Documentary

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

Citizen Skull Productions

Macrocosm Entertainment

HBO Documentary Films

Screen Media Films

JustFilms / Ford Foundation

United States of America

English

Joan Ganz Cooney

Jim Henson

Jon Stone

Frank Oz

Caroll Spinney

Bob McGrath

Sonia Manzano

Emilio Delgado

Lloyd Morrisett

Sharon Lerner

Christopher Cerf

Roscoe Orman

Brian Henson

Lisa Henson

Loretta Long

Fran Brill

Norman Stiles

Holly Robinson Peete

James Earl Jones

Stevie Wonder

Muhammad Ali

Matt Robinson

Odetta

Jesse Jackson

Joe Raposo

Nick Raposo

Johnny Cash

Dizzy Gillespie

Johnny Carson

Frank Biondo

Will Lee

Orson Welles

Fred Rogers

Ben Smart

Dan Bricker

Stanley Gonzales

Lawrence He

Brant Beland

Viktor Weiszhaupt

Camilla Wycoco

Brian Berger

Eric Snyder

Avi Zev Weider

Matt Sutton

Erik Wolford

Marilyn Agrelo

Michael Davis

Ben Gold

T. Griffin

Mark Myers

Lisa Diamond

Luke Geissbühler

Lisa Heller

Brian O'Shea

Ellen Scherer Crafts

Nancy Abraham

Heather Kenyon

Trevor Crafts

Gil Choi

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.

Official Trailer

Best Movies

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

Cast & Crew

Videos

Cast

Joan Ganz Cooney

Jim Henson

Jon Stone

Frank Oz

Caroll Spinney

Bob McGrath

Sonia Manzano

Emilio Delgado

Lloyd Morrisett

Sharon Lerner

Box office

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