Sesame Street/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acting for Two/Talking to Himself: Caroll Spinney as Big Bird and Oscar.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: Cookie Monster has never used the catchphrase "Cookies are a sometimes food!". It was Hoots the Owl who sang "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food" to Cookie Monster. After the song, Cookie Monster replied "Me get it, cookie is sometimes food. You know what? Right now is sometime!" and devoured the cookie.
    • Regarding Big Bird's encounter with Sally on Gordon's shoulders in the first episode, Big Bird is always quoted as saying, "Gosh! You're the tallest little girl I've ever seen!" (even Big Bird performer Caroll Spinney says this), however, in the actual episode, Big Bird's reaction is, "Dah! Oh my heavens! She's 8 feet tall!"
  • Cast the Expert: Happens a lot for special episodes.
  • Channel Hop: From National Educational Television to PBS, as NET was leaving the airwaves. Not a literal example, as the educational stations airing Sesame Street were the same in virtually every market.
    • It was, however, literal in Britain (when the show moved from ITV to Channel 4).
  • The Character Died with Him: Mr. Hooper, played by Will Lee.
  • Contractual Purity: Kevin Clash was the Muppeteer of Elmo, Baby Sinclair and numerous others. In 2012, he took a sabbatical from Sesame Street after a young man claimed that the two of them had a sexual relationship when he was 16. Clash did not deny the relationship, but claimed it happened after the young man had turned 18. The accuser later withdrew the allegations, but a series of other accusers came forward in its wake. Sesame Workshop expressed their willingness to support Clash, but he decided to resign to spare them the inevitable media scandal that would have resulted. Ryan Dillon has taken over Muppeteering duties for Elmo since.
  • Media Research Failure: Given that this is a Long Runner aimed directly at very young children, this kind of thing happens a lot.
  • The Danza: Bob McGrath, who plays Bob Johnson on the show.
    • Linda Bove As Herself, and Miles Robinson was originally played by Miles Orman.
    • Sesame Street has had a lot of Danzas. Even Tony himself has appeared as a guest star.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • Chris Robinson is supposed to be in High School or College, making him 17-18 in his first season. His actor, Chris Knowings, was actually 27 at the time his debut aired.
    • Maria celebrated her 21st birthday in 1979. Sonia Manzano, on the other hand, was 29 at the time the episode aired.
    • In reality, Bill McCutcheon, the actor who portrayed Uncle Wally, was only eight years older than actor Bob McGrath.
  • Defictionalization: Outside Philadelphia, there's a theme park in Sesame Place. It includes a perfect, life-size replica of the set of the show, and the characters come out to greet guests constantly. Yes, you can take photos.
    • For the show's 40th anniversary, a corner of Manhattan was temporarily renamed 123 Sesame Street.
    • A few other communities have named a real street "Sesame Street" as a Shout-Out to the show; for instance, Mountain Lake PBS is located at "1 Sesame Street, Plattsburgh NY 12901".
  • Directed by Cast Member: By circa 2005, Kevin Clash got more involved behind the scenes, both directing and executive producing (the latter mostly applied to the "Elmo's World" segments, and other Elmo-related projects).
  • Dueling Shows: The street being brightened and cleaned up for Season 25, in addition to the new Around the Corner setting, and the addition of a ton of new human and Muppet characters (Zoe, in particular) was all because of the competition Sesame Workshop faced from Barney & Friends.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Subverted in "Goodbye Mister Hooper". The cast did fine in rehearsal, but when the cameras rolled, they barely hung on, and Loretta Long (who played Susan) flubbed a line. The director wanted to try again, but it was too much for the cast. The footage that the crew kept was the scene that we saw ... and it showed, quite candidly, that even adults cry and genuinely feel deeply saddened when a person they were close to has died, and that children aren't the only ones who become emotional.
  • Exiled From Continuity: Not quite played entirely straight with Kermit the Frog. He doesn't appear too often on the show now that he's owned by Disney, but classic clips featuring him occasionally show up (particularly on the Old School DVDs).
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Bob's Uncle Wally from 1984-1992 was played by Dropo.
  • Irony as She Is Cast: According to Muppet Wiki, Allison Bartlett O'Reilly is allergic to dogs. However, Gina doesn't treat any real ones.
  • Milestone Celebration: Count It Higher!
  • Missing Sketch: Regarding massive criticism, Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" segment with Elmo has never been aired on television, due to claims that Perry's dress was too risqué for a preschool- to kindergarten-aged educational TV show. While the dress did show some cleavage (behind a mesh panel) and seemed to accentuate her chest in a way that makes it look as if the dress doesn't fit her, most viewers who saw the original sketch on YouTube declared that the ban is yet another sign of parents overreacting to sexuality and near-nudity on TV, yet turning a blind eye to violence, gore, and Nightmare Fuel.
  • Name's the Same: Bert & Ernie.
  • No Budget: Since 1993, Sesame Street has been under compounding budgetary strain, and it shows.
  • No Export for You: British viewers only saw the show intermittently and courtesy of ITV and later Channel 4, because The BBC had declared it was "too authoritarian" to show on British TV. The series itself is no longer shown in Britain at all, although Elmo's World and Bert And Ernie are (as part of Channel Five's Milkshake! strand).
  • The Other Darrin: Gordon. And Miles. Some of the Muppets' performers were also replaced.
  • The Pete Best: Sort of, although the skits in which Herbert Birdsfoot appeared in continued to be re-used into the '90s.
  • Reality Subtext:
    • Mr. Hooper's death.
    • Kermit was Put on a Bus because Disney bought out the Muppet Show Muppets. He still appears now and again in the occasional cameo or legacy segment.
    • In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Public Broadcasting Service re-aired the week-long story arc from Season 32 (2001) - with a new introduction with Gordon explaining to parents that children can be frightened by such devastation, whether directly affected by it, or from seeing the coverage on TV. Since then, with devastating hurricanes becoming more commonplace, as of 2012, Sesame Workshop cobbled together the street scenes from the hurricane saga (specifically, the aftermath of the hurricane) into an hour-long special entitled Sesame Street Gets Through a Storm (also known as Friends to the Rescue on DVD), which is subsequently aired on PBS in response to any major hurricane, such as Sandy.
  • Recursive Import: Plaza Sesamo, the Mexican adaptation, airs in the U.S.; the only foreign adaptation to do so. This is justified, due to the numerous Hispanic community in the U.S. and dubbing and/or doing an Hispanic version for the U.S audiences could be expensive.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: At the time Viacom sued YouTube in February of 2007, Viacom also claimed Sesame Street clips that had aired on Noggin, Because it had the Noggin logo (and since they owned Noggin).
  • Throw It In:
    • A small-scale version of Zoe was originally built for her role as "Mousey the Hatter Helper" in the direct-to-video Abby in Wonderland movie, but the puppeteers liked it so much that, starting in the upcoming Season 40, they're making this Zoe the de facto Zoe. Sesame Workshop, of course, tested this smaller Zoe by having kids visit the set, and they didn't seem to notice.
    • A good chunk of Muppet dialogue is ad-libbed, or at least used to be. Watch an old "People in Your Neighborhood" sketch to see Jim Henson try to make Bob crack up.
    • One recurring feature was having the Muppets interact with children in unscripted segments, resulting in such classic (and adorable) bits as this one.
    • Implied in the episode addressing Mr. Hooper's death. The scene where the adults explain death to Big Bird was to be done with the adults maintaining composure. However, the first take had genuine emotional reactions from the adults and is the one seen in the episode. It shows that even adults (who fully understand the concept of death) cry when someone close to them dies and that it is acceptable to cry, sometimes together, when something tragic happens.
      • According to Bob McGrath, they tried shooting another take but stopped after a minute because everybody broke down.
  • Viral Marketing: Cookie Monster wants to become host of Saturday Night Live, so he's trying to make his audition tape go viral by getting people to spread the video.
  • What Could Have Been: Caroll Spinney was very close to being aboard the Challenger as Big Bird. But the expenses of sending him and the puppet suit into space however were enough to keep him off the Shuttle and its explosive fate.
    • The pilot episodes had the Muppets kept separate from the humans and the street, but since the kids payed more attention to the Muppets in test screenings, they were wisely integrated.
  • Written by Cast Member:
    • Sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Sonia Manzano expressed concern to executive producer Dulcy Singer that Latin American culture wasn't being represented on the show very well, so Singer, in turn, suggested that Manzano write the material herself (one of the first things she wrote was the memorable "Hola" song for Maria and Luis); since then, Sonia Manzano has been on Sesame Street's writing staff (and even wrote a number of children's books based on her childhood experiences).
    • In addition to joining the Muppet staff in the early 1990s, Joey Mazzarino also got involved in writing for Sesame Street as well (his first bit was the Columbo parody, "Colambo"), and as of Season 40, is the show's current head writer.
    • Caroll Spinney pitched ideas that were worked onto the show, but ultimately never received any kind of writing credit for them. This includes the unscripted inserts involving children interacting with the Muppets (such as Joey and Kermit, or John-John and Herry), as well as outlining the entire Big Bird in China special.
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