Sesame Street had a big plot twist in November 1986

My older siblings say they remember our mother sitting them down to watch a new TV show called Sesame Street.

A running gag was that Big Bird’s friend, the huge, gentle wooly-mammoth-like Snuffleupagus somehow always disappeared before anyone else on Sesame Street could see him, leading the adults on the show to believe “Snuffy” was Big Bird’s imaginary friend. But we, the TV viewers, could clearly see Snuffy in the background, lumbering out of sight as the adults patronizingly agreed to say hello.

As the show developed, the producers felt that seeing the authority figures disbelieving Big Bird’s stories — even when they did so kindly — might discourage children from telling the adults in their lives about abuse.

I remember that Big Bird often told Snuffy to stay put so he could go get an adult to prove that Snuffy existed, but the huge fuzzball (performed by two adult performers in full body suits) would always trundle offscreen.

I did not store in my memory banks that the reason why everyone on Sesame Street finally saw Snuffy was that his departure was prevented by a little red monster who was previously a supporting character.

Until that point, Big Bird had been a major viewpoint character, often frustrated, often needing comfort. When I watched Sesame Street decades later with my own kids, I saw many of the skits and animated shorts I remembered seeing as a child, but I noticed Big Bird was more like an older sibling than the show’s resident preschooler.

Instead of being frustrated with adults who don’t believe him, Elmo is frustrated with Zoe, who behaves as if her pet rock is alive. I don’t think that any preschoolers watching Sesame Street particularly identified with Mr. Snuffleupagus, but I can certainly see siblings engaging very meaningfully with both sides of the dynamic between Elmo and Zoe.

While Big Bird was powerless over the fact that adults did not validate his experiences, most of the Elmo/Zoe skits are designed so that Elmo has the power to resolve the tension between them by accepting that Zoe sees things differently than he does.

Okay, that’s enough structural analysis of Sesame Street for now.

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