The American children's television series Sesame Street (Japanese: セサミストリート, Hepburn: Sesamisutorīto) has a long history in Japan, airing for three decades as a dubbed program, and recently restarting as a local co-production.
While Sesame Street is primarily designed for preschool children, teenagers and adults watched the program as a guide to learning English, though much later on a dubbed version was available.
[5] The show focused on nature, imagination, independent thinking, and financial literacy, as well as ethics, interacting with friends, and environmental issues.
A few established Sesame Street characters appear in new segments, most notably Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster, who in the Japanese series has a propensity to laugh out loud and is used heavily to deal with emotional issues.
An article in The Japan Times reported that the show was suffering from low ratings in its early months: "Viewers are complaining about the differences in the characters' voices compared with the NHK-aired version and about the exclusive use of Japanese.