Sesame Streets 40th Birthday and SesameStreet.org

Posted by: Phil on 9th November 2009, 17:13:25 pm

Sesame Street has reached it’s 40th milestone this week with a new season about to start and it shows no sign of slowing down. It would be fair to say that the internet will be snowed under with Muppet related articles, recalling the antics of Big Bird, Elmo and friends as the 40th Birthday arrives. Over at the BBC News website, their reporter Kevin Connolly has written a nice piece on the series and his encounters with some its furry stars. Sesame Street has seen many famous names appear including Ricky Gervais (outtake over at Youtube),
Jack Black (check his appearance under the video section of the Sesame Street website) and the First Lady, Michelle Obama appearing tomorrow for the 40th Birthday.

British television has been devoid of Sesame Street since the start of this decade, which I had not realised until I looked into it today. Whilst growing up in the 80's I would always associate Channel 4 and their coloured block style logo with the Cosby Show and Sesame Street. Sesame Street was not a favourite of mine, it was interesting, not least because of Jim Henson. Jim Henson, a man with the creativity and vision who could bring distinct looking creatures to life. A person knows when they have seen a Jim Henson creation whether it is Bert or Ernie, Kermit or the cast of Fraggle Rock.

Is British television really that much better off with the Teletubbies and In the Night Garden? There is a debate within the UK about not enough home grown Children's entertainment and too much reliance on foreign, mostly US imports but from flicking through the channels it appears that there is a decline in quality across the board, home grown or otherwise. Trying to find a good cartoon series today that it comparable to that of the 80's and 90's is hard work, although Samurai Jack and The Batman are worth noting.

One of Sesame Street's star characters, Bert, appeared in a cult website 'Bert is Evil'. This spoof website featured 'evidence' of Bert's real character, a friend of Hitler and a then semi-unknown Osama bin Laden as well as other disturbing photoshopped evidence. The original Bert is Evil site disappeared after a controversy related to Bert's appearance with bin Laden on a picture in a protest in Bangladesh. At the height of it's popularity Bert is Evil was getting 8000 hits per day, a total which many web developers would love to achieve on their own site's (Studio Arctic Wolf included). Copies of the Bert is Evil website can be found all over the internet, the page design is definitely showing all of it's 11 years (it was looking dated in 2000) but it has it's place in web history.

The official Sesame Street website, sesamestreet.org is one Studio Arctic Wolf wishes that we made. As would be expected the website is a fairly simple one to navigate, the main navigation buttons which run along the top of the site are quite chunky with a nice rollover and clearly labelled to avoid confusion. Of the buttons, the one which stands out the most is the one featuring the image of one of the Muppets (it appears that the Muppet you get is somewhat random, initially the button features Abby Cadabby, a character we’re not familiar with, but changes on first hover then sticks until you navigate away).

The website features lots of colour, on the home page alone I counted 8 different colours but the page doesn't appear too busy and items on the page feel right with their colouration and it keeps in touch with the feel of Sesame Street. Clearly, a lot of thought and effort have been invested into the website to make it work so effortlessly. Talking of working effortlessly, my favourite element (maybe of the whole site) of the home page is the Flash video which appears under the navigation and takes up around a third of the page. Sometimes you see a web page which has a video mounted on it and doesn't look to be a part of it or that the area with the video contrasts against the page that it appears. The video on the Sesame Street home page works seamlessly with the page to a point where it blends with its surroundings. On viewing the page last Friday, Bert and Ernie appeared jabbering on about something or other and today Elmo appears welcoming you to the website and explaining the navigation above. However, the video does repeat and if you have it in the background with the sound on then you should be prepared to be annoyed there appears to be no sound control available.

The section labelled for 'Grown Ups' is all that you would expect and it offers insight, tips, downloads, a blog from the people behind the show and much much more. The website appears to be a comprehensive companion to the show for Children and Parents a like. If there is a let down, it is the low bandwidth version of the site which only appears to offer links to low bandwidth games. Each of the main pages within the normal (high bandwidth / broadband) site offers a link for low bandwidth users but each time it goes to the low bandwidth games list. In this instance, you would have to question the value of this option - perhaps it would have been more appropriate to have a low bandwidth games option more prominent within the games section of the normal site, if not on the main games page then on the Browse All Games page.

If you can overlook the low bandwidth site link, then the Sesame Street website is rather good all round and I wish that Studio Arctic Wolf made it but perhaps one day we will have the chance to do something similar. There was one other thing, back in 2001/02 I can remember playing a game on the website in my A-Level physics class (end of term I think it was), one which featured Elmo making plenty of noise that unfortunately doesn't seem to be there anymore which is a shame as having returned in 2009 I wanted to have a go for old times sake.

If anyone can tell us the name of the big brown furry elephant, please let us know via our contact page or using the comments section below.

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