SESAME WORKSHOP VRP
Official Website: http://www.sesameworkshop.org/
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/inside/our_mission
Who We Are
Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit educational organization making a meaningful difference in the lives of children worldwide by addressing their critical developmental needs.
What We Do
The Workshop develops innovative and engaging educational content delivered in a variety of ways — including television, radio, books, magazines, interactive media, and community outreach. Taking advantage of all forms of media and using those that are best suited to delivering a particular curriculum, the Workshop effectively and efficiently reaches millions of children, parents, caregivers, and educators — locally, nationally and globally.
Why We Do It
The Workshop is committed to the principle that all children deserve a chance to learn and grow; to be prepared for school; to better understand the world and each other; to think, dream and discover; to reach their highest potential.
How We Began
Sesame Workshop was founded over thirty eight years ago as Children’s Television Workshop. Identifying a specific need to help children from low-income families be prepared for school, the Workshop’s founders shared a common goal: to use the medium of television as a tool to help children learn. This group of visionary educators, researchers, psychologists, child development experts, artists, writers and musicians pioneered the concept of entertaining, enriching television that could measurably enhance the lives of millions of educationally disadvantaged youngsters. From this collaboration came Sesame Street — now one of the single greatest educators of young children in the world.
How We Do It
Research is our anchor and our compass. Sesame Workshop pioneered a model for Sesame Street that has proven successful for decades. We attribute much of that success to our collaborative, research-intensive approach to the development of programs and activities. The Workshop’s offerings reflect both a deep understanding of children’s developmental needs and the best ways to address those needs. As a result, Sesame Workshop’s programs and products are richer, more thoroughly researched and tested to ensure they engage children in a way that maximizes learning.
Who Makes This Possible
Of course, we can’t do it alone. Through the years, we have been fortunate to partner with like-minded leaders around the world who share our vision. Their commitment — and crucial support from foundations, corporations, individuals, governments, and licensees — make our endeavors on behalf of children possible, enabling us to bring our mission to life.
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/inside/our_process (video)
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/inside/whoweare
Dr. Jeanette Betancourt
Dr. Betancourt has directed Sesame Workshop Outreach projects in the areas of bilingual education, literacy, music, health and safety, resiliency, and child care. She has overseen content development for Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat and advised on Dragon Tales. She is also the series content advisor for the award-winning parenting programs A Place of Our Own and Los Niños en su Casa in association with KCET, the PBS station in Los Angeles, California. Betancourt maintains and expands a comprehensive network of national organizations that are strategic partners within the educational community.
Terry Fitzpatrick
Executive Vice President, Content Distribution
As Executive Vice President, Content Distribution, Terry Fitzpatrick manages distribution strategy and partner relationships to deliver Sesame Workshop content through multiple media platforms. He oversees four divisions at the Workshop: Worldwide Television; Digital and Interactive Media; Publishing, Video & Audio; and Themed Entertainment.
Fitzpatrick was most recently Senior Vice President, Business Operations. He was responsible for managing all business activities for the Content division including creative development and production. He joined the Workshop in 1996 as Vice President Finance for Television, Film and Video.
Prior to joining The Workshop, Fitzpatrick spent nine years in programming at Showtime Networks rising to the level of Vice President, Programming Finance. He began his career as Controller of the Joyce Theater, where he also created and produced The American Theater Exchange which brought theatrical productions from throughout the United States to New York City. He holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BBA from the University of Wisconsin.
Dr. Lewis Bernstein
Executive Vice President, Education and Research
As Executive Vice President of Education and Research, Dr. Lewis Bernstein establishes the educational agenda for all Workshop productions and creative executions. He oversees the development and analysis of research studies which assess the objectives of Sesame Workshop’s projects.
Bernstein served as the Executive Producer of the nonprofit organization’s most beloved and well-known series, Sesame Street. In his three years as Executive Producer, the series adopted a curriculum encouraging American children to respect the diversity of children from all over the world and an initiative to teach children about nutrition and exercise.
Formerly Vice President, Global Sesame Street Productions, Bernstein has been integral to the success of the children’s series internationally, training production teams from France, Spain, Holland, Germany, Kuwait and Israel to develop their own versions of the program. Prior to his role as Vice President, Bernstein served as Executive Producer for Sesame English, a television program that teaches conversational English in foreign countries. In addition, he was responsible for spearheading the Israeli/Palestinian version of Sesame Street and served as the Executive Producer on the project.
Bernstein’s association with Sesame Street began in 1972 when he came on board as Director of Research working alongside Jim Henson and Jon Stone to integrate entertainment and education.
Bernstein holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in Communications Research, an M.A. from Hebrew University in Communications, and a B.A. from Queens College, CUNY, in Psychology.
Caralynn Sandorf
Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer
As Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer, Caralynn Sandorf is responsible for managing Sesame Workshop’s Office of Resource Development, which is comprised of the Philanthropic Development and Corporate Partnership teams. Sandorf oversees the department’s comprehensive efforts to secure private funding from corporations, foundations, individuals, and government sources for operations and national and international programs serving children in the United States and across the globe.
With two decades of non-profit development experience, Sandorf was most recently the Senior Director of Campaign and Major Gifts at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where she managed the Museum’s $850 million fund raising campaign and oversaw the institution’s comprehensive major gifts effort. Prior to her work at the Museum, Sandorf held leadership development positions with the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, the Children’s Health Fund/Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, the Shoah Foundation, and the Franklin Institute Science Museum.
Sandorf holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Northwestern University and resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband, Dr. Michael Perskin and son Aidan.
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/programs
All Programs
Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/inside/employment
Join the Sesame Workshop Team
Maximize your personal and professional potential while supporting our core values of championing the mission, knowledge, inclusiveness, innovation, teamwork and quality of life for employees.
Sesame Workshop is organized into six core areas, with all areas working together to realize the company’s mission.
The Education, Research, and Outreach Group provides the educational agenda for the Workshop by overseeing all research and outreach initiatives, both domestic and international.
The Global Marketing and Licensing Group maintains the brand image, manages toy licensees, and creates the product and character design of all our artwork.
The Distribution and Content Group oversees the overall creation and distribution of our content through our multimedia platforms: television, website, interactive media, themed entertainment partnerships and business ventures that promote our brand, domestic and international distribution of our shows, and our publications.
The Development Group oversees the Workshop’s fundraising efforts through private funding, corporate social responsibility, public policy, and e-philanthropy.
The Corporate Services Group oversees human resources,finance, information systems, facilities, and technical operations.
The Legal and Public Affairs Group oversees all corporate legal endeavors for the organization as well as public policy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Workshop
Sesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children’s Television Workshop (or CTW), is a Worldwide American non-profit organization behind the production of several educational children’s programs that have run on public broadcasting around the world (including PBS in the United States). Sesame Workshop was instrumental in the establishment of education children’s television in the 1960s, and continues to provide grants for educational children’s programming four decades later. Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett were the original founders, with the intention of producing a revolutionary television series based on cutting-edge research into childhood learning. The result was Sesame Street, a landmark program which has been reproduced in countries around the world.
Although it was originally funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the United States Office of Education, much of the Workshop’s funding is now earned through licensing the use of their characters to a variety of corporations to use for books, toys, and other products marketed toward children. This ensures that the Workshop has reliable access to funding for its programming without depending on unpredictable grants.
History
Founded by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett in 1968 to produce Sesame Street, the company, currently run by President and CEO Gary E. Knell, has since produced many other shows and a variety of multimedia content. The CTW name was officially changed to Sesame Workshop on New Years Day 2000 to reflect the company’s reach into new media and capitalize on the worldwide recognition provided by the Sesame Street name (although Sesame Street continued to use the CTW name until April 2000).
Gathering talent for Sesame Street
Moving to Carnegie Corporation of New York, the grant-issuing foundation, to act and advise independent of what is now WNET, Cooney began laying the groundwork for the Children’s Television Workshop. Carnegie hired Linda Gotley to help Cooney write the proposal. Barbara Finberg and Lloyd Morrisett, program officers at Carnegie would regularly react as funders, every few days trying to find holes in the proposal. During these days, segments like “One of these things is not like the others” were established.
Despite the insistence of the US Office of Education that there was no money to fund the project, Howe persisted, and insisted the project be classified as a research project. Ford joined funding, as did the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was being established just as Sesame Street was. Between those organizations and Carnegie, USD$8 million was raised to create a semi-autonomous organization. This organization was established to become completely separate, should they succeed.
At a press conference in March 1968, the Children’s Television Workshop and Sesame Street were announced. Jack Gould, television critic for The New York Times, gave the project front page space. “If you had Jack Gould in your corner, you could not believe what it meant,” said Cooney decades later.[1]
With Cooney, an assistant, and a secretary, CTW began production on the show. Cooney tried to talk George DeSarde of WCBS-TV to come to CTW as producer of the series. Within a few days of being graciously declined by DeSarde, Cooney received a letter from Mike Dann of CBS, who eagerly wanted to join as an executive producer.[1] Dann and Fred Silverman decided Cooney should try to get David Connell as a producer.
Connell had recently left Captain Kangaroo, and started his own company in an attempt to get out of the kids’ TV industry. After four meetings, Cooney talked Connell into signing on, after being assured creative freedom and no micromanagement on Cooney’s part. Connell insisted on a few “non-negotiables”. First, he wanted to include four hosts, both black and white, male and female, none of whom would ever “own the show”, as Bob Keeshan “owned” Captain Kangaroo, or Fred Rogers “owned” Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He also wanted “commercials” to promote letters of the alphabet. Perhaps most importantly, Connell wanted a guarantee that education and entertainment would never be separate elements of the program.
While attracting Connell, Cooney received a call from Lou Hausman, who worked for the Commissioner of Education; he suggested Jon Stone, also from Captain Kangaroo, a producer who had retired to Vermont, though no more than 35 at the time. Stone came to New York to speak with Cooney, but declined the opportunity to be an executive in the production. Stone wanted to be a producer, reporting to Cooney; Cooney suggested such an organization structure would only create “madness”. Stone and Connell had a history of disputes, which were smoothed out, after the two re-met. Sam Gibbon, CTW’s third alumni, had also initially declined joining any children’s programming. According to Cooney, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Gibbon called her to say “if you still want me, I’m yours.” He was primarily involved with integrating curriculum into the series.
Edith Sornow, who was not yet the film producer for Sesame Street, called Cooney, asking her to come to the Johnny Victor Theatre to see a reel of commercials by Jim Henson. Cooney had heard of Henson before then, but never actually seen his work; the commercial had not aired in New York, and she had never tuned into The Ed Sullivan Show when his Muppets appeared. After “almost falling on the floor laughing,” she was open to getting him to sign on, but was doubtful he’d agree. Jon Stone, who’d worked with Henson on ABC television special Hey, Cinderella!, discussed the idea with a reluctant Jim.
Gerald S. Lesser of Harvard became the head of CTW’s board of academic advisors, and later brought in the Educational Testing Service.[2]
Establishing curriculum
The Department of Education and other funders had decided they wanted to study children’s comprehension of topics before and after watching Sesame Street. Lesser set up four two-and-a-half-day seminars over the summer with producers, meeting to establish what was important to teach children. The session topics were: on perception, reasoning skills, pre-reading and pre-math, and “affective skills”, the period’s term for emotional skills.
Cooney remembered seeing a leather-coated Jim Henson come into one of the seminars at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and becoming worried by his appearance that he was one of the Weathermen. Her concern was heightened due to the recent event of a building in Greenwich Village having been blown up by Weathermen. Cooney whispered her fears to Connell, who reassured her. Once Cooney and Jim met, Cooney says they automatically clicked. Jim much preferred general family audiences, but Cooney was able to allay Jim’s fears of being “ghettoized” into children television. Joe Raposo, who worked with Henson and Stone before, was added soon after.
When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting signed on to sponsor the program, the organization’s chairperson was Frank Pace. Pace warned strongly against the broad curriculum Sesame Street aimed to teach. “Pick only a few goals, and accomplish them. Don’t try and do too much; show… only three or four or five goals,” Pace told Cooney and Connell.
Early investments
Knowing that government funding wouldn’t last forever, the Ford Foundation helped CTW start investing. The company bought into small cable systems in Akron, Ohio, Hawaii, and another location, worthwhile investments, according to Cooney. Not as worthwhile was 1977 Emmy Award winning mini-series The Best of Families. While Noble and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting each chipped in money, the Workshop came up $1 million short. Too late to turn around, it was forced to fund the miniseries with Ford Foundation money meant for Sesame Street.
International growth
In 1970, Mike Dann finally came to the Children’s Television Workshop from CBS, in the capacity of international sales. He called the CTW “one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of media”.[3]
Later
In the 1980s, CTW created a series of video games under the name of Children’s Computer Workshop, including Cookie Monster Munch and Alpha Beam with Ernie. Today the company also publishes Sesame Street Magazine in cooperation with Time Inc.‘s Parenting magazine. At one time it also published The Electric Company, Kid City, 3-2-1 Contact (later Contact Kids), and Sesame Street Parents magazines.
In August 1997, Fox Family started efforts to increase its quantity and quality of children’s entertainment, “which could lead to an equity investment by Fox in the non-profit CTW in exchange for programs for its Family Channel.” Nothing ever materialised.[4]
In 1999, CTW partnered in a joint venture with Viacom‘s Nickelodeon to launch Noggin, a 24-hour cable channel aimed at 6-13 year olds; Viacom’s MTV Networks division (which also operates Nickelodeon) operated the channel with CTW and MTV Networks jointly owning Noggin. In 2002, low ratings in part prompted the now-renamed Sesame Workshop to pull out and sell its interest in Noggin to Viacom. As a result, most of the Sesame Workshop-produced series carried by the channel were dropped. Noggin soon after became a timeshare service (in the same vein as Nickelodeon is by carrying Nick at Nite over the same channel space) starting the teen-oriented The N that fall, which became a separate channel from Noggin on December 31, 2007 with Noggin becoming a 24-hour channel for preschoolers; the Noggin channel was rebranded Nick Jr. on September 28, 2009.
Although Sesame Workshop is occasionally confused with PBS,[citation needed] Sesame Workshop is an entirely separate and independent organization. Some Workshop programs are broadcast on PBS, and although PBS provides some funding for those programs, the money received covers only a fraction of production costs. Other financial support comes from individual donors, charitable foundations, corporations, government agencies, program sales and licensed products. Sesame Workshop grants licenses to various manufacturers who create toys, apparel and other products featuring Sesame Street characters, and Sesame Workshop receives a portion of the proceeds.
On March 12, 2009, Sesame Workshop announced that it had planned to cut 20% of its workforce due to the recession.[5]
On October 15, 2009, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. announced a distribution deal for the Sesame Street library, including new and old titles. They plan to release 10 titles a year starting in 2010 with Elmo’s World: Let’s Play Music on February 2, 2010, Elmo’s Rainbow and Other Springtime Stories on March 9, 2010, Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures on April 6, 2010, The Best of Elmo 2 on May 4, 2010, Firefly Fun and Buggy Buddies on June 1, 2010, Preschool is Cool!: ABCs with Elmo on July 6, 2010, P is for Princess on August 3, 2010, Preschool is Cool!: Counting with Elmo on September 14, 2010, Iron Monster and Other Sesame Heroes on October 5, 2010, and C is for Cookie Monster on October 19, 2010, but none were released from Warner Bros. for the remainder of 2009.
Notable persons at Sesame Workshop
Gary E. Knell, President, CEO
Jerald Harvey, Senior Adviser
Joan Ganz Cooney, Co Founder
Lloyd Morrisett, Co Founder
Franklin Getchell, Executive Vice President
Nina Elias-Bamberger, Chief Executive Officer
Majorie Kalins, Series Administrative Officer
H. Melvin Ming, Chief Operating Officer
Susan Kolar, Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer
Dr. Lewis Bernstein, Executive Vice President, Education, Research and Outreach
Carol-Lynn Parente, Executive Producer of Sesame Street
Terry Fitzpatrick, Executive Vice President, Distribution
Daniel J. Victor, Executive Vice President, International
Maura Regan, Vice President and General Manager, Global Consumer Products
Sherrie Westin, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Office
Myung Kang-Haneke, Vice President, General Counsel
Hillary Rodham Clinton, former director, board member
David C. Cole, former director[6]
Television series
Sesame Street (1969–present; from 1969–2001, the Muppet characters were owned by The Jim Henson Company)
The Electric Company (1971-1977; 2009-, including Spidey Super Stories, 1974–1977)
Plaza Sesamo (1972–1974, 1984, 1995, 1997, 1999-2001, 2004-2007, 2008-)
Sesame Park (1971–2002) (in conjunction with The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
Sesamstrasse (1973-1984, 1986-)
Vila Sésamo (1973-1977, 2007-)
Feeling Good (1974–1975)
3-2-1 Contact (including Bloodhound Gang, 1980–1988)
Rechov Sumsum (1982-1987, 1998-1999, 2002-2006, 2007-2011)
Encyclopedia (1988)
Rua Sésamo (1989–1994)
Square One (including Mathnet, 1987–1992)
Zak Tales (1990–1991) (in conjunction with DIC Entertainment)
Ghostwriter (1992–1995) (in conjunction with the BBC)
Cro (1993–1994) (in conjunction with the National Science Foundation and Film Roman)
William’s Wish Wellingtons (1994–1997) (in conjunction with Children’s BBC and Hibbert Ralph)
Big Bag (1996–1998) (in conjunction with Cartoon Network)
The New Ghostwriter Mysteries (1997)
Elmo’s World (1998-2009) (PBS)
Dragon Tales (1999–2005) (in conjunction with Columbia TriStar Television (1999–2002) Sony Pictures Television (2002–2005 and reruns from 2006–2010) (PBS)
Sesame English (1999–2002)
Takalani Sesame (2000-2003, 2006-2009)
Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (2001–2002) (in conjunction with CinéGroupe) PBS
Sponk! (2001–2002) (in conjunction with Noggin and Insight Production Company)
Tiny Planets (2002–2005) (in conjunction with Pepper’s Ghost Productions)
Play with Me Sesame (2002–present)
Out There (2003–2004) (in conjunction with CBBC, Noggin and Blink Films)
Hikayat Simsim (2003–present)
Global Grover (2003–2007)
5, Rue Sésame (2005–2007)
The Upside Down Show (2006)
Pinky Dinky Doo (2006–present)
Galli Galli Sim Sim (2006–present) (in conjunction with Turner Entertainment)
Jalan Sesama (2007-present)
Panwapa (2008)
Sesame Tree (2008–present) (in conjunction with BBC Northern Ireland)
Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures (2008–present) (in conjunction with Misseri Studio)
Abby’s Flying Fairy School (2009–present)
Murray’s Science Experiments (2011)[7]
Munchin: Impossible (TBA 2012)[8]
Elmo’s Backyard (TBA 2012)[9]
Films, telefilms, specials and miniseries
Out to Lunch (1974 telefilm)
The Best of Families (1977 mini–series)
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978)
Don’t Eat the Pictures (1983)
Big Bird in China (1983)
Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985) (in conjunction with Warner Bros. Pictures and Henson Associates)
Big Bird in Japan (1989) (in conjunction with the NHK)
Elmo Saves Christmas (1996)
Sesame Street: Lead Away (1996)
Sesame Street: A is for Asthma (1997)
Elmopalooza (1998)
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999) (in conjunction with Columbia Pictures and Jim Henson Pictures)
Sesame Street: Music Works Wonders (2001)
Sesame Street: Happy, Healthy & Ready for School (2004)
Sesame Street: Talk, Listen, Connect (2006)
Sesame Street: The Get Healthy Now Show (2007)
Sesame Street: Talk, Listen, Connect: Homecomings (2008)
Sesame Street: Talk, Listen, Connect: Changes (2008)
Panwapa (2008)
Sesame Street: When Families Grieve (2010)
Sesame Street: Math is Everywhere! (2010)
Sesame Street Muppets have appeared in cameos in various feature films, including The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009). These productions, however, were not produced by Sesame Workshop.
Merchandising
Current licensees include Proctor & Gamble (Pampers diapers), Fisher-Price, Nakajima USA, Build-A-Bear Workshop (Build-An-Elmo, Build-A-Cookie Monster, And Build-A-Big Bird), GUND, Hasbro (Sesame Street Monopoly), Wooly Willy, Betty Crocker (Elmo Fruit Snacks), C&D Visionary (air freshners) and Children’s Apparel Network. Former licences include Applause, Child Dimension, Gibson Greetings, Gorham Fine China, Ideal Toys, Milton Bradley Company, Nintendo, Palisades Toys, Questor, Radio Shack, Tyco, and the Western Publishing Company. Creative Wonders (a partnership between ABC and Electronic Arts) produced Sesame Street software for the Macintosh, since at least 1995 and on the PC since 1996; Atari produced Sesame Street games in 1983. Before going bankrupt, Palisades Toys was to release a line of deluxe series action figures, for adults, as part of Sesame Workshop’s push to expand into retro products for teens and adults. Only a Super Grover figure was distributed to conventioneers.
The Sesame Beginnings line, launched in mid-2005, consists of apparel, health and body, home, and seasonal products.[10] The products in this line are designed to accentuate the natural interactivity between infants and their parents. Most of the line is exclusive to a family of Canadian retailers that includes Loblaws, Fortinos, and Zehrs.
As a non-profit organization, a percentage of the money from any Sesame Workshop product goes to help fund Sesame Street or its international co-productions.[11]
Barrio Sésamo, Plaza Sésamo, Sesamstraße, Sesame English and Sesamstraat have all had merchandise of their local characters. Shalom Sesame videos and books have also been released.
In 2004, Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (CPLG) became Sesame Workshop’s licensing representative for The Benelux,[12] adding to their United Kingdom representation.[13]
Toys
Main article: Tickle Me Elmo
Tickle Me Elmo was one of the fastest selling toys of the 1996 season. That product line was and still is one of the most successful products Mattel has ever launched. Both it and its most notable successor, TMX, have caused in-store fights, because Elmo starred in a Christmas special that year, in which he wished every day of the year was Christmas.[14]
After Fisher-Price recalled a large number of Sesame Street brand toys (among multiple licenses) in 2007 ,[15] Sesame Workshop announced that they would independently inspect the products of all manufacturers. It went so far as to threaten withdrawing entirely from toy licensing, if it were not satisfied with the manufacturer’s guarantees.[16]
Books
Its fiction books are published on five continents, primarily by Random House in North America. Over 18 million Sesame Street books and magazines were purchased in 2005.[17] The books often mention that children do not have to watch the show to benefit from its publications.
Public Service Campaigns
Characters are also used to endorse safety and educational causes. Big Bird has promoted safe seating practices and the wearing of seatbelts, for the Ford Motor Company,[18] while Grover promoted a new course on children’s informal learning, created by Harvard University with Sesame Workshop.[19] Elmo has appeared before the US Education Appropriations Subcommittee to urge more spending on music in schools.[20]
Live performances
In 1975, ice-skating show Sesame Street on Ice presented costumed actors and dancers as touring casts, each performing a unique-multi-million dollar budget ice show. Sesame Street on Ice ran from 1975-1980.
Live touring show Sesame Street Live presents costumed actors and dancers as characters from the series, in original plots. In recent years, VEE has had four touring casts, each performing a unique multi-million dollar budget show. Each season, the tours reach 160 different cities across North America, reaching 2 million people annually. Since the first production of Sesame Street Live on September 17, 1980, 48 million children and their parents have seen the show performed, across the world.[21]
Theme park
Busch Entertainment Corporation (BEC) is the license holder for Sesame Street in its U.S. amusement parks including a completely Sesame Street themed park, Sesame Place, in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, United States. BEC also has a stage show at SeaWorld Orlando Elmo and the Bookaneers. In 2009 Busch Entertainment’s Busch Gardens Europe, located in Williamsburg, Virginia, opened “Sesame Street Forest of Fun” with plans to open “Sesame Street Safari of Fun” at its Busch Gardens Africa park in Tampa, Florida for the 2010 operating season.
Monterrey, Mexico based Parque Plaza Sésamo uses Sesame Street characters as does Universal Studios Japan in a three-dimensional movie based on the show.
http://archive.sesameworkshop.org/sesamebeginnings/new/about.php
ABOUT SESAME BEGINNINGS
Sesame Beginnings meets the needs of infants and parents by providing opportunities for enhanced parent/child interactions while offering accessible research-based developmental information, all with a name and characters that parents, and grandparents, already know and trust. In the same way that Sesame Street educates preschoolers with a “whole child” curriculum, Sesame Beginnings encourages “whole infant” development. From the child development experts at Sesame Workshop, on-product tips give parents the tools to support their child’s cognitive, physical, social and emotional development during everyday opportunities for interaction. Parenting tips are designed to be integrated into daily routines such as feeding, soothing, bedtime, bath time, playtime and travel.
http://archive.sesameworkshop.org/aboutus/pressroom/presskits/season36/qa.php
http://archive.sesameworkshop.org/aboutus/pressroom/presskits/season36/qa.php
http://archive.sesameworkshop.org/aboutus/pressroom/presskits/season36/prodbios.php