It's Zed! Thank you for bringing this to life! You're probably the only UK UA-camr covering Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary, new episodes were shown on Cartoonito a few years ago, but when ratings declined like on Channel 4, they threw in the towel.
I was in one of the first generations in the UK to miss out on Sesame Street in it's original form. I was born in 2000, the year before Channel 4 took it off, but I did watch The Hoobs as well as Play With Me Sesame and Elmo's World. I knew all the characters and what the show was because even in the UK it was unescapable but until a few years ago I had no idea why I never saw Sesame Street in it's original form. My older sister and parents watched it, because I'm in what was the Granada region which was one of the first regions to pick it up.
RTE television in Ireland started shown Sesame Street in 1976 or 1977 on Saturday Mornings at 10am (the first programme of the day) and Monday Afternoons at 4pm (also, the first programme of the day)
ITV Also had Rainbow (Thames Television’s answer to Sesame Street!) and “Pipkins” (which was called “Indico Pipkin” for it’s first few series, was ATV made and had Hartley Hare in it!)
The big four ITV regions had a go at there own educational children's programmes after the success of Sesame Street. Thames had Rainbow 1972-1992, ATV had Pipkins (formally Inigo Pipkin) 1973-1981, Granada had Hickory House 1973-1977 and Yorkshire had Mister Trimble 1975-1977. Out of the four only Rainbow is still fondly remembered and fairly iconic although I don't think it (or any of the others) were broadcast outside the UK and younger generations are more likely to have heard of Big Bird and Oscar than Zippy and Bungle. Pipkins comes close but it's still miles off and actually it tackled the subject of death before Sesame Street did because George Woodbridge (who played Inigo Pipkin) died in 1973 and they brought it up in the series in 1974, Will Lee (who played Mr Hooper on Sesame Street) died in 1982 and they brought it up in that series in 1983.
I have this memory of getting really upset (like, on the verge of tears) during one particular episode of Sememe Street that had been bought to me that mid 1990's morning by the letter *zee* I remember running up to mum and screaming about how the people on the tv kept saying the letter wrong...
I used to watch it on channel 4 every weekend as child, it was good not my favourite show but still good. Better than a lot of the stuff out now for children.
You know, I've always been a little bit fascinated by Sesame Street, mainly in how it works, like from how Big Bird is performed to how Elmo got his voice. And of course I now work part-time as an Intern at my local PBS station, which is actually a Network of Two stations serving the Northeast side of Tennessee.
The PBS structure is fascinating, I saw one station in Florida back in 1999, their size and resources made Border Television look like BBC One. But, the people running it loved what they did, there was a real have a go spirit and a keenness to try anything. You don't get that at the any big TV corporation.
@@stuartkenny7430 This was mainly due to how Television was never a public service first in the US. It was always a commercial interest, and education came last. It's why early educational stations that began in the 50's and 60's had practically nowhere to go but hoped they would get the necessary finding to stay alive. It was a long road for these stations to travel. The current public television map in America was shakes by how stations were either operated locally by colleges or city non-profit organizations while others were state-wide commissioned efforts to being these programs to every corner of the state.
Some of my earliest memories are of coming home from school at lunchtime and watching Sesame Street. I lived right across the road from my Primary school so they were happy for me to eat at home every day. I got to watch Sesame Street every day on channel 4 so no complaints from me 👌🏻
I'm very sad to hear about your country's complicated history with the most well-known children's educational franchise ever put out by us Americans. Although I'm pleased to hear about The Furchester Hotel and how it manages to properly translate that franchise to British children. (We Americans would most likely get that version on HBO Max, considering the streamer's current pact with Sesame Workshop.)
Thames rejected it at first in favour of doing their own thing with Rainbow, but they took it on sometime in the late 70's/early 80's, actually sharing broadcasting it in London with LWT. Another region that nearly missed out on it was Channel Television, they didn't start broadcasting until 12 noon. It was only when their network feed changed from TSW's to TVS's in 1986, they were obliged to start early. It only lasted a year on Channel before it jumped to Channel 4. Oh, and TVS, TSW and Central took it on from their defeated incumbents from 1982 onwards.
The 'zed / zee' thing never bothered me as a child - but a promo when I was 5 or 6 with Big Ben wishing all children in the YorkSHYre region a Merry Christmas really bothered me - 'It's YorkSHER isnt it Dad?'
Also Public Access wasn't a thing until 71 I believe? I may be wrong, but there were some preschool shows on Regular commercial TV here, like Romper Room and Ding Dong School
Sesame Street started under the auspices of National Educational Television. PBS took over a year later, they were a result of a merger between National Educational Television and other smaller stations. It's a tad more complicated than that, but that's it in layman's terms.
In the US, local children's programming would've been produced by local TV stations that were either affiliated with a network like CBS or NBC or was independent. Before cable TV, this was every standard for us Americans, cable TV brought public Access later in, but wasn't quite the same idea as it wasn't as mainstream as local VHF/UHF stations were in being more accessible.
Growing up near Detroit, we were right across the river from Windsor, Ontario, and so we received Canadian television stations. Therefore, not only could we watch Sesame Street on PBS at 10 AM, we could also switch over to CBC at 11 AM for the not very imaginatively named Canadian Sesame Street. This was the early-to-mid eighties, before Sesame Park or whatever the hell they came up with later started airing in Canada. Canadian Sesame Street was much like the American version, except all of the segments that taught Spanish taught French instead, and there would be inserts of Canadian cultural stuff here and there. But one of the main differences was - you guessed it - any segments involving the alphabet had to teach us A-to-Zed instead of A-to-Zee. This, along with Mr. Dressup and Polka Dot Door insisting on this weird ZED word, made five-year-old me very angry. (Either that, or I deliberately said “zed” instead of “zee” just to be a little smartass to my bitchy kindergarten teacher. Possibly both.)
Canadian Sesame Street pretty much started that way before they began adding in new puppets just for their version like Basil the bear by the end of the 80's and later used for Sesame Park.
It's really weird that while the rest of the world adores Sesame Street the UK just never seems to have gotten its collective head round it. I watched it during the late ITV era and into the C4 run and loved it but it's now been over 20 years since it vanished and it doesn't seem to be missed. It's doubly weird because the UK adores the Muppets, and seemingly anything with them in that ISN'T Sesame Street - including spin-offs OF Sesame Street - gets broadcast here like everywhere else and everyone seems very happy about it.
I suppose if an ITV franchisee had taken it on, it probably would have been set in their region. ATV would have set it in Birmingham, Yorkshire in Leeds, Granada in Manchester.
@@applemask If ATV had done a British Sesame Street, they'll have taped it at Elstree and set it in London, they did The Muppet Show at Elstree, so why not? Having said that, Granada or Yorkshire would have done good with Sesame Street.
It's Zed!
Thank you for bringing this to life! You're probably the only UK UA-camr covering Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary, new episodes were shown on Cartoonito a few years ago, but when ratings declined like on Channel 4, they threw in the towel.
s a that
Zee
@Lord Dookster
Loool
@Lord Dookster
Oh bloody hell... 🤣
Every Saturday I use to watch Sesame Street in The UK and I never miss an episode and that's my Education from America to The UK!!!
I was in one of the first generations in the UK to miss out on Sesame Street in it's original form. I was born in 2000, the year before Channel 4 took it off, but I did watch The Hoobs as well as Play With Me Sesame and Elmo's World. I knew all the characters and what the show was because even in the UK it was unescapable but until a few years ago I had no idea why I never saw Sesame Street in it's original form.
My older sister and parents watched it, because I'm in what was the Granada region which was one of the first regions to pick it up.
RTE television in Ireland started shown Sesame Street in 1976 or 1977 on Saturday Mornings at 10am (the first programme of the day) and Monday Afternoons at 4pm (also, the first programme of the day)
Oh, and RIP Caroll Spinney, who was Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for nearly 50 years. www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50705508
Another great documentary, Matthew. Keep it coming!
ITV Also had Rainbow (Thames Television’s answer to Sesame Street!) and “Pipkins” (which was called “Indico Pipkin” for it’s first few series, was ATV made and had Hartley Hare in it!)
The big four ITV regions had a go at there own educational children's programmes after the success of Sesame Street. Thames had Rainbow 1972-1992, ATV had Pipkins (formally Inigo Pipkin) 1973-1981, Granada had Hickory House 1973-1977 and Yorkshire had Mister Trimble 1975-1977. Out of the four only Rainbow is still fondly remembered and fairly iconic although I don't think it (or any of the others) were broadcast outside the UK and younger generations are more likely to have heard of Big Bird and Oscar than Zippy and Bungle. Pipkins comes close but it's still miles off and actually it tackled the subject of death before Sesame Street did because George Woodbridge (who played Inigo Pipkin) died in 1973 and they brought it up in the series in 1974, Will Lee (who played Mr Hooper on Sesame Street) died in 1982 and they brought it up in that series in 1983.
I have this memory of getting really upset (like, on the verge of tears) during one particular episode of Sememe Street that had been bought to me that mid 1990's morning by the letter *zee*
I remember running up to mum and screaming about how the people on the tv kept saying the letter wrong...
I used to watch it on channel 4 every weekend as child, it was good not my favourite show but still good. Better than a lot of the stuff out now for children.
Hey Bob The Fish, I was just wondering when is The Kids Are Alright series is going to be on UA-cam?
You know, I've always been a little bit fascinated by Sesame Street, mainly in how it works, like from how Big Bird is performed to how Elmo got his voice. And of course I now work part-time as an Intern at my local PBS station, which is actually a Network of Two stations serving the Northeast side of Tennessee.
The PBS structure is fascinating, I saw one station in Florida back in 1999, their size and resources made Border Television look like BBC One. But, the people running it loved what they did, there was a real have a go spirit and a keenness to try anything. You don't get that at the any big TV corporation.
@@stuartkenny7430 This was mainly due to how Television was never a public service first in the US. It was always a commercial interest, and education came last. It's why early educational stations that began in the 50's and 60's had practically nowhere to go but hoped they would get the necessary finding to stay alive. It was a long road for these stations to travel. The current public television map in America was shakes by how stations were either operated locally by colleges or city non-profit organizations while others were state-wide commissioned efforts to being these programs to every corner of the state.
The one thing I learned from Sesame Street is black people exist. I had a very sheltered and white infancy.
Some of my earliest memories are of coming home from school at lunchtime and watching Sesame Street. I lived right across the road from my Primary school so they were happy for me to eat at home every day. I got to watch Sesame Street every day on channel 4 so no complaints from me 👌🏻
Pretty sure it was shown for much longer in Ireland - at least it felt like that in the 1970s.
I'm very sad to hear about your country's complicated history with the most well-known children's educational franchise ever put out by us Americans. Although I'm pleased to hear about The Furchester Hotel and how it manages to properly translate that franchise to British children. (We Americans would most likely get that version on HBO Max, considering the streamer's current pact with Sesame Workshop.)
Bear in mind that had there been no Sesame Street, there would have been no Rainbow.
Thames rejected it at first in favour of doing their own thing with Rainbow, but they took it on sometime in the late 70's/early 80's, actually sharing broadcasting it in London with LWT.
Another region that nearly missed out on it was Channel Television, they didn't start broadcasting until 12 noon. It was only when their network feed changed from TSW's to TVS's in 1986, they were obliged to start early. It only lasted a year on Channel before it jumped to Channel 4.
Oh, and TVS, TSW and Central took it on from their defeated incumbents from 1982 onwards.
When Did Channel Television get to Sesame Street?
Channel took it from April 4th 1984.
Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
Nice dual reference! 😉👌🏾
The 'zed / zee' thing never bothered me as a child - but a promo when I was 5 or 6 with Big Ben wishing all children in the YorkSHYre region a Merry Christmas really bothered me - 'It's YorkSHER isnt it Dad?'
Also Public Access wasn't a thing until 71 I believe? I may be wrong, but there were some preschool shows on Regular commercial TV here, like Romper Room and Ding Dong School
Sesame Street started under the auspices of National Educational Television. PBS took over a year later, they were a result of a merger between National Educational Television and other smaller stations. It's a tad more complicated than that, but that's it in layman's terms.
In the US, local children's programming would've been produced by local TV stations that were either affiliated with a network like CBS or NBC or was independent. Before cable TV, this was every standard for us Americans, cable TV brought public Access later in, but wasn't quite the same idea as it wasn't as mainstream as local VHF/UHF stations were in being more accessible.
Don't take any chances cause can't leave
Growing up near Detroit, we were right across the river from Windsor, Ontario, and so we received Canadian television stations. Therefore, not only could we watch Sesame Street on PBS at 10 AM, we could also switch over to CBC at 11 AM for the not very imaginatively named Canadian Sesame Street. This was the early-to-mid eighties, before Sesame Park or whatever the hell they came up with later started airing in Canada.
Canadian Sesame Street was much like the American version, except all of the segments that taught Spanish taught French instead, and there would be inserts of Canadian cultural stuff here and there. But one of the main differences was - you guessed it - any segments involving the alphabet had to teach us A-to-Zed instead of A-to-Zee. This, along with Mr. Dressup and Polka Dot Door insisting on this weird ZED word, made five-year-old me very angry. (Either that, or I deliberately said “zed” instead of “zee” just to be a little smartass to my bitchy kindergarten teacher. Possibly both.)
Canadian Sesame Street pretty much started that way before they began adding in new puppets just for their version like Basil the bear by the end of the 80's and later used for Sesame Park.
🏴 the land to carry it on :). Where one else dared
It's really weird that while the rest of the world adores Sesame Street the UK just never seems to have gotten its collective head round it. I watched it during the late ITV era and into the C4 run and loved it but it's now been over 20 years since it vanished and it doesn't seem to be missed. It's doubly weird because the UK adores the Muppets, and seemingly anything with them in that ISN'T Sesame Street - including spin-offs OF Sesame Street - gets broadcast here like everywhere else and everyone seems very happy about it.
strange also given the original Muppet show was filmed in London
A British Big Bird could have been played by Nigel Plaskett... or Roy Skelton.
The image of Big Bird with Zippy's voice would make for interesting viewing!! 😃
If they had of done British Sesame Street i wonder where it would be set?
Tottenham maybe
I suppose if an ITV franchisee had taken it on, it probably would have been set in their region. ATV would have set it in Birmingham, Yorkshire in Leeds, Granada in Manchester.
@@applemask If ATV had done a British Sesame Street, they'll have taped it at Elstree and set it in London, they did The Muppet Show at Elstree, so why not? Having said that, Granada or Yorkshire would have done good with Sesame Street.
Zee.
Z E D
play school bbc vs sesame street
*Z*
IT'S ZED!!
@@DigeeTheGenie ZED!
Zee
@@AllyStrikesBack It's Zed