How to get to ‘Sesame Street’

Googled anything lately?

If so, you’ve probably become reacquainted with some old friends from childhood: Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar, Elmo, Count von Count, Bert and Ernie all graced Google’s homepage this week to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the longest-running children’s television show in history.

Follow the link to the gallery of high-resolution “Doodles,” however, and you’ll find some unfamiliar faces. Ieniemienie, the mouse character on “Sesamstraat” which is the Dutch co-production of Sesame Street, makes an adorable gray ‘e’ to substitute for the last letter of the Google logo. Boombah and Chamki, from the Indian “Galli Galli Sim Sim,” peer through the large Google ‘G.’ And Google visitors from South Africa were greeted by Kami, the HIV-positive “Takalani Sesame” character that “has helped dispel the culture of silence that prevents so many South Africans from seeking and receiving care for their illness,” according to Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the show. 

“Sesame Street” is currently exported to 18 different countries, including places such as the Palestinian territories, Kosovo and Bangladesh.

And as a global community, we have benefited greatly from Big Bird and company. Sure, “Sesame Street” should be valued because it taught us the alphabet, how to count and that “C is for Cookie!” But it taught us so much more than that.

“Sesame Street” first aired in 1969 and found an America that was reeling from recent riots in Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago, as well as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. A television show that afforded African-American children equality with their white counterparts was a radical notion at the time in many places in the United States.

Today, the show continues the tradition of tolerance throughout the world. While muppets on “Shara’a Simsim,” for instance, don’t directly address the political turmoil affecting its viewers in the West Bank and Gaza, the show attempts to help children develop sympathetic attitudes toward others.

But “Sesame Street” never could have happened without some government expenditures and private donations. The show that’s “arguably the most important children’s program in the history of television,” according to Newsweek, received half of its original $8 million budget from Uncle Sam.

Moreover, PBS currently gets about 15 percent of its funding from the federal government, despite President George W. Bush’s repeated attempts to slash public television funding. 

Today, the Sesame Workshop tries to “give all children the power of learning,” according to its Web site. Worldwide, it educates 120 million kids each year, many of whom don’t have access to preschool education and many more who live in areas where tolerance is, well, rather wanting. In the United States, studies found that children who regularly watched “Sesame Street” did better on tests of number and letter recognition. Moreover, a 2001 study suggested that those positive effects could last into high school.

Shows like “Sesame Street,” corporations like PBS and many other nonprofit arts organizations are suffering through the recession. Private donations have waned, and state and local governments are quickly slashing arts out of their tight budgets. The Sesame Workshop recently laid off 20 percent of its staff because of decreased budgets. As Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, stated: “More than 10 percent of the nation’s 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations are at risk of closing this year at the loss of thousands of jobs.”

Even though times are hard, it’s important that we keep our arts organizations funded, whether we take it upon ourselves to make private donations or offer political support for government arts funding.

We wouldn’t want to miss out on the next “Sesame Street.”