Michael Davis: What we get from “Sesame Street”

Ask Michael Davis what his favorite Sesame Street sketch is, and one comes to mind right away: “Bert and Ernie Fish Call.” In it, the laid-back Ernie con­founds Bert with his unortho­dox yet wild­ly suc­cess­ful method for fish­ing. It’s a sophis­ti­cat­ed and pret­ty fun­ny gag for such a sim­ple con­ceit: two Mup­pets in a boat, dodg­ing fish.

“I think they’re one of the great com­e­dy teams of all time,” said Davis, author of the New York Times Best­seller Street Gang: The Com­plete His­to­ry of Sesame Street, and speak­er at this year’s TEDx Salem.

Fun fact – Accord­ing to Davis, in Bert and Ernie you can see sub­tle hints of the real-life cre­ative ten­sion between the straight-laced Frank Oz, and the more mis­chie­vous Jim Hen­son, one that helped dri­ve the show for years.

You can also see how a sketch that first aired in 1982 endures to this day, and still appeals to view­ers both younger and old­er. Cur­rent­ly the clip has over 3 mil­lion views on YouTube.

“That’s the mag­ic, that they’ve been able to keep [the show’s suc­cess] rolling for so many years,” he said.

 

For his TED talk Davis will share how the show has evolved to main­tain its pop­u­lar­i­ty with mil­lions of chil­dren in its over 45-year his­to­ry. He will also dis­cuss how the show’s pro­duc­ers con­tin­ue to par­lay that pow­er into pos­i­tive social change both in the US and around the world. Accord­ing to Davis they are cur­rent­ly work­ing to bring aware­ness of san­i­ta­tion and hygiene to audi­ences in India and Pak­istan. In South Africa, the first-ever HIV-pos­i­tive Mup­pet, Kami, has helped bring AIDS aware­ness to a coun­try that has strug­gled to face the cri­sis. The Queen of Jor­dan Rania Al Abdul­lah also has cred­it­ed the show (Hikay­at Sim­sim) for empow­er­ing women in her coun­try.

It’s one of the key mis­sions of the Sesame Work­shop, the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion behind Sesame Street: to use the show’s con­cepts in hotspots around the globe, from North­ern Ire­land to the Balka­ns to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Davis said.

Every­where it is seen, the show serves to “help chil­dren cope, and to teach them about their soci­ety,” he said.

Through a com­bi­na­tion of com­e­dy and tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing tech­niques, Sesame Street has impact­ed gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren world­wide, Davis said, expos­ing them to some­times tough lessons through intel­li­gence and wit — even if some­times the lessons and occa­sion­al­ly even the wit are beyond the grasp of the show’s core demo­graph­ic of 2- to 4‑year-olds.

Sesame Street has had the stay­ing pow­er and the patience to wait for them.

“When chil­dren get old­er and more sophis­ti­cat­ed, a light goes on,” Davis said. “They under­stand that some­body a long time ago taught them.”

Some­thing to think about, the next time you come across a fish­er­man out on a lake yelling, “Heeere fishy-fishy-fishy!”

– To see Michael Davis and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.