Sesame Street international co-productions are adaptations of the American educational children's television series Sesame Street but tailored to the countries in which they are produced. Shortly after the debut of Sesame Street in the United States in 1969, television producers, teachers, and officials of several countries approached the show's producers and the executives of the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), renamed Sesame Workshop (SW) in 2000, about the possibility of airing international versions of Sesame Street. Creator Joan Ganz Cooney hired former CBS executive Michael Dann to field offers to produce versions of the show in other countries.
The producers of these shows developed them using a variant on the CTW model, a flexible model of production based upon the experiences of the creators and producers of the American show. The model consisted of the combination of producers and researchers working together on the show, the development of a unique curriculum, and extensive test screening of the shows. The shows came to be called co-productions, and they contained original sets, characters, and curriculum goals. Different co-productions were produced, depending upon each country's needs and resources. They included both dubbed versions of the American show and versions created, developed, and produced in each country that reflected their needs, educational priorities, and culture. For example, the first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami, from the South African co-production Takalani Sesame, was created in 2003 to address the epidemic of AIDS in South Africa, and was met with controversy in the United States. By 2006, there were 20 co-productions in countries all over the world. In 2001, there were more than 120 million viewers of all international versions of Sesame Street, and by the American show's 40th anniversary in 2009, they were seen in more than 140 countries.
History
A few months after the 1969 debut of Sesame Street on National Educational Television in the United States, producers from Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Iran and Germany requested that the organization responsible for the show's production, the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), create and produce versions of Sesame Street in those countries.Cole et al. p. 148. Even before the American show's debut, the CTW established an international division, which oversaw its licensing in other countries. According to Gregory J. Gettas, the division immediately developed four main licensing policies: (1) Like the American version, all foreign versions had to be broadcast without commercials; (2) any changes would have to meet high production standards, which protected the CTW's proprietary interests; (3) all versions had to reflect the country's cultural values and traditions; and (4) all changes would have to be approved, initiated, and supervised by a local committee working with the CTW.Gettas, p. 57.
Many years later, co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney recalled, "To be frank, I was really surprised, because we thought we were creating the quintessential American show. We thought the Muppets were quintessentially American, and it turns out they're the most international characters ever created". Michael Dann, a former CBS executive whom Cooney had hired as a CTW vice-president and her assistant, was assigned to field offers from other countries to produce their own versions of Sesame Street. Dann's appointment led to television critic Marvin Kitman stating, "After he [Dann] sells [Sesame Street] in Russia and Czechoslovakia, he might try Mississippi, where it is considered too controversial for educational TV".Davis, pp. 209–210.
By summer 1970, Dann had made the first international agreements for what the CTW later called "co-productions". 38 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television stations broadcast Sesame Street to Canada's English-speaking provinces. The Armed Forces Radio and Television Network agreed to air the first 130 episodes of the U.S.-made show for children of military personnel serving in 16 countries, including Iceland, Greece, Ethiopia, and South Korea. During his tenure at CTW, Dann also made agreements with several Caribbean nations, Mexico, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, France, Israel, and Germany. He later told author Michael Davis, "I was aggressive and I knew people around the world". During the same period there were discussions about broadcasting the American version in Britain or producing a British version of Sesame Street, but British broadcasters found the show too controversial and rejected the idea. The American version was broadcast throughout the UK on a limited basis starting in 1971, but went off the air in 2001.
As of 2006, there were 20 active "co-productions". By its 50th anniversary in 2019, 190 million children viewed over 160 versions of Sesame Street in 70 languages. In 2005, Doreen Carvajal of The New York Times reported that income from the co-productions accounted for U.S.$96 million. Cole stated, "Children's Television Workshop (CTW) can be regarded as the single largest informal educator of young children in the world".Cole et al., pp. 169–172. Studies conducted on the effects of several co-productions (Mexico in 1974, Turkey in 1990, Portugal in 1993, and Russia in 1998) found that viewers of these shows gain basic academic skills, especially literacy and numeracy, from watching them.Cole, pp. 169–172.
In 2001, Sesame Workshop introduced Sesame English, a series focused on teaching children and their families the basics of the English language and on familiarizing them with some aspects of American culture. As of 2009 it aired in several countries, including Japan, Korea, and Italy.Gikow, p. 255. In 2003, in response to the epidemic of AIDS in South Africa, the co-producers of Takalani Sesame included the first preschool AIDS/HIV curriculum. They created the first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami, to confront the stigma of HIV and AIDS in South Africa. According to the documentary The World According to Sesame Street, the reaction of many in the U.S. surprised Sesame Workshop. Some members of Congress attacked Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop (previously, the CTW), and PBS. According to co-producer Naila Farouky, "The reaction we got in the U.S. blew me away. I didn't expect people to be so horrible ... and hateful and mean".Cole et al., p. 147. The controversy in the U.S. was short-lived, and died down when the public discovered the facts about the South African co-production, and when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and American televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell praised Sesame Workshop's efforts.
Gettas explained that what he called "Sesame Street's unprecedented appeal abroad"Gettas, p. 55. was its broad appeal and adaptability to other cultures. Gettas stated, "Here is a program that speaks to them in their own language, on their level, and with respect for their intelligence". According to Cooper Wright, the Sesame Workshop's vice-president of International Co-Productions in 2006, the "mission" of the co-productions was to "help children reach their highest potential". The producers were further galvanized to accomplish this goal after the events of September 11, 2001. Cooney stated, "Our producers are like old-fashioned missionaries. It's not religion they're spreading, but it is learning and tolerance and love and mutual respect".
Production The earliest international versions were what then-CTW vice-president Charlotte Cole called "fairly simple", consisting of dubbed versions of the show with local language voice-overs and instructional cutaways. Dubbed versions of the show continued to be produced if the country's needs and resources warranted it.Gikow, pp. 252–253. They utilized a variant of a flexible model called the CTW model, developed by the producers and creators of the original show, to create and produce independently produced preschool television shows in other countries. The Workshop recognized that the production model developed in the U.S., which reflected its needs and culture at the time, served as a framework for other countries that wanted to repeat it. Its inherent flexibility was attractive to producers in other countries, who saw the model as "a methodological approach that is neither doctrinaire nor culture-bound"Gettas, p. 56. that could be used to achieve different results in different countries. According to the 2006 documentary The World According to Sesame Street, the producers of the co-productions repeated the "experiment" undertaken by the original U.S. show, but adapted it to each specific situation. In 1969, the producers of the original show depended upon government and foundation funding, but as Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell stated in 2009, the U.S. funding model would not necessarily be effective in countries with different economic and political structures. All co-productions share elements with the American show, but because of their different needs, no two are exactly alike. According to Gettas, the producers of the programs would "rely on variants of the CTW model to help them create programming that faithfully reflects the linguistic, cultural, social, or religious diversity of their native lands".
The need for preschool education in each country was assessed through research and interviews with television producers, researchers, and educational experts, which paralleled what the producers of Sesame Street did in the late 1960s. Then they convened the experts in a series of meetings, held in the individual countries, to create and develop a curriculum, the show's educational goals, and its set and characters,Gikow, p. 260. as was done in 1968 in the U.S. Finally, they held a series of meetings, both at the CTW offices in New York City and in the individual countries, to train the co-production team in the CTW model. Writing seminars were also held in New York.
The co-productions consisted of unique characters, sets, and curricula designed to meet the needs of their own children. Cole reported that the goal of the co-productions was to provide children in each country a program that reflected their country's culture, local values, and educational priorities. She stated that this cultural specificity was the reason for the co-productions' success, popularity, and educational impact. The co-productions combined universal curriculum goals that were common around the world with educational content that specifically addressed the needs of children in each country.Cole et al., p. 156. Another goal of the international co-productions of Sesame Street was, as executive producer Lutrelle Horne stated in 1987, the improvement of "the overall quality of a country's television". He added, "We give a country a model of how television can be used effectively to address people's needs".Gikow, p. 257.