Street Gang

The Complete History of Sesame Street

By: Michael Davis

Narrated by: Caroll Spinney

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

When the first episode aired on Nov. 10, 1969, Sesame Street revolutionized the way education was presented to children on television. It has since become the longest-running children's show in history, and today reaches 8 million pre-schoolers on 350 PBS stations and airs in 120 countries.

Street Gang is the compelling and often comical story of the creation and history of this media masterpiece and pop culture landmark, told with the cooperation of one of the show's co-founders, Joan Ganz Cooney. Sesame Street was born as the result of a discussion at a dinner party at Conney's home about poor children's programming and hit the air as a big bang of creative fushion from Jim Henson and company, quickly rocketing to success.

This audio is narrated by Caroll Spinney, the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Spinney is the winner of four Emmy Awards and two Grammys, and has received both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Library of Congress's Living Legend award for his work on Sesame Street. In 2006, Spinney was honored with the National Academy of Telelvsion Arts and Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award.

©2009 Michael Davis (P)2009 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.

Interesting Story - TERRIBLE NARRATOR

Would you be willing to try another one of Caroll Spinney’s performances?

NO! I cannot fathom how this narrator got a job reading books aloud. He speaks like a man with a nose-full of mucous, and still manages to be monotonously nasal. He also fairly routinely mispronounces words, putting accent on the wrong syllable, adding syllables to some words ("summarily") and somehow deleting syllables from others ("spectacularly"). I got to the first airing and reactions of Sesame Street, and just couldn't take any more of him. If he is the only option in Audio, I'll go buy the paper book or E-book.

Pure Entertainment A Its Best

What a remarkable story full of innovation and determination behind the scenes of Sesame Street.

what you missed from sesame street

Even a children's show would have a backstory and politics behind it. Truly engaging and eye-opening.

"Thank You Kermit"

When Jim Henson's memorial service was held, Carroll Spinney dressed up as Big Bird and sang "Being Green", a song written by Joe Raposo for Kermit the Frog (Henson) to sing. He concludes it with "Thank you Kermit" and the audience knew what he meant.
Henson--and Joan Ganz Cooney, Raposo, Spinney and others--was a major part of the success of Sesame Street.

This interesting book traces the genesis of the show and has bios of the various figures involved. It does start off with Henson's funeral but that sets up the message that his life really mattered, and his friends would miss him. Yes there are sad moments here, people gone too soon, but also many happy moments and great achievements. Davis' tale covers it all and Spinney's voice is just perfect for it. (At the end, author Davis interviews Spinney--nice feature, but I must admit I'm glad the author didn't narrate the whole book.
Davis' voice is a bit gruff; Spinney's easier on the ears). Nice trivia and well written.

Fascinating look behind the scenes

Brief biographies of many of the people involved in creating Sesame Street. Mostly broad strokes describing people not many interactions on the set. Most interesting in its historical look at what was available for kids prior to Sesame Street and how they went about trying to do something different. Carol Spinney was a sentimental choice of narrator, but it’s not his strength.

Now I love Sesame Street even more

I watched as a kid. I had the toy brownstone and plastic characters. Now I'm a teacher and a mother of a bicultural child, and I have my daughter watch "Sesame Street Old School" videos (episodes from the late 60s and 70s - the ones I grew up on). I've long had a vague awareness that Sesame Street was/is a groundbreaking, well-researched show, but now that I've listened to this audiobook I have a much better understanding of what went into creating it. It's heartwarming to hear about how committed the originators were to achieving their vision. Other reviewers have complained about Caroll Spinney's narration, but for me hearing him tell a story that's so close to his own heart made the experience more meaningful.

Overall a great story, but ome dull parts

I really enjoyed this audio book. The story was something I was interested in, and it delivered.. I found out the behind the scenes stuff that I didnt know about and having it narrated by the voice of Big Bird was definitely a plus..

The only problem was that there were a couple of large sections of the story where they were just rattling off names and their jobs.. And it was just so dry that I caught myself tuning out for a while... Happily it wasn't that large of a section, and the actual stories made up for it...

LIke millions of other kids, I grew up on Sesame Street, and hearing the stories about the people who made it was wonderful... Reliving the episodes when Mr Hooper died was a sad moment, but it made me realize how these characters touched my life... I was honestly surprised that the characters were actors with different names and completely different lives... (I shouldnt have been, but it took me off guard)

Information

Well researched and the narration was perfect. Would highly recommend to any fans of Sesame Street

An important subject, but hardly gripping

Davis writes a good book, and this history of Sesame Street is not poorly written, to be sure. The problem is that the history of the show and its Muppet characters is just not particularly engaging, even for someone like me who grew up watching it and who still loves the Muppets. There's simply almost no drama in the details: a bunch of smart, well-meaning people got together and made a show that changed the history of children's TV. That's about all you need to know. There were no massive hurdles to overcome, no last-minute crisis to be dramatically solved, etc. As a story, it's just not gripping. Perhaps because of this, the author goes off at times on the personal problems of some of the participants, sliding into tabloid journalism at times while he looks for something out of the ordinary. And while it goes without saying that Caroll Spinney is eminently qualified to talk about Sesame Street, as a narrator he's only average. Unfortunately, there are many points where unnatural pauses or intonation soil his narration that should have had a second take recorded, but the production team apparently decided not to bother. The 30-minute interview with Spinney and the author included as a bonus at the end of the book is probably the most interesting part.

Excellent

As a father of a toddler; who is now fully immersed in the Sesame Street world, it was nice to get the history of a wonderful organization. Caroll Spinney does an excellent job narrating, and the interview with him at the end brings it all together.