After decades of struggle, the warm-hearted kids’ programme has been rescued by Netflix. This could be the start of a partnership as enduring as Bert and Ernie’s
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n entire generation of British adults was raised by Sesame Street. They’re easy enough to spot; they’re kind, they have had that Pointer Sisters pinball counting song as an earworm for four decades, and they were repeatedly told off at school for pronouncing the final letter of the alphabet “zee”.
But this generation is old. The last time Sesame Street was regularly broadcast in the UK was September 2001, when Channel 4 made the decision to replace it with The Hoobs. However, this all changes now. Because Sesame Street has just rolled out on Netflix for the first time.
This is undoubtedly a good thing. More than almost any other children’s show, Sesame Street seemed to crack the code on how to simultaneously educate and entertain children. Lessons about early phonics and mathematics have always been folded into madcap, brightly coloured sketches, like the warring two-headed monster that teaches you to share, or the monomaniacal numerical egotism of the Count (official name: Count von Count).
