Mark Reviews Movies: STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 22, 2021

"Sesame Street" has been a staple of television since its premiere in 1969. Generations of kids have grown up with it, learning some basic lessons—such as letters and numbers—and some deeper ones—such as sharing and communication and friendship and seeing the world as a beautifully diverse, diversely beautiful place. Marilyn Agrelo's documentary Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street looks at the early years and, in a bit of a rush, the first couple decades of the show, giving us a decent idea of the educational philosophy behind the production, an entertaining look at some behind-the-scenes shenanigans, and a pretty affecting trip down memory lane.

Agrelo definitely wants to tap into those nostalgic emotion centers with this movie, and there's little denying that it often works. How could it not, when we get to see the late, great Jim Henson at work and kids just looking in loving disbelief at their favorite Muppets as they talk directly to those children and various people involved in the show still holding on to all of the memories they have of people who became like a family to them? That appeal to emotion becomes the primary goal of this movie—for better, certainly, and also, when it comes to actually digging a bit deeper than the superficial qualities and charms of the show, for worse.

The movie assembles a pretty wide portrait of the show, the people working on screen (either as actual people or manipulating the puppets just below frame), and the crew putting together the show in board rooms and the writers' room and behind the camera. Agrelo gives us archival footage of those who have since died, like Henson and the show's long-time director Jon Stone (who's rightly presented as the mostly unseen and unsung hero of the program, having co-created the show and serving as one of the main writers and the primary director from the show's inception until 1994).

There are also interviews with particular members of the cast and crew, as well as family members of those who have died. There's an amusing anecdote from the adult children of Matt Robinson, the actor who first played Gordon, as they recall watching the show, feeling a bit jealous of their father's interactions with other kids, and wondering how their father got inside the TV—wanting to know how they could get in there to join him.

The movie even gives us what might be the final footage of puppeteer Carol Spinney, the man who occupied the tall Big Bird suit and performed the naïve bird's emotional opposite Oscar the Grouch for 49 years, before his death in 2019. Spinney doesn't tell us much new or especially insightful about the show or his work (There was an entire documentary made about him less than a decade ago), but the interview is here because seeing the man who created two iconic characters is sure to elicit some feeling from us.

It does get that reaction, as does footage from Henson's funeral (where Spinney, dressed as Big Bird, sang "It's Not Easy Being Green," just after Stone addressed the large congregation as his and Henson's family) and kids (including one of Stone's daughters, who still loves the memory) interacting with a couple Muppets as if they're completely real. One little girl spontaneously grabs and embraces Kermit the Frog, as every kid—and likely many adults, even now—would. Such material is genuinely touching.

More intriguing, though, is how the show came to be—both from an educational perspective and from a technical one. Agrelo gets into that early, as Joan Ganz Cooney founded the Children's Television Workshop as a response to commercialized television programming for children, imagining how a medium that was teaching kids beer jingles could instead teach them the alphabet. It's funny how much work she and a group of educators put into ensuring that every facet of the show was teaching kids something, only for a bunch of comedy writers and Henson's merry band of puppeteers, who were making some of those commercials before doing late-night TV, to bring their weirder creative impulses into the mix.

While recording one silly sketch, Stone recalls asking Henson, "What are we teaching here?" "Happiness," Henson responded. One wonders what all the people who put together the big book of learning for the show thought of that answer, even if Henson had a wise point.

The educational aims of the show—giving pre-school children the fundamentals that will prepare them for school—are so simple that, perhaps, we really don't need much more than we get here. With all that in place, the documentary proceeds with the interviews and, more fascinating, some behind-the-scenes footage, intercut with a kind of best-of collection of the show's sketches, animated segments (Be prepared to have certain counting songs stuck in your head), and celebrity cameos. Outtakes of Henson and fellow puppeteer Frank Oz giving each other a hard time are especially worthwhile.

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street tells us a lot of little things about the show, the people and personalities who created it, and the educational philosophy and political goals (the diversity of its cast) of its existence. Ultimately, all of this feels a bit too scattered and shallow for its own good.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products