Celebrating Sesame Street Day and Magical Muppet Transportation

Nov 10, 2023

We’re so excited to announce that it’s Sesame Street! Big Bird and pals have become such a staple part of global culture and entertainment for children. You’d be hardpressed to find a soul who didn’t know these wonderful puppet pals at a mere glance.

Since its first episode aired on this day in 1969, Sesame Street has been an indispensable part of children’s and families’ lives all around the world! Its colorful world filled with human and muppet counterparts has provided a charming, captivating, and empathetic format for education and empowerment of the youth.

Sesame Street was born of a need to provide children in urban areas with accessible, diverse, and inclusive educational resources. It’s so beloved, in fact, that it’s now broadcast globally to more than 190 million children in 70 different languages across 150 countries with about 30 different international co-productions.

And since we love all things cars, we thought we’d pay a special focus today to the wonderful things Sesame Street has done to connect children to the world of transportation, movement, STEAM based activities, and the automotive industry! Our beloved cast of muppets have taught children about engineering, physics, as well as road safety from driving to seatbelts. Plus, it’s also created some of the most memorable vehicles and methods of muppety transportation!

Sesame Street is no stranger to introducing kids to automotive concepts, highlighting a series of classic and vintage (then new and popular) daily drivers, highlighting everything from a Taxi to a station wagon to cargo vans and more! Did you know that Sesame Street also featured a lot of real-world vehicles over the years? Here is a super fun list of vehicles featured in Sesame Street throughout its run time!

Come along with us as we look at some more charming moments featuring cars and vehicles.

Let’s sing along with Elmo in these wonderful videos about cars, trucks, and more as well as road and travel safety:

We love this segment from early Sesame Street in which Grover is a Taxi driver! It’s a very funny way to introduce kids into Taxi etiquette, Taxis as part of city culture and transportation, and the way car services work. It’s also a very sweet nod to the personality and hustle and bustle of “city culture.”

In 1975, Sesame Street and CTW introduced “The Countmobile”, helmed by none other than our number loving Transylvanian pal, The Count! Borrowing designs from retro vehicles, a vampire coffin, and the vintage Batmobile designs, this unique vehicle was used to illustrate the importance of road rules, driver/passenger etiquette, and pedestrian safety to youngsters. Ten years later in 1985, the vehicle was upgraded for the Follow That Bird movie, and built on the bones of a 1930s Frazer Nash replica, and sported a very smart pair of purple and black bat wings.

We also love this Let’s Go Driving with Elmo feature with special guess Taye Diggs illustrating the power of imaginative play to help reinforce safe driving habits as well as observing our environment while on the road.

Elmo and Rosita are going to the museum with Papa Elmo, and have jumped into the car and stepped into an unexpected episode of Guy Smiley’s travel gameshow, for a round of “I Spy”! Another classic car game that kids will love playing together, and will be extra excited to try now that their favorite characters have demonstrated! Not only that, but it encourages the powers of observation while driving and passenging, and observing internal and external environments!

By employing the element of imaginative play, each safety lesson on Sesame STreet is made accessible to young viewers. Using our pals Elmo and Abby to explain the concept of seatbelts is a gentle, friendly way to talk about the importance of safety. This wonderful clip from Elmo and Abby explains the basics of car safety to kids.

This segment with Abby, Cookie, Guy Smiley, and Cookie’s Mom is a surefire hit! Introducing kids to the concept of boredom busters and family togetherness through a round of “Smiley Says” can help them connect and thwart the doldrums, while showing their favorite characters buckled up and in their car seats as safe passengers.

In this segment of Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures from the 2010s, Bert and Ernie are working as car mechanics. Of course, wacky hijinks ensue as they highlight the basics of car maintenance and the pitfalls of not keeping up with a reliable service schedule, haha!

AS you can see, it’s so important to fund these vital childrens’ television programs, and continuing to provide public access to educational resources to our community. Let’s all do our part to support funding and research for educational programming and encourage generations of children to explore, learn, and play!

Images on this post for educational and illustrative purposes only; no copyright infringement intended.

All characters and videos and imagery belongs to CTW and derivative networks.