STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET - INTERVIEW WITH THE FILMMAKERS

Sunny days indeed! There’s a new documentary out about everyone’s favourite children’s television show and boy, does it bring back some great memories.

Inspired by Michael Davis’ New York Times best-selling book, STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET takes audiences inside the minds and hearts of the “Sesame Street” creators, artists, writers, and educators who together established one of the most influential and enduring children’s programs in television history.

Inspired by the activism of the late 1960s, socially conscious television executive Joan Ganz Cooney and Sesame Workshop co-founder Lloyd Morrisett conducted a revolutionary experiment: to harness the burgeoning power of television and create an educational, impactful, uplifting and entertaining show that could reach children nationwide, especially those living in urban areas. Cooney recruited trailblazing Muppets creator Jim Henson and acclaimed children’s television writer and director Jon Stone to craft the iconic and beloved world of “Sesame Street.”

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET reintroduces this visionary “gang” of mission-driven artists, writers, and educators that audaciously interpreted radical changes in society and created one of most impactful television programs in history. 

With more than 20 interviews with original writers, cast, and crew, and never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, STREET GANG is told from the inside with humor and emotion, weaving together personal narratives and eyewitness accounts. The film explores the original mission of the “gang” that created this cultural phenomenon, now spanning 50-plus years and reaching more than 150 countries.

I spoke with director Marilyn Agrelo and Producers Trevor Crafts, Ellen Scherer Crafts about how this documentary came to be and the challenge of going through thousands of hours of footage.

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street is available NOW on VOD.