Sesame Street

H ow can this be? On a day of such great celebration, the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street," Big Bird wants to leave the urban nest that has been home for four decades and migrate to the rain forest? The rain forest! Elmo is so rattled he can barely speak as Big Bird comes to say goodbye. "But Sesame Street is where Big Bird lives," Elmo squeaks to the group of old friends, including Gordon, Maria and Snuffleupagus, who have gathered to see the yellow feathered one off. The rest of the world might be focused on first lady Michelle Obama coming to The Street today to show Elmo and some of the children how to plant their own vegetable gardens.

August Wilson's "Jitney," set in 1977, focuses on a poor urban neighborhood where "urban renewal" just means demolition and neglect. The plot revolves around a company of unlicensed cabs trying to maintain service for an African-American community ignored by regular taxis. "It is more relevant now than in some years since the play was written," said Roscoe Orman, the veteran actor who stars in a new staging of "Jitney" by Theatre Morgan at Morgan State University this weekend. The tall, handsome Orman, familiar to successive generations of children as Gordon on "Sesame Street" since 1974, plays Becker, owner of the gypsy cab company.

How could you criticize a show that has Little Richard singing "Rubber Ducky," Queen Latifah rapping about the letter "O," Big Bird auditioning backup singers for a la-la group, and Aaron Neville joining Ernie for a lovely version of "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon"?The answer is you can't criticize "Sesame Street Jam," the centerpiece of a four-hour "Sesame Street Marathon" (5 p.m. to 9 p.m. tomorrow on MPT, Channels 22 and 67, and WETA, Channel 26). The preview tape is a delight.But that doesn't mean some parents won't find room for criticism, depending on how "Sesame Street" material is handled during the pledge drive.

Will the rubber duckie be the best man? The are-they-or-aren't-they gay jokes about Ernie and Bert have a long history. I think an image of them holding hands was carved by early man in the caves at Lascaux. But could the two actually get married? Huffington Post reports today that more than 900 people have signed a petition urging the makers of "Sesame Street" get married. Lair Scott started the petition  which reads, in part, "In this horrific age of LGBT kids taking their own lives, they need to know that they ARE Beautiful and their lives are worth living.

Only recently have I given in and become a fan of "Melrose Place," mostly because it has the most eccentric female villains since "2000 Malibu Road" -- which, come to think of it, also was an Aaron Spelling production. It's with some hesitancy, therefore, that I point to tonight's two-hour "Melrose Place" finale as the night's highlight. However, its competition is fairly slight.* "Jonathan Stone: Threat of Innocence." (8-10 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Richard Crenna already has one television movie franchise as a cop with his "Janek" series.

Divorce was painful for the Snuffelupagus family.Too painful, apparently, for children to watch.Plans for "Sesame Street's" first show on divorce were canceled after 60 preschool-age critics previewed the program several weeks ago and misunderstood it.In the show's 23 years, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie and the Count have seen their street of letters, numbers and songs visited by death, adoption, marriage and birth. But introducing divorce proved unexpectedly difficult. Rather than ease children's fears, the segment frightened them.

How to get to Sesame Street? Head to the DC Armory. Today through Sunday the Sesame Street Live gang performs 1-2-3 ... Imagine! for children of all ages. The show features the usual cast of characters - Elmo, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Rosita and the others - and offers plenty of song and dance, along with lessons about appreciating other cultures and languages and using your power of imagination. In the show, Samantha the mail carrier explains to the Sesame Street residents how they can use their imagination to visit distant lands and connect with faraway loved ones.

Big Bird's beak is out of joint with the folks who produce the Daytime Emmy Awards telecast.Honchos at Children's Television Workshop, the company behind "Sesame Street," where the lovable Big Bird rules the roost, are angry because the program won't be featured on Friday's Daytime Emmys telecast, depriving the publicly funded show of a much needed prime-time forum.The flap is the latest controversy for the Daytime Emmys. Late last year, a group of top daytime stars threatened to boycott this year's event unless the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which administers the awards, revamped the balloting process and cooled the show's emphasis on the steamier side of the soaps.

Big Bird, Cookie Monster and the other Sesame Street characters will visit Lexington Terrace in West Baltimore during the next four years as part of a new program designed to prepare children for school.The Sesame Street Preschoolers Educational Program will give day care providers the skills needed to educate preschoolers, supporters said as the program was introduced at City Hall last week. Using books and Sesame Street shows, teachers from Maryland Public Television also will give parents in the public housing development tips on educating their children.

Will Zoe succeed where Prairie Dawn and Alice, Rosita and Juliet, Grundgetta and many, many others have failed?Will this orange, furry, bug-eyed, wide-mouthed little monster wearing plastic beads and mismatched pink and red barrettes become a superstar? Will millions of children clutch Zoe dolls as they drop off to sleep each night?Until she makes her debut on "Sesame Street" this fall, no one can be sure that Zoe will enter the Muppet pantheon -- joining celebrities like Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch ++ with that je ne sais quoi that has put them over the top.But the makers of "Sesame Street" think she has that magic.

You have to hand it to Elmo. That little red Muppet sure knows how to work a crowd. "Elmo love coming to Baltimore," he shouted in that squeaky, happy voice of his to a gym full of tiny kids sitting on exercise mats at John Eager Howard Elementary School. And the kids went wild at hearing "love" and the name of their hometown as the first words coming out of the mouth of the manic character they watch every morning on public TV. Elmo and the celebrated puppeteer who brings him to life, Baltimore native Kevin Clash, came to the school recently to promote PBS KIDS Raising Readers, a national literacy project that shares some of the same core goals as "Sesame Street" when it launched in 1969.

I'll find my happy place when the current governor and the former governor adhere to issues and cease their juvenile sniping at one another other. I'll find my happy place when we can eradicate the street drug thugs by legalizing certain drugs to take the profitability out of the picture (remember Mayor Schmoke)? I'll find my happy place when city school teachers no longer have to dig into their own pockets to provide necessities for their classrooms and students. I'll find my happy place when the Baltimore City Police Department stops spinning crime numbers and delivers real, factual data to City Hall.

When Amanda Yuan of Clarksville was 3 years old, she would often hide under the tables at preschool, too shy to play with the other kids. Her parents decided to get her involved in anything that would bolster her social skills, and signed her up at a drama learning center. Now, you would never know that the 11-year-old budding actress ever struggled to assert herself . On Thursday, she will be one of the youngest among a group of child performers - including three from Maryland - to take part in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade finale in New York City.

How can this be? On a day of such great celebration, the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street," Big Bird wants to leave the urban nest that has been home for four decades and migrate to the rain forest? The rain forest! Elmo is so rattled he can barely speak as Big Bird comes to say goodbye. "But Sesame Street is where Big Bird lives," Elmo squeaks to the group of old friends, including Gordon, Maria and Snuffleupagus, who have gathered to see the yellow feathered one off. The rest of the world might be focused on first lady Michelle Obama coming to The Street today to show Elmo and some of the children how to plant their own vegetable gardens.

Baby experts have been saying TV is bad for little brains for at least a decade. A lot of parents believe it's good. A study slated for release today in the journal Pediatrics says they both are wrong. Screen time does not help babies younger than 2 learn, but small amounts don't hurt them either, according to the study by researchers at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School. The surprising new research isn't likely to be the last word on babies and TV. It's a controversial subject that has moved to the forefront of family conversations in recent years, as the number of television shows and videos marketed to infants has grown and parental time pressures have increased.

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street By Michael Davis Viking / 384 pages / $27.95 Just the name Sesame Street evokes fond memories in almost everybody 40 and younger. Muppet characters like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, and Elmo seem like family. And that, Michael Davis explains in Street Gang, The Complete History of Sesame Street, is no small feat. As Davis, a former editor for TV Guide and The Baltimore Sun, tells it, this program changed the course of not only children's television programming but also of social and cultural history.

'Street Gang' tells story of 'Sesame Street' PBS' Sesame Street, which reaches 8 million viewers in 120 countries, will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year with many products. The recently published Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis chronicles the evolution of the show created by Jim Henson, the man behind the Muppets, including Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, and Elmo. Davis is a former Baltimore Sun editor and TV Guide columnist. The fall will see a second book, Sesame Street: A Celebration of Forty Years of Life on the Street, by Louise Gikow, and a DVD, Sesame Street: 40th Anniversary.