The letter of the day will be H, and the number of the day will be 40 — today Sesame Street celebrates its 40th birthday with a very special edition. If there’s one thing Big Bird, Bert and Ernie know how to do, it’s party — so just imagine the festivities they have in store.
Sesame Street was dreamt up by Joan Ganz Cooney, a TV producer who wanted to make something different from the violent cartoons she saw on TV. The aim was to create a fun, educational series for young American children, particularly those in deprived inner cities — that’s why the scenery on Sesame Street features rubbish bins, streetlights and alleys.
Cooney’s mix of colourful Muppet characters and catchy tunes swiftly became a hit. By 1970, Big Bird had made the cover of Time magazine.
Today, Sesame Street is the longest-running children’s programme on US TV and is watched in 150 countries and the biggest stars of film, music and politics are keen to appear. For the anniversary show , the First Lady, Michelle Obama, will be singing along with Elmo and chums and explaining why it’s cool to eat vegetables.
To mark the birthday, we look at some of the funniest guest appearances in the programme’s history; the birthday special and all these clips are on YouTube.
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Bend it like Elmo
Do you know what “persistent” means? David Beckham, left, explained and showed his skills, but was interrupted by a very persistent fan named Elmo
Wrong angle
Only Jack Black could call an octagon “awesome” and “fantastic”. The only trouble was that he forgot to bring along the shape he was talking about. Fortunately, Elmo found him a big red “stop” sign
Fright club
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Julia Roberts visited Sesame Street studios to explain the concept of fear. The Oscar-winning actress was supposed to act afraid, but Elmo kept making her laugh
Cheesy dialogue
Ben Stiller dressed up as a piece of cheese for a duet with Telly about meeting neighbours. Sadly, his hungry neighbours tried to eat him
In shape and beautiful
James Blunt came on to sing You’re Beautiful but changed the lyrics to teach viewers about shape and renamed it A Triangle