Sesame Street international co-productions

Creator Joan Ganz Cooney hired former CBS executive Michael Dann to field offers to produce versions of the show in other countries.

[3] Michael Dann, a former CBS executive whom Cooney had hired as a CTW vice-president and her assistant, was assigned to field offers from other countries to produce their own versions of Sesame Street.

The Armed Forces Radio and Television Network agreed to air the first 130 episodes of the U.S.-made show for children of military personnel serving in 16 countries, including Iceland, Greece, Ethiopia, and South Korea.

During his tenure at CTW, Dann also made agreements with several Caribbean nations, Mexico, Australia,[6] Japan, the Philippines, France, Israel, and Germany.

[11] Studies conducted on the effects of several co-productions (Mexico in 1974, Turkey in 1990, Portugal in 1993, and Russia in 1998) found that viewers of these shows gain basic academic skills, especially literacy and numeracy, from watching them.

[14] The controversy in the U.S. was short-lived, and died down when the public discovered the facts about the South African co-production, and when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and American televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell praised Sesame Workshop's efforts.

[1] The Workshop recognized that the production model developed in the U.S., which reflected its needs and culture at the time, served as a framework for other countries that wanted to repeat it.

According to the 2006 documentary The World According to Sesame Street, the producers of the co-productions repeated the "experiment"[3] undertaken by the original U.S. show, but adapted it to each specific situation.

Then they convened the experts in a series of meetings, held in the individual countries, to create and develop a curriculum, the show's educational goals, and its set and characters,[18] as was done in 1968 in the U.S.[19] Finally, they held a series of meetings, both at the CTW offices in New York City and in the individual countries, to train the co-production team in the CTW model.

[14] The co-productions combined universal curriculum goals that were common around the world with educational content that specifically addressed the needs of children in each country.

[20] Another goal of the international co-productions of Sesame Street was, as executive producer Lutrelle Horne stated in 1987, the improvement of "the overall quality of a country's television".

The producers of Sisimpur, the Bangladesh co-production, created their own traditional puppets because their puppet-making craft is thousands of years old and an important part of their culture.

After they developed, produced, and aired the new show, they conducted research to ascertain whether their curriculum goals were met, just as was done in the U.S. after the first season of Sesame Street.

[23] According to producer Nadine Zylstra, they faced unusual challenges rarely experienced in the U.S.[24] For example, riots and conflicts between Serbs and Albanians in 2004 delayed production of the Kosovo co-production for three months.

The Workshop's library of Muppet skits, short films, and animations were sold to many countries and were either broadcast in English or dubbed in the local language.

[18] As of 2009, the Workshop opened its entire library of episodes, short films, and animations created all over the world so that poorer countries could use and adapt them for their purposes.

Like the American show, which encouraged children to learn both English and Spanish, Sesame Street Canada taught basic French words to its viewers.

[32] One of the show's Muppet characters, Dr. Valentin Ruster, was based upon Dr. Valentín Fuster, a native Spaniard who worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

It was the first co-production to devote an entire section of its curriculum to educating children about mutual respect, which was a priority due to "profound political tension in the region".

The show's counterpart of Big Bird was a hedgehog named Kippi, while Moishe Oofnik, who originally lived in a broken car, was the Grouch (and Oscar's cousin).

[36][37] In 1989, Susam Sokağı, a co-production filmed in Turkey, featured versions of Big Bird and an "exuberant little-girl Muppet host" named Simi.

Rua Sésamo was also broadcast in the Portuguese-speaking nations Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

[20] Poland's Ulica Sezamkowa, which also premiered in 1996, has been since replaced by dubs of various Sesame Workshop programs and has changed its name to Sezamkowy Zakątek.

An auto mechanic became the head writer of this show, broadcast in Mandarin Chinese, because there were few people with experience in writing for children in the country.

[3] Also in 1998, a fifteen-minute version of the Israeli show was dubbed in Arabic and renamed Shara'a Simsim; this Palestinian co-production promoted children's sense of national identity.

[39] South Africa aired Takalani Sesame, also in 2000; it focused on AIDS education with the creation of the first HIV-positive Muppet, Kami, who was declared a UNICEF "Champion for Children" in 2003.

The show's producers donated 400 education kits, which included a message from President Hamid Karzai, to schools, orphanages, and TV stations across the country.

Its curriculum focused on encouraging awareness of other cultures, increasing opportunities for women and girls, and fostering children's interests in education.

[24] This difficult co-production, which was beset by political difficulties and severe flooding that delayed production, was depicted in the 2006 documentary The World According to Sesame Street.

In June 2012, the United States terminated funding for SimSim Humara due to allegations of corruption by the local Pakistani puppet theater working on the initiative.