I know you will!”) and (2) earnest, locally produced “classroom of the air” programs, which taught the ABCs and 123s but did little to hold a child’s attention. But with the exception of Captain Kangaroo, it was divided into two mostly unwatchable categories: (1) gimmicky Howdy Doody-style shows that embedded shameless Krusty the Klown-style pitches for toys and breakfast cereals straight into their scripts (“When you’re going to the store, you help find the brand-new Wheaties box. With a television show aimed at poor pre-school children, he reasoned, a single broadcast could help millions.īy 1966, children’s television was already a well-developed genre. A traditional Carnegie-sponsored education program reached just a few hundred families. Marveling at his daughter’s obsession, Morrisett decided the same medium could bring salvation to America’s underclass. On weekends, his three-year-old daughter Sarah would wake up before her parents, open up the wooden doors of the family’s cabinet-style TV set, stretch out on the floor, and patiently watch the black-and-white American Indian until programming began at 7 A.M. The road to Sesame Street began, writes Davis, 43 years ago, in the Irvington, New York household of Lloyd Morrisett, a well-connected, Yale-trained social scientist who then worked as an executive at the Carnegie Foundation.
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