, ZOOM reached millions through the expanding national public television network of the 1970s. ZOOM’s conceit was that it was a show created by children, for children: young viewers sent in the ideas for its content, while ordinary children from the Boston area (known as ZOOMers) served as its cast members. each week, the cast recited WGBH’s postal address as a poem, ending in song,.
Perhaps two million viewers wrote in to ZOOM to offer advice and ideas or to ask for information about the show, and ZOOM showcased a wide range of their experiences and ideas through such activities as songs, dance, poems and activities. In truth, the adults who created ZOOM had much more of a role in selecting and shaping the material that went into the show than they let on. However, ZOOM reflected the goals of a new generation of producers of children’s programming in the 1970s: to empower young people and to reflect more fully the diversity of American children’s experiences.
Adults were generally enchanted by ZOOM. Press
coverage of the series was very positive, and ZOOM won Emmys for children’s programming in 1973, 1974, and 1977.5 Many parents also commended the series. One California mother praised its liberating models of boyhood for her teenage sons: “It’s good for boys to see other boys who are not afraid to dance, and sing, and play clapping games. Those children represent the spontaneous creative, intelligent people we want our children to become.” A Minnesota mother explained that she found the show’s lack of rudeness refreshing: “I am a Christian and I am fussy about TV shows. I’m thankful you don’t use such words as ‘Shut up’ and the other slang words.”6 As many other parents contended, ZOOM offered a refuge from the commercialization of children’s media.
For the children who were its central audience, ZOOM felt like a community of friends. ZOOM’s call for viewer-produced content encouraged young people to see themselves as competent. Anyone could try the crafts and games that ZOOMers demonstrated; anyone could send ZOOM a joke or a riddle. Although the weekly song and dance performances were choreographed, they were obviously performed by amateurs. The inclusion of ZOOMers and ZOOMguests of varied races, religions, regions, and interests further encouraged many young viewers to feel represented by children like themselves.
Over the course of six seasons, the series effectively served as a national cultural clearinghouse for information and activities of interest to American children. Many children who watched ZOOM in the 1970s later described the series as an important cultural benchmark of their youth. The series inspired a second-generation PBS remake, also produced at WGBH (1999-2005), whose audience included some of the sons and daughters of its original fans. Now, instead of sending letters through the U.S. postal service, children could connect with the show via electronic “zmail.” More recently, in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, former ZOOMers from both series contributed ideas for creative stay-at-home activities in the spirit of the original television program.
1972-1978
Full Episodes
1999-2005
