The first TV shows I ever remember watching? Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Gilligan's Island, Major Astro, Sesame Street...
There were always celebrities on Sesame Street when I was a little boy. People like Johnny Cash, Flip Wilson and "Broadway Joe" Nammath and Carol Channing stopped by the neighborhood. They bantered with Oscar the Grouch, had chats about the letter of the day with Big Bird and performed musical numbers with the Count. A number, say seven, might pop up before a background that looked like a gothic Romanian castle in the Carpathian Mountains.
A generation of little people like myself sat on shrug carpets, perched in front of four-legged Zenith box television sets and drinking Tang, taking our Flintstones vitamins and learning our alphabet and numbers. Why could I count to 20 at 3-years-old? I'd been with the gang, sweepin' up clouds away.
Little boys and girls born just after the Baby Boom -- 20 years later when the media would label us "Generation X" and we might be sitting in college classrooms, singing all the words verbatim to Schoolhouse Rock songs, naming the Brady Bunch kids in reverse order and many would be listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
But those adults interacting with Jim Henson's muppets on Sesame Street? We didn't know they were celebrities -- Big Names.
Around 30 years after I'd watched Sesame Street, my boy, Max was watching. Of course the show jumped the shark 20 years ago, the best mini-films and skits back in a time capsule the size of a bank vault and everything went downhill after that annoying Elmo came along. But it was still Sesame Street, still teaching kids things like numbers, letters and how to be kind and share our toys.
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| Buzz Aldrin with Cookie Monster comparing the shape of the moon to a cookie. |
Dang, this guy's on Law and Order: SVU, you know...The SEX CRIMES unit! Iced-T has been on the street too, right there with the apartment buildings, sidewalks and Mr. Hooper's Store. Man, who else has been there? Jay Z and Dirty Ol' Bastard?
James Gandolfini (gonna miss that guy) was there, talking sensitively to a little Muppet in a white dress about feeling scared. At the end, there's a veiled parody of his Tony Soprano role as he ducks -- scared of the celery and all vegetables coming at him like flying felt pellets. A little something for the parents watching with their children.
The talented actors, actresses, singers and musicians making guest appearances on Sesame Street over the years have included people who have made dark, gritty films, sometimes portraying lethal violence and promiscuous sex. They have written songs addressing adult problems -- in the bedroom and every other room and outside space where the ways of the world finds us.
I bet these artists -- many of whom are compassionate, contemplative people -- would be among the first to champion the care and nurturing of children that will help ignite their creative energies. With all the phony talk in society about "family values," these artists -- straight, gay or whatever -- will be among the most vocal about preserving childhood for our kids and not rushing them into adulthood before they're ready.
Naturally, celebrities would relish the opportunity to be on Sesame Street. Artists continue in life to keep activated the creative spark we're all born with, yet have quashed before we're out of T-ball. They continue to prune and season the creative sparks within their brain synapses. They engage the culture, holding a mirror to society and prompting reflection of the most probing questions of our times. In other words, they spark critical thinking.
It's like my son's pre-school teacher, Mrs. Costello, said: "He's gonna need that in life."
Artists tend to promote higher order thinking skills. I knew Edie Falco as the host of PBS's Independent Lens before I'd ever seen The Sopranos.
But it's artists of all stripes. An actress who did a nude scene? Sure, but also Taylor Swift. Richard Pryor? Yes, but Bill Cosby also guested on Sesame Street. Tony Danza, too.
Diversity is a hallmark of public broadcasting, like it is of America. Michele Obama appeared on Sesame Street, showing kids how to plant vegetables. But Laura Bush has been there too, reading to children from Wubba Wubba Woo by Christine Ferraro and Mike Pantuso.
I was surprised to hear that Bill O'Reilly has appeared on Sesame Street. I still don't like the guy, but I have a smidgen of respect that wasn't there before.
There's a part of me that's always been skeptical of that axiom: "Prejudice isn't innate. It's a learned behavior." It seems I was aware of color differences from quite a tender age, but when I really take my memory back -- at 3 or 4-years-old (and yes, I do have some memory of it), I didn't think anything of the white, Hispanic, black and Asian American kids romping past urban parks and rural farms to where the air is sweet.
I actually think I did pick up prejudice, or at least knowledge of prejudice, from adults. Social stratifications are humanly erected walls, not intrinsic human responses.
As a guy trying to make his way, struggling to make sense of the crap society throws at us, I've had to confront my own prejudices. As someone who likes to write junk on a blog, a newspaper and whatnot, I don't think I can afford to harbor prejudice. I have to draw back within the recesses of my life and subconscious to revive the creative gene present in early childhood ----
in bedrooms, backyards, sandboxes, Sunday school classrooms, before educational television.
If I'm accepting of people of different national origins, religions, sexual orientations, political beliefs and philosophies, that's not me -- that's Mister Rogers. I decided I would tell my kids exactly what Mister Rogers told my generation of kids: There's nobody else like you in this whole world and you're special just for being you.
One day when my son was 3, he was singing: "You'll have things you'll want to talk about" ---
"I will too," I sang, finishing the line.
"You know that song," he asked.
"Of course I know that song."
