Sesame Street

Sesame Street is an American educational children's television series that combines live action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) until June 2000) and was created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The program is known for its images communicated through the use of Jim Henson's Muppets, and includes short films, with humor and cultural references. The series premiered on November 10, 1969, to positive reviews, some controversy, and high viewership; it has aired on the U.S.'s national public television provider PBS since its debut, with its first run moving to premium channel HBO on January 16, 2016.

The format of Sesame Street consists of a combination of commercial television production elements and techniques which have evolved to reflect the changes in American culture and the audience's viewing habits. With the creation of Sesame Street, producers and writers of a children's television show used, for the first time, educational goals and a curriculum to shape its content. It was also the first time a show's educational effects were formally studied. The show, therefore, has undergone significant changes in its history as adjustments to the format and content have been made to reflect change sources to the curriculum.

Shortly after creating Sesame Street, its producers developed what came to be called the "CTW model" (after the production company's previous name), a system of television show planning, production, and evaluation based on collaborations between producers, writers, educators, and researchers. The show was initially funded by government and private foundations but has become somewhat self-supporting due to revenues from licensing arrangements, international sales, and other media. By 2006, there were independently produced versions, or "co-productions", of Sesame Street broadcast in twenty countries. In 2001, there were over 120 million viewers of various international versions of Sesame Street, and by the show's 40th anniversary in 2009, it was broadcast in more than 140 countries.

Sesame Street was by then the fifteenth-highest-rated children's television show in the United States. A 1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by the time they were three years old. In 2018, it was estimated that 86 million Americans had watched the series as children. As of 2018, Sesame Street has won 189 Emmy Awards and 11 Grammy Awards, more than any other children's show.

Sesame Street has been referenced numerous times in every Universal Animation production and TeenV.

References to Sesame Street in Universal Animation

 * In Gabriel Garza 2, two men seen at the Chit-Chat nightclub bear a striking resemblance to Bert and Ernie.
 * Also in a Gabriel Garza 2 deleted scene, there is a movie titled Sesame Streets of Fire, which is a reference of both Sesame Street and the 1984 Universal Pictures film Streets of Fire.
 * In Computeropolis: The Deep Web, the film's main antagonist, Rulio, is a bootleg knock-off of Elmo and Super Mario, respectively. Although he is based off on Elmo, Rulio's nose is much bigger than Elmo's, which makes him look more like Bert.

References to Sesame Street in TeenV

 * In "The Best (or Worst) Teen", Kathy jokingly says that Elmo was a demon from Hell.
 * Timmy has a Tickle-me-Elmo in "Baby-Sitting Trap".
 * In "Kiddy Land", Grodi forced the teens to watch Sesame Street on TV.
 * In "Lana's Big Broadcast", when trying to sell her educational cartoon Little Benny and His Friends to PBS, Lana says it will be like Sesame Street.
 * In "Saint World", Elmo is seen in Hell Kathy is in, saying "Elmo has been a bad monster... a very, very bad monster!". Then there is dead silence for a few seconds until Kathy exclaims to Elmo, "Yeah, good for you."
 * Big Bird and Cookie Monster briefly appear in "Underrated Geoff: XIII", where they are seen being tortured by Elmo in the torture room the teens are in.
 * In "Get Spray'd on Yourself", one of the graffiti Kathy made depicts a gangster version of Sesame Street characters.
 * At the end of "Dude, Who Messed Up My Cartoon?", Geoff parodies the sponsors from Sesame Street, in which he says to the viewers, "This episode is brought to you by the letter XXX, and the number 0."
 * In "One Crazy Bummer", Oscar the Grouch is seen getting crushed by a garbage disposal truck.
 * In "Don't Close Your Eyes", Big Bird appears as one of the people who help Davy's "own" group in his dream world. During the scene where Geoff and Lana try to find a way to get out of Davy's world, Big Bird knocks on the outhouse door, opens it and gets disgusted by Davy peeing on a bush. He is voiced by Tom Kenny in the episode.
 * In "Those Two Girls Have Their Own Secrets", Geoff says that if Sesame Street were an adult show, they would show a scene of Bert and Ernie kissing each other. This is likely a reference to rumors about Bert and Ernie being gay.
 * In "Kathy and the Goth Vampire", Kathy and Johnny Vamp watch a horror version of Sesame Street, where the Count is a real vampire and sucks blood from the Sesame Street characters.
 * Bert and Ernie are seen at a homosexual campaign in "Trust Me, We're Not Gay", again referring to the Bert and Ernie gay rumor.
 * In "Lose Your Penny", Penny mentions watching Elmo get horny with Katy Perry on TV. This is most likely an allusion to the backlash from Perry's controversial Sesame Street guest appearance.
 * In "Swell Without a Cause", Cookie Monster is seen in the Smokeville Hospital, suffering an exponential weight gain due to the fact he eats lots of cookies too much.
 * In "High There", Geoff and Lana watch Sesame Street on Ice on TV, which features the Sesame Street characters doing drugs.
 * In "You Know Where The Heart Is", Kathy buys a Tickle-me-Elmo parody called "Kill-me-Elmo".
 * In "Game of Clones", Davy mistakes Big Billy and Carl for Bert and Ernie.
 * In "My Poor Lana", Sean mentions Cookie Monster.
 * In "South by North", Elmo is seen getting arrested by the police for his sexual harassment towards women, a reference to the fact that Elmo's former puppeteer Kevin Clash resigned from his role on Sesame Street in November 2012 following allegations of improper sexual conduct.