New 'Sesame Street' star helps show mark 40 years

PASADENA — Today’s story about “Sesame Street” is brought to you by the numbers 4 and 0. The public TV show has been teaching numbers, letters and shapes to children, their children and their children for 40 years.

To mark the anniversary, “Sesame Street” is getting a facelift. The big revamp — revealed in today’s 40th season opener — is a switch from the random style of presenting information to a new block format. That means instead of a series of random educational bits, the material will be presented in four, 15-minute segments. There will be a new opening, a new nature curriculum and a place of honor for the newest star, Abby Cadabby.

“We’re moving away from the traditional magazine format into an integrated block that will be hosted by Murray the Muppet,” says Miranda Barry, executive vice president in charge of content for Sesame Workshop. “When ‘Sesame’ premiered in 1969, the goal was to use the most up-to-date, best media, [the] most attractive to kids, to help them learn and reach their full potential. Now kids are more accustomed to seeing longer-form programming, full stories.”

One reason for the facelift is that 40 years ago, “Sesame Street” was one of the few children’s educational shows on television. Today, there are 47 programs on networks and cable designed to teach and entertain children. The changes are to make sure that when it comes to “Sesame Street,” one of the educational shows is not like the others.

A visit to “Sesame Street” will now feature: “Street Story,” material that has been seen over the show’s 40 year history; the computer-generated “Abby Cadabby and Abby’s Flying Fairy School”; and “Elmo’s World.”

While the format stayed the same for 40 years, the curriculum evolved and keeps changing.

“For the past two years, we focused on literacy. And in the next two years, we have a science initiative, which is focusing on nature, because we know that children have an innate sense of curiosity and awe and wonder about the natural world around them,” says Rosemarie Truglio, vice president of education and research for Sesame Workshop.

“We know that when you connect children to their natural world around them, they’ll develop positive attitudes and want to keep the world beautiful around them.

“And nature is in the local environment. It’s in your parks. It’s in your backyards. And so you’re instilling this love of nature by exploring the natural world that’s in your neighborhood.”

The Abby Cadabby segment will focus on critical thinking. Barry says it’ll be presented as computer-generated animation because children respond to that.

Abby Cadabby was added to the “Sesame Street’s” familiar characters: Elmo, Cookie Monster and Big Bird after young viewers pointed out a shortage of females on the show.

“We want to make sure that all of our viewers can relate to characters. So we wanted to create a strong female character,” Truglio says.

Leslie Carrara, the voice of Abby, says she loves her role because she knows every day she is creating a product that is designed to help children.

“This is more than a job for me. It’s a community service,” she says. “Abby wasn’t added just to have a strong female character. Abby also embodied being an immigrant because she is from Fairy World. It was a way to help kids deal with coming into new societies or new neighborhoods.

“She could also deal with social issues about being unique and different. She embraces those differences.”

One thing that won’t change is guest appearances by celebrities. A few of the neighborhood visitors this season will be Kobe Bryant, Cameron Diaz, Hugh Jackman, Adam Sandler, Ricky Gervais, Patricia Arquette, Brendan Fraser, Matthew Fox, Christina Applegate, Debi Mazar and Cedric the Entertainer.