"Sesame Street" is old and so are you, deal with it

"Sesame Street" turned 40 this month, an anniversary that made me think, “Really, 40 years??”

I still distinctly remember the first episode. I really do. There were cows in it and funny little characters and I was hooked from day one.

I learned all kinds of things from that show, like everyone can be friends no matter if they are tall or in a garbage can or red or blue or yellow. I learned letters and shapes and how to count to 10 in Spanish. I sometimes wish I had learned more of another language as a yongerser, I think it would have stuck with me a lot longer.

"Sesame Street" was my gateway show to all other television programming, since it is the first show I can remember watching.

Some other favorite kid shows were "Mr Dressup" with Casey and Finnegan on the CBC out of Winsor. Mr Dressup was a mellow "Mr. Rogers", if there could be anyone more soft spoken the the Rog. I loved "Mr. Rogers" too, I even had his complete albumn collection, a fact I finaly don’t care about mentioning anymore.

"Mr Dressup" intro

It's from Mr. Rogers that I learned how how to spell friend. The song "You are Special" spelled it out, and my constant singing of the song helped me sort out the “i before e” issue in spelling tests. I’d conjure up the phrase “F-R-I-E-N-D, special you are my friend, you’re special to me” and get it right every time. I wish more spelling had been set to music.

Of course there was Captain Kangaroo, and the clowns-"Bozo", who was the nation's clown,( insert your own "nation's clown" joke here) and "Oopsy" who was a Detroiter. And the zany shows like "The Electric Company" from the '70's (which is being revived) and "Zoom" we really had alot goin'on back in the day.

I look at some of the shows kids have now and I feel bad for them, ha ha.

Some great old school Detroit sites:

Detroit Memories

Detroit Kid's Shows