Its first show, Sesame Street, debuted in November 1969, and reached more than half of the US’s 12 million three- to five-year-olds by the end of its first season. Sesame Street is now the single largest informal education source in the world, reaching millions of children in more than 140 countries each year, and winning nearly 200 Emmys.
“There was something fascinating about it,” he said in a 2004 interview. “What is a child doing watching a station identification signal, what does this mean? I didn’t know. I said, ‘Joan, do you think television could be used to teach young children?’ Her answer was, ‘I don’t know, but I’d like to talk about it.’”
Cooney spent months travelling around the US, interviewing teachers, child psychologists, development experts and television producers for a study titled The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education. At the time, half of the nation’s school districts did not have kindergartens. At the same time, Cooney assembled the show’s creative team that included the young Muppets mastermind, Jim Henson. The show aired almost four years after Morrisett’s initial brainwave.