Audiences found their way to “Sesame Street” for the first time 45 years ago, as the show debuted on November 10, 1969. Designed with a comprehensive curriculum and intended to teach preschool skills to low-income kids, the show was the most systematic combination of entertainment and education attempted in a children’s show. For the show's creators, the goal was to "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them."

Writing an episode of “Sesame Street” must be a pretty easy paycheck, right? Pick a number of the day, have Cookie Monster eat cookies, throw in a lesson about sharing, call it a day. Apparently not. One of the show’s head writers has said that any of the 15 writers on staff at a given time tend to burn out after a dozen scripts or so. Learning how to hold preschoolers’ interest is a major challenge, according to the show’s writers and producers, like Tony Geiss, who said "It's not an easy show to write. You have to know the characters and the format and how to teach and be funny at the same time, which is a big, ambidextrous stunt."

Oddly enough, “Sesame Street” has courted controversy from its earliest days. A commission in Mississippi voted to ban it in 1970 for promoting racial integration, while the famous social scientist Urie Bronfenbrenner criticized it for being too wholesome, which is an odd criticism for a show with gluttonous blue monsters, obsessive-compulsive vampires, and poverty that forces people to live in trash cans.

The show also launched the career of Jim Henson. With its original government funding on shaky ground (it was revoked in 1981), the show explored other sources of funding, including selling books and toys. Henson was iffy on marketing his characters, but finally agreed on the grounds that merchandising sales be used only to fund the Children’s Television Workshop production costs and educational outreach.

“Sesame Street” has won its share of critical acclaim, with over 100 Emmys in the awards case, but the show has also been wildly successful in its attempts to reach young audiences. In 1996, a survey showed that 95% of American preschoolers had seen the show at least once by age 3.

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