Talk:Sesame Workshop

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CTW's "Third Alumni"?

The section "Gathering Talent" refers to "Sam Gibbon, CTW's third alumni." Huh? What in the heck does that mean? I assume you mean alumnus: alumni is plural. But even if you do mean alumnus, how could he have been an alumnus of the corporation before he joined the corporation? Do you mean "founding member" or something of that nature? If so, that's not what alumnus means. Figure out what you mean, and then say what you mean. As it is right now, it's complete and utter nonsense.

Tradeemarks/copyright for Muppets
Didn't Sesame Workshop finally buy the rights to all of the "Sesame Street Muppets" outright during the last Muppets reorganization? Since this includes all of the Sesame characters other than Kermit, it makes big crossovers of the type found in "Muppet Family Christmas" and "The Muppets Take Manhattan" far less likely in the future. If anyone has this information it should be included and cited. 206.218.218.57 (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sesame Street Unpaved
That syndication package only aired from 1999 and in 2002 when SW sold its imterests they took the show off Noggin (TV channel) Matthew Cantrell (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Sesame Street Bias?
The article as it is currently written reads more like a history of Sesame Street, rather than a description and history of the Children's Television Workshop/Sesame Workshop. There are obscure references to "the show", without specifying which show (I assume it means Sesame Street). It also almost totally misses the other efforts in which CTW was involved. If it wasn't for the list-dump at the bottom of the article, and a glancing "oh, they did magazines too" reference or two, you would get the impression from the article that Sesame Street was all CTW/SW ever did. -- 76.204.101.11 (talk) 15:55, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Nearly everything CTW/SW is involved in is based on Sesame Street. If you've got additional information, or can copy edit to make the focus more to your liking,  please do it.--RadioFan (talk) 13:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

CTW/Sesame Workshop logos
The current Sesame Workshop logo does not include the "house" in the logo. The logo just has the text "Sesame Workshop" in lowercase letters. The first Sesame Street logo kinda creeps me out. Please take it off. 24.183.52.110 (talk) 23:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, no! Now the third logo when it just pops up right away. 24.183.52.110 (talk) 23:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Merchandising section
While this section needs some copy editing, it should remain as a section in the Sesame Workshop article. This article isn't long enough to force separating sections and CTW/Sesame Workshop licensing efforts are not notable enough to warrant a dedicated article. --RadioFan (talk) 13:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the current content isn't worth it's own article. But there are pages upon pages of information about how licensing has not only supported, but indeed saved the show multiple times, when other funding runs dry. It's a very important topic to Sesame Street, one that deserves its own section, separate from general info about licensing for Sagwa, Ghostwriter, etc. --  Zanimum (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * All the more reason to keep it in the Sesame Workshop article, it supports the company and isn't terribly notable on its own. There is significant coverage in 3rd party sources on Seasame Workshop but not on its merchandising efforts.--RadioFan (talk) 18:43, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Advisory board
I've taken on improving Sesame Street and some related articles, and in my research, I've found something that probably should be added here. In this article's current state, however, I'm not sure where it belongs, so I thought I'd take the easy way out and simply place it on this talk page. I agree with the anonymous IP's estimation of this article above; some of the information here doesn't really fit. This article should probably be re-edited at some point, something that I'm not willing to do at the current time due to time constraints and commitment to other articles. Perhaps it will happen someday in the future. An example of what I'm talking about is that there's nothing about the structure of the SW as an organization. Gerald Lesser's book, Children and Television, talks about the early days of The Show and CTW. This article needs to include that information. I include what he says here about the National Board of Advisers, which he founded and chaired, for use at a later time. The wording of the below is just a suggestion, so it can be changed in any way.

Lesser states that unlike most advisory boards, which acted to simply "kosher a product created by others" (p. 43), CTW's board contributed substantially to the project's (i.e., Sesame Street) design and implementation. This shocked many of the board's first members, but they followed this suggestion, which was made by Cooney. One of the first things they did was direct Lesser to lead the curriculum seminars in the summer of 1968 (Lesser, pp. 43-44, see footnote on p. 44 for list of the original Board of Advisers). Christine (talk) 12:19, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Continuing in the same vein as above, Lesser also reports in his book that the CTW established a Research Advisory Board, made up of researchers and child development experts. The purpose of this board was to provide CTW researchers with objective consultation with other experts, to help them set priorities, and to monitor their research activities (Lesser, p. 163). Christine (talk) 11:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

SW "model"
There has been much said in the Sesame Street literature about the SW/CTW "model", and that should be included in this article. According to Lesser, the main features of this model include "some important assumptions about children and how they learn from television, the priority given to high-quality production, and an organization that fostered mutual confidence among its members" (p. 239). Christine (talk) 12:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * More about the model: I'll just reproduce it here and we'll sort it out later. From: Cooney, Joan Ganz (2001). "Foreward". In "G" is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, Fisch, Shalom M. and Rosemarie T. Truglio, eds. Mahweh, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. ISBN 0-8058-3395-1.
 * "There can be no question that the personalities, patience, and know-how of two of the original architects of CTW research, Edward Palmer and Gerry Lesser, were critical to winning the hand of the production department. (Although in all fairness and with great warmth, the receptivity of our producers to research input, in their very gameness in agreeing to try a new model for producing shows, remains one of the cornerstones that CTW built.) (p. xii). Christine (talk) 12:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, another definition of the SW model (from G is For Growing, p. xvi): "This unique, ongoing integration of curriculum development, formative research, and summative research into the process of production has come to be known as the CTW model". Christine (talk) 03:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice quote
Davis has a nice quote about the start of CTW, taken from a New York Times article written after CTW's first press conference in 1968, which he describes on pp. 127-131. It should be incorporated somehow into this article, including possibly looking for the original article on the internet. Davis' source is: Jack Gould, "TV: Focus on Programming for the Disadvantaged Child," New York Times, March 22, 1968, p. 95. I would add it, but I don't want to spend the time right now. Here's the quote: "Michael Dann, vice president of the Columbia Broadcasting System, hailed the workshop as conceivably one of the most important breakthroughs in the evolution of the mass medium" (Davis, p. 130). Christine (talk) 12:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

History section
When was the name changed? The article states New Year's Day, but which year? Nutster (talk) 12:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean when did the CTW change its name to the SW, the Sesame Workshop. All the sources I've been able to find states that it happened in 2000, but nothing about the exact day.  Here's a source that states it: O'Neil, William J (2003). Business Leaders and Success: 55 Top Business Leaders and How They Achieved Greatness. New York: McGraw Hill. p. 147. ISBN 0-0714-6809.  This book has a chapter about Cooney which can be very useful, and it's on Google books.  I've also never been able to find the Workshop's reason for changing their name, not even in Davis and Gikow, two of the most recent books written about SW and The Show.  WP policy states that we're not supposed to use websites generated by the subject of the article, but there are exceptions.  I think that this is one of them.  Perhaps there are at least press releases explaining the reason for the change.  Further research definitely needs to be done on the name change. Christine (talk) 12:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked on the Sesame Workshop website, among others, trying to find an answer before posting here. The earliest press release on the site is from 2004 and the company was already called Sesame Workshop at that point. Nutster (talk) 12:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Isn't that just so weird? You'd think that with such a major change, there'd be some more about why they did it.  There's been so much written about The Show and The Workshop, and almost nothing about that?  I suggest doing a thorough web search about it.  I have other stuff on my plate, so I'll delegate that task to you, Nutster, if you wouldn't mind. ;) If you can't, let me know. Christine (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I stumbled upon this article on Muppet Central, which states is from Reuters. That's a good website to start from in doing much SS research, so it may help. Christine (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

About Noggin
Low ratings didn't cause the Workshop to sell its half to Viacom Media Networks, they did however cause Noggin to change its format/target audience. MuppetCentral states that Sesame Workshop needed money to pay back to EM.TV, and they signed an agreement that Viacom's Nickelodeon would fully own the network beginning August 7, 2002 Matthew Cantrell (talk) 06:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Renamed From CW To Sesame Workshop
On June 5, 2000. CW Was Changed to Sesame Workshop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:81:8400:5ACD:5043:8CBB:9DF1:D91 (talk) 21:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Re-write and re-vamp
As I've mentioned previously on this talk page, I've had my eyes on this article for a few years now, but have never had the time and/or inclination to take it on. I feel ready to do so now. After re-reading it tonight, I've come to the conclusion that this article needs a complete overhaul, meaning that its entire content needs to be replaced by well-sourced and well-written content. I basically need to compile all the information from every source available and re-write this entire article. Fortunately, I have access to most of the salient sources about the Workshop; plus, I need to look for more information in journals and other sources. IOW, I need to do some research, and I'm stating my intention to do so now. This is potentially a huge project, one with my limited time, may take several months. I'll keep everyone posted as to my progress. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've been able to do as I promised/threatened above, and am currently in the process of moving the new version from my sandbox to userspace. I think that the result is a much stronger article that better reflects the sources and is fitting of such an important organization. Something has come up, however, which I expected. Notice that in the new "Early years" section, I placed a template that refers to Sesame Workshop funding sources. I wonder if the funding sources article should be merged into this article; without the background and introductory sections there, which repeat much of the same information in this article, it wouldn't make this article all that much longer, anyway. I also think that it would take care of some of the issues about the funding sources article, some of which were brought up in its successful GAC. Its GA reviewer, after recommending that the article name change (which happened), demonstrated that it wasn't comprehensive enough. I suspect that the reason for that is that the content better belongs here. Consequently (and I'll put a note over there referring to this discussion), I suggest that we merge the funding sources with this article. I suspect that I'll get very little response, but I thought that I'd bring it up in the interest of full disclosure. If there's no major disagreement in a week or so, I'll go ahead and do the merge. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 07:02, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Possible good source
Ironic, given the just-closed FAC: Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 14:21, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

HBO deal?
Shouldn't this comprehensive featured article include the January 2016 exclusivity deal Sesame Workshop made with HBO (that was covered in the Sesame Street article)? —Prhartcom ♥ 03:25, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * As of 2021 there is now a section titled "The HBO/Warner Bros. Era (2015–present)" which mentions neither HBO nor Warner.212.202.181.136 (talk) 12:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center into Sesame Workshop
Encyclopedic content can be covered within the scope of the merge target, and would address the issues with the current article. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose, on the grounds that the centre seems to have sufficient independent sources to support an article, even if the existing page needs a prune. Using a merge as a surrogate for fixing a problem seems like a back-door method; it's better to just fix it. A merge of poor content to a featured article is also against the interests of readers. Klbrain (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, what @Klbrain said. I agree that this merge would compromise the integrity of the merge target. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 19:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks like consensus is No Move. Removing tags. TRL (talk) 04:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)