smokin cigarettes and watchin captain kangaroo

By now it was time to call on good old Joe Reposo for Sesame’s new theme music. A suitable faux Brownstone was erected complete with stoop and the address for the Brownstone would be 123 Sesame Street.

The board, when first formed, had decided on a set that was a mirror image of contemporary Harlem. It was felt that the sorts of people needed for this enterprise were to be more easily found here. Now it needed a set.Įarlier In the year the CTW had decided that its home base would not be Los Angeles. Virginia never was able to identify the five-year old name-giver. Just one week earlier Virginia Schoen, a representative of the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), asked the children to suggest names for the new show and they submitted seven names for her to consider. No one did and that begs the question, where did the name come from in the first place? Then it was decided that until something was agreeable to all they would go with the interim name. One board member thought it had too many ‘esses.’ Another found it unimaginative.

The next item to be looked at was a name for the show and here is a tale to tell.Ī cluster of eight people who made up the Friday afternoon meeting had only one name considered at the time but nobody but nobody liked it – Sesame Street. And the key non-muppet in those early days was Lloyd Morrisette. Two other major muppets were Cookie Monster (my favorite) and Grover. It can be no surprise that he was Big Bird. Early additions included Joe Raposo and Caroll Edwin Spinney, who was a child-like man both on and off the set. His early main assistant was Frank Oznowicz, forever after to be known as Frank O. It is certainly the case that Captain Kangaroo held sway in 1965 but a little green frog was in the wings and he and his muppet gang were about to sweep the clouds away and with them Mr. Do you recall these lines in a song from 1965?

Smokin cigarettes and watchin captain kangaroo