Will there be Elmo games At 40, Sesame Street is in a constant state of renewal?”
t’s the day before Halloween, and on the set of Sesame Street, the usual trickery is underway.Caroll Spinney and Kevin Clash, the puppeteers who respectively give life to Big Bird and Elmo, are shooting a scene that requires Clash to lie beside a sofa, raising his furry red Muppet into view. Meanwhile, Spinney is helped into the feathery yellow headdress that hides his white hair and beard. Frank Biondo, a camera operator with the series since it first aired on Nov. 10, 1969, looks on with amusement. “When we started doing it, I asked, ‘Who’s going to watch this?’ ” says Biondo, 71. “Back then, Big Bird had a different type of head, and Oscar the Grouch was orange. Then they changed some things, and we all thought it made more sense.” Indeed we did. As Sesame Street kicks off its 40th anniversary season Tuesday (PBS, check local listings), with first lady Michelle Obama and Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda as guests, it is indisputably the most beloved children’s show in history, and o
