Happy Birthday

If you've looked at any of the entertaining logos on Google's homepage during the last week, you've probably realised that Sesame Street is celebrating its 40th birthday. To mark the occasion, Michelle Obama is making a guest appearance, while newspapers and magazines from the UK to the US and beyond are publishing articles which (mostly!) praise the impact that it has had.

Some facts about Sesame Street (courtesy of www.imdb.com)

• The highest number of the day has been 21, the lowest has been 0
• The series was originally designed for inner-city children to help them formulate phrases in standard English; the Sesame Street neighbourhood reflects the areas where these children would be growing up
• Following the death of the grocer Mr Hooper, a special episode was commissioned to help children deal with the loss of a loved one
• The Snuffleupagus character initially interacted only with Big Bird; the producers made him visible to other characters as it was felt that it was sending a bad message to children that adults would not believe them if they had something important to tell
• Linda (an actress on the show) was the first regular deaf character on American TV
• The Guiness Book of Records lists Sesame Street as the Most Popular Children's Educational Programme, having been shown in 180 countries

Sesame Street is also surely among the most researched programmes of all time; a search for "Sesame Street" on Google Scholar returns over 13,000 hits. For classic clips from the show covering its entire history, try taking a look at the official YouTube channel.