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Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

  • Status: Released
  • 23-04-2021
  • Runtime: 107 min
  • Score: 7.5
  • Vote count: 25

Take a stroll down Sesame Street and witness the birth of the most influential children's show in television history. From the iconic furry characters to the classic songs you know by heart, learn how a gang of visionary creators changed the world.

Joan Ganz Cooney

Self

Jim Henson

Self (archive footage)

Jon Stone

Self (archive footage)

Frank Oz

Self (archive footage)

Caroll Spinney

Self

Bob McGrath

Self

Sonia Manzano

Self

Emilio Delgado

Self

Lloyd Morrisett

Self

Sharon Lerner

Self

Christopher Cerf

Self

Roscoe Orman

Self

Brian Henson

Self

Lisa Henson

Self

Loretta Long

Self

Fran Brill

Self

Norman Stiles

Self

Holly Robinson Peete

Self

James Earl Jones

Self (archive footage)

Stevie Wonder

Self (archive footage)

Muhammad Ali

Self (archive footage)

Matt Robinson

Self (archive footage)

Odetta

Self (archive footage)

Jesse Jackson

Self (archive footage)

Joe Raposo

Self (archive footage)

Nick Raposo

Self

Johnny Cash

Self (archive footage)

Dizzy Gillespie

Self (archive footage)

Johnny Carson

Self (archive footage)

Frank Biondo

Self

Will Lee

Self (archive footage)

Orson Welles

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Fred Rogers

Self (archive footage) (uncredited)

Louisa Moore - Screen Zealots

The terrific documentary “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” features awesome archival footage that takes viewers behind the scenes of the hit children’s television show. Based on the best selling book by Michael Davis, director Marilyn Agrelo‘s film explores the origins of the show and dives deep with intimate video clips from the past, classic scenes from the PBS series, and extensive interviews with the creative visionaries that changed the world of kid’s t.v. forever. Even if you aren’t a fan of “Sesame Street,” there is so much to love about this film. There’s an extensive history about how the show came to be, including the earliest ideas of using advertising techniques to educated instead of sell to children. There’s Joan Ganz Cooney, who had the brilliant idea of using the medium as a tool to make a quality program that could teach young children through entertainment. One by one, talented innovators were added to the roster, including legendary puppeteer Jim Henson and director Jon Stone, two men who had a huge amount of influence and impact on the show’s success. The documentary is fast paced and packs in a ton of information in a neat and orderly way. It’s assembled well and is so compelling that I wish the film had been longer. There are countless nuggets of information revealed here, like the fact that the show’s target audience was inner city black children, and that this multicultural representation that was years ahead of its time was actually once banned by broadcast stations in Mississippi. It’s a treasure trove of trivia that will delight anyone familiar with Big Bird, Maria, Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit, Gordon, and the crew. “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” is a time capsule celebration of the revolutionary cultural phenomenon.