Elmo's World
The segment is presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, performed by Kevin Clash in the original series and Ryan Dillon in the 2017 reboot.
The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied changes in the viewing habits of Sesame Street's audience, and the reasons for the show's lower ratings.
In 2002, Sesame Street's producers changed the rest of the show to reflect its younger demographic and the increase in their viewers' sophistication.
By the early 1990s, Sesame Street had been on the air for over 20 years and was, as author Michael Davis put it, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of preschool television".
[4] For the first time since the show debuted, the producers and a team of researchers analyzed Sesame Street's content and structure, and studied how children's viewing habits had changed.
[6][7] The producers found that the show's original format, which consisted of a series of short clips similar to the structure of a magazine, was not necessarily the most effective way to hold young viewers' attention.
[1][note 3] It focused on child-centered topics such as balls and dancing, from the perspective of a three-year-old child, and was "designed to foster exploration, imagination, and curiosity".
Arlene Sherman, a co-executive producer for 25 years and one of the creators of Elmo's World, called the show's new look "startlingly different".
The segment presented Elmo, first portrayed by Kevin Clash and then by Ryan Dillon after its revamp in 2017, moving between and combining two worlds of live action and computer-generated animation, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life"[1] created by the host, and with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it".
[1] The segment was filmed at a different time than the rest of the season, much of it in front of a blue screen, with animation and digital effects added later.
[8] Mr. Noodle was played by Broadway actor Bill Irwin, who had previously worked with Sherman in short films for Sesame Street.
[10] According to The New York Times, executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente "was itching to revamp the final segment"[10] even before production of Elmo's World ended, but was prevented by the apparent satisfaction of the viewers and by tight budgets.
They were also reluctant to replace the segment; as writer Joey Mazzarino explained, it was "an emotionally charged process"[17] because Freudberg had become ill and was not present for the discussions about it.
Elmo's World continued to appear on repeats of Sesame Street, on DVDs,[17] and on the show's website, which sold products related to the segment.
[26] In 2017, the 47th season of Sesame Street began airing on the cable subscription service HBO; Elmo's World returned, in a newly designed segment that ran five minutes at the end of each episode.
