NEW YORK (AP) — New residence. Some format modifications. Similar monsters.
“Sesame Street” launches its 56th season on Nov. 10 with NASCAR champion Bubba Wallace as a visitor, a barely tweaked format and a brand new option to watch — by way of Netflix.
“There you are, hi,” Elmo invitations viewers on the prime of the present. “Elmo so happy to see you.”
The favored youngsters’s staple can be providing an 11-minute essential story on the prime — up from 9 minutes final 12 months — and some new segments blended with favourite returning ones.
“In the history of ‘Sesame Street,’ we’ve always reinvented in some sort of way over our last 56 years,” says Sal Perez, the manager producer. “We’re always looking for ways to modernize — have the look and feel of the show feel really engaging for kids today.”
The 11-minute essential story within the first episode entails Elmo, Abby and Zoe having three sorts of races within the neighborhood, joined by an alarming quantity of puppet chickens and Wallace providing sideline commentary.
First up is a dash with a hen on every of their backs — “poultry in motion,” Wallace provides — then a race with a hen on a spoon and, final, a sack race with chickens additionally within the sack. Elmo will get discouraged when he does not win initially however quickly realizes that he did not have lunch so is low on gasoline, the lesson of the day.
“I just love when we get to bring celebrities to ‘Sesame Street’ because they bring their own flavor, they bring their own point of view and experience. And so much of that Elmo racing episode was just heightened by Bubba being there,” says head author Halcyon Individual. (Miley Cyrus can be an upcoming visitor.)
Individual says increasing the principle story even by a couple of minutes provides her and her group extra runway so as to add parts she thinks connects with youngsters.
“That extra two minutes may not seem like much for our audience, but it allows us to have a song in every episode which we know our audience loves,” says Individual, whose credit embrace “Dee & Friends in Oz” and “Karma’s World.”
“We get to have even more animation, even more comedy, more time for physical humor. We know when kids are laughing, they’re learning. So, we just love when we can get them laughing so that our salient messaging can come through loud and clear, too.”
Netflix and the fourth wall
The cope with Netflix is a game-changer for “Sesame Street” for the reason that streamer provides it a worldwide attain — the brand new season can be streamed in 30 languages — whereas conserving it on its long-standing residence, PBS Children and the PBS Children Video app, on the identical time. Episodes can be out there on each Netflix and PBS on the identical day.
“The partners themselves have been amazing and really supportive and allowing us to do what ‘Sesame Street’ does,” says Perez. “They know that we’ve got a history of knowing how to produce content. So, they’ve really just been supportive and elevating the brand.”
“Sesame Street” may also lean into breaking the fourth wall, with creatures turning to the viewer and maybe confessing their emotions or asking for recommendation.
“I think this season, we wanted to just play that up and make it really an expected feature of the show — the characters are not just talking to you, but they’re really pulling you in,” says Individual.
“This is just another way to really build that relationship and make children feel like they’re a part of the action, that none of what’s happening in the story could happen without them and that our characters really need them.”
Segments like “Cookie’s Foodie Truck” and “Abby’s Magic Beasties” will make the transition, and there is the introduction of a brand new one — the animated “Tales from 123,” which takes viewers into the residence constructing the place the furry monsters stay.
“This gave us an opportunity to get a peek inside. You have our amazing cast of characters living in an apartment building, with Elmo and Tango having really physical comedy adventures throughout, really zany adventures,” says Perez.
Within the inaugural “Tales from 123,” Elmo desires to satisfy Grover for a playdate, however each get blended up, so that they go in elevators and race up staircases till Tango saves the day. Lastly reunited, they naturally play hide-and-seek.
It is like a backstage move to “Sesame Street” and, in fact, one gruff monster can be complaining. “No New York apartment could be complete without Oscar as the superintendent,” says Perez.
