Sesame Street Is Gentrifying

And the locals aren’t entirely happy about it.

- Jessica Pressler

In August, PBS made a surprising announcement: It was handing over the reins of its iconic children’s show Sesame Street to HBO, where new episodes will begin airing this month. To outsiders, the idea of putting Big Bird and Elmo on the same shelf as Game of Thrones and Cathouse: The Series seemed odd—not least because, as many pointed out, Sesame Street’s mission at its founding in 1969 had been to serve underprivileged city kids, not those in possession of premium cable. But internally, HBO was seen as a kind of salvation: For the past several years, the brand had been struggling, and the new network promised not just financial security but creative independence. And it wasn’t as if the underprivileged kids had been left totally behind—a deal had been worked out wherein, after a nine-month delay, PBS would air the episodes too.

But even before the Champagne dried on their Muppet snouts, a second piece of news circulated through Muppet World that sent a chill down their furry spines. “After almost a year of battling for what I believe is the heart and soul of the show,” wrote Joey Mazzarino, Sesame Street’s head writer, in a Facebook post announcing his departure in September, “I lost the war.”

This was big. While people on the outside maybe knew the names of Kevin Clash—the “Muppeteer” who became famous for launching Elmo to stardom (and later infamous for facing allegations of sex abuse)—or Caroll Spinney, who has been Big Bird since 1969, for people on “the Street,” as it is colloquially known, “Joey Mazzarino is the fucking