Happy 40th birthday Sesame Street!

There’s no resting on their well-earned laurels for the Sesame Street Muppets: after 40 years of broadcasting, an amazing 122 Emmy Awards, and shows in more than 140 countries, the longest-running program in the history of children’s television is coming to you on November 10 with an all-new look and format that will knock your socks off.


“When you turn on your TV on November 10,” says Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente, “you’ll see a brand-new and spectacularly beautiful opening sequence. We’re also launching an entirely new format for the show — the magazine format of Sesame Street, which has been evolving over the years, has been officially replaced with what we’re calling a ‘block’ format. And it’s just wonderful.”

the 40th season has been reformatted to resemble a typical broadcasting block. Murray the Monster Muppet™ hosts each episode from different locations linking four longer segments with fun-filled interstitials throughout the hour. The block format begins and ends with a brand new show open and close, integrating colorful chalk-art animation with the Muppets™ of Sesame Street, set to the re-versioned classic “Sunny Days.”

Back when I was working at a tv station when we were in the live news we had it split up into block 1, block 2, block 3, etc, and they were seperated by commercial breaks. But that might have just been our own special little way of communicating and identifying different parts of the show.