Number of the Day: 40

Sesame Street has been on the air for 40 years on November 10. It’s such a part of our culture; even Google has been acknowledging this milestone by putting our classic characters into its doodle artwork this week.   

We returned from Northern Ireland last night and I’m already up and off to a meeting in New York to discuss a possible new middle format. At 1 p.m., we’re going to take a break to go downstairs for a “Street Naming Ceremony.” For 24 hours, New York City is renaming the block where our offices are “Sesame Street.” A great honor, even if it’s only for 24 hours.  

What’s more of an honor is to be part of this amazing show that has been entertaining and educating for 40 years. No other television show in history has had such a continuous mission. May it continue for many more years.

Word of the Day:  International

Marty and I are going next week to Belfast to do workshops for the second season of the Northern Ireland show, which is called Sesame Tree.  We taught the original workshops almost three years ago. I worked with the four main writers and Marty cast and trained the puppeteers. I always joke about that workshop being a very easy gig. I mean, teach the Irish how to write comedy? They know the kind of humor Sesame Street is based on—the vaudeville/music hall “blackout sketch” (a beginning, middle and end with a twist that ends with a blackout). Most of the writers also watched The Muppet Show as kids. This crew knew the vernacular, so my main job was to help them with the truly difficult task of using curriculum and educational content in every scene without sounding “teachy.” The team did a fabulous job. The show is in excellent shape for having completed only one season.

Our main goal in the few days Marty and I will be there is to help the show jump up to another level since it has been picked up by the network "CBeebies." It's comparable to going from Noggin to ABC. It's big news and everyone is very excited about it. So, the show needs to be even funnier and tighter to compete with other shows as well as appeal to kids across Great Britain. A creative challenge I know this team is ready to do.
 
We’re bringing the girls with us. We didn’t realize they needed passports. I guess since 9/11 all Americans need them to travel abroad. So, we had to do a rush job of getting the pictures and forms in and processed.   

 
I think they look very international, but I’m their mother.


We’re going to take one extra day to go visit some Neolithic ruins south of Belfast. We can’t stay away too long because of Sesame Street shooting but we always like to try and do one cultural or tourist destination on every trip. We’ll have to carry the girls through the small underground caverns, so I’m packing our Baby Bjorns for our 20 pound girls. The Irish production team has hired for us a staff member’s babysitter for the days we’re working, which is always very relieving. If someone uses this person for their own children, you have to trust they’re good.

So, watch for pictures from pubs next week.

On another note—our garden has finally been harvested completely. In our effort to live the Sesame Street “Bein’ Green” curriculum, we actually attempted to pick all the vegetables we planted this year, rather than having them rot on the vine since we’re always too busy to actually go get them. Here’s Marty with the bounty.

Catch a glimpse of us on the "Twin Show" that was shot yesterday!

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Number of the Day:  2

We shot my final show of the season today—the “Twin Show.” Hooper’s Store is celebrating “Twin Day” and Abby and Zoe want to become twins so they can join the party. They learn about fraternal and identical twins, and that everyone is different in their own way, even if they look the same. Very Sesame Street.

It was truly a great day on the set. Joey Mazzarino directed, and did a wonderful job. The major cast was Abby, Zoe, Telly, the Count, Chris and his real twin sister, Christy. She came in from LA to do the show and was just fantastic. The energy on the set was super and we even finished on time. (The following photos were taken by Richard Termine.)

  
Micah and Aria Linz, Chris and Christy Knowing and Abby and Zoe (the wannabe twins). 

 
A great shot of the twin animals in action at the “Hooper’s Twin Party.” Here they’re just finishing a game of “music freeze.”

 
To top off all the fun and games, Marty and I were “extras” and walked through one of the shots with Lyra and Ripley.   

 
The Robinson Family Extras. Ripley and Lyra were both pulling on Abby and Zoe’s hair.

After all these years writing for the show, this was my first “cameo.” I even went into hair and make-up to look human as I walked across the screen with my husband and daughters.

Tune in for the aired show—sometime in 2010 or 2011!

Curriculum of the Day: Sharing

They came, they saw, they blogged about it.

Twenty mommy, aunt, father and uncle bloggers came to Sesame Street to tour the set, watch some of the shoot, and have lunch while they learned about the Sesame Street website. The webmasters of the Workshop have been hard at work making the children’s site extremely kid-friendly, and educational to boot. I had no idea how much a website could do—games, videos, themed playlists and video queues, printable activities, parenting tips—you name it! There are even games for toddlers where all the child needs to do to play is press any key on the keyboard to make something happen! They also introduced another new element to the Parents site—our Sesame Family Robinson blog! So, Marty, the girls, and I were there to answer questions and/or look cute.

Everyone was in high-spirits. Parents always enjoy visits to the set more than actual children. Shooting is very boring to a 4-year-old, but adults can appreciate all the hard work, and get nostalgic taking pictures in Big Bird’s nest or beside Oscar’s trash can. Hopefully, they’ll share their Sesame Street experience on their blogs, which will in turn bring some traffic to our website and blog. As a parting gift, we gave them a flash drive with one of Marty’s HandyMan films—"HandyMan Goes to Work." May they all post it on their sites and send it sailing through the web waves.


Marty, Grover, and the bloggers.



See what some of them have already said about our blog and Sesame Street! We were mentioned on Mom in the City, INO Mommy, Fits and Giggles, A Frugal Friend, Babyrific, and Primetime Parenting.

Word of the Day: Spoof

All of you who read our blog, and/or know the characters Marty plays, must watch this spoof of the vampire movie, Twilight. It’s moments like these that I wish we had the comments page up and running. A few more months I’m told … but you can always send an email.

Word of the Day:  Awe

I feel like I blinked and the girls are crawling and pulling themselves up.

I’ve been very good about letting go of my developmental worries lately. I haven’t even read the chapter on 8-month-olds in the baby book yet. So, it was quite a surprise to see them take such huge leaps in such a short amount of time.   

They also became extremely skilled at crawling over our pillow barriers on the floor in the TV room. A new play area solution was needed fast, so we created the play corral.


The girls in deep play concentration.

With several playpen fences and alphabet pads, they can now have crawling races and pull themselves up on something I trust won’t fall over on them. Until we finish shooting and have time for serious baby-proofing, this feels safe for all concerned.


 
"Ripley, look, I'm standing!"

We find we just crawl around on the pads with them, pointing out alphabet letters along the way. I even do my crunches while the girls pile on top of me.  

 
The boppies still come in handy.

What is so astonishing is we didn’t teach them to put one knee in front of the other, or to grab onto an object and haul themselves upward. It just happened. The great universal mother seems be saying to me, “Love them with all your heart, feed them well (my kids eat MUCH better than I do), and get out of their way.”

 

I recently found some of this old footage we took on our first trip to Bangladesh to train the writers and hire the puppeteers. It was a tremendously exciting, hard week with many young Bangladeshis learning they were now hired to be part of the crazy Sesame Family. Celebrating was in order.

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The final shots are of Producer Nadine Zylstra and Producer Sara Zucker, who is also a very famous actress in Bangladesh.