History of Sesame Street - 1990s

1990s

Davis called the 1990s a "time of transition on Sesame Street". Several people involved in the show from its beginnings died during this period: Jim Henson in 1990 at the age of 53 "from a runaway strep infection gone stubbornly, foolishly untreated"; songwriter Joe Raposo from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma fifteen months earlier; long-time cast member Northern Calloway of cardiac arrest in January 1990; puppeteer Richard Hunt of AIDS in early 1992; CTW founder and producer David Connell of bladder cancer in 1995; director Jon Stone of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1997; and writer Jeff Moss of colon cancer in 1998.

By the early 1990s, Sesame Street was, as Davis put it, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of preschool television". Entertainment Weekly reported in 1991 that the show's music had been honored with eight Grammys. The show's dominance was challenged by another PBS television show for preschoolers, Barney & Friends, and Sesame Street's ratings declined. The producers of Sesame Street responded, at the show's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1993, by expanding and redesigning the show's set, calling it "Around the Corner". New human and Muppet characters were introduced, including Zoe (performed by Fran Brill), baby Natasha and her parents Ingrid and Humphrey, and Ruthie (played by comedian Ruth Buzzi). The "Around the Corner" set was dismantled in 1997. Zoe, one of the few characters that survived, was created to include another female Muppet on the show: her spunky and fearless personality was intended to break female stereotypes. According to Davis, she was the first character developed on the show by marketing and product development specialists, who worked with the researchers at the CTW. (The quest for a "break-out" female Muppet character continued into 2006 with the creation of Abby Cadabby, who was created after nine months of research.) In 1998, for the first time in the show's history, Sesame Street pursued funding by accepting corporate sponsorship. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who had been a guest on the show, urged parents to protest the move by boycotting the show.

For Sesame Street's 30th anniversary in 1999, its producers researched the reasons for the show's lower ratings. For the first time since the show debuted, the producers and a team of researchers analyzed Sesame Street's content and structure during a series of two-week-long workshops. They also studied how children's viewing habits had changed in the past thirty years. They found that although the show was produced for those between the ages of three and five, children began watching it at a younger age. Preschool television had become more competitive, and the CTW's research showed the traditional magazine format was not the best way to attract young children's attention. The growth of home videos during the '80s and the increase of thirty-minute children's shows on cable had demonstrated that children's attention could be sustained for longer periods of time, but the CTW's researchers found that their viewers, especially the younger ones, lost attention in Sesame Street after 40 to 45 minutes.

Beginning in 1999, a new 15-minute segment shown at the end of each episode, "Elmo's World", used traditional elements (animation, Muppets, music, and live-action film), but had a more sustained narrative. "Elmo's World" followed the same structure each episode, and depended heavily on repetition. Unlike the realism of the rest of the show, the segment took place in a stylized crayon-drawing universe as conceived by its host. Elmo, who represented the three-to-four year-old child, was chosen as host of the closing segment because he had always tested well with this segment of their audience. He was created in 1979 and was performed by various puppeteers, including Richard Hunt, but did not become what his eventual portrayer, Kevin Clash, called a "phenomenon" until Clash took over the role in 1983. Eventually, Elmo became, as Davis reported, "the embodiment" of Sesame Street, and "the marketing wonder of our age" when five million "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls were sold in 1996. Clash believed the "Tickle Me Elmo" phenomenon made Elmo a household name and led to the "Elmo's World" segment.