and wrote a great kid/teen novel called the Revolution of Evelyn Serrano.

http://therevolutionofevelynserrano.com/

Love her.

O_O faint

Probably the same way with kids from the 90s.

K&R.

I LOVED Maria! As a child of immigrants who didn't speak much English at home, Sesame Street was my early education. I learned my alphabet, numbers and so many English phrases watching that show religiously, that by the time I started Kindergarten I was way ahead of the pack. So a BIG thank you to our beloved Maria

She was such a part of my early childhood. Because of her, I made my parents get these little flash cards with Spanish words and pictures on them. I ran around for a week, screaming "Agua! Agua!"

She's the best.

Wow! I watched her as a kid in the 70s too! I always liked her. I am in the library field and she is going to be the guest speaker at one of the workshops at the ALA (American Library Association) Conference this year. Wish I could get to see one of my childhood idols in person.

I remember her, and loved watching her. A national treasure, IMO. Big K&R

Loved that show.

She is an exceptional actress! A lot of folks don't realize she does other work as well. I commend her for staying with the program for so long!

and my second son was born. Sometimes I would watch it without the kids. Loved Maria and all the "humans" on the show. My favorite was always Oscar (not human) and Mr Hooper. Geez, I miss those days.

Thought it was fantastic in the late 70's/early 80's when I was the right age.

Don't like the direction they took the show now that I have young kids. One story that's waaaaaaay too long for young kids, followed by a few animated shorts. I thought it was better when it broke up the longer story with shorts.

I also don't like how some of the characters are written now. For example, Oscar the Grouch is now just an asshole instead of an "antonym" character. Instead of liking things that are weird or icky, he's deliberately sabotaging others. There isn't even a positive spin on him being a jerk, like he was just trying to make people happy in his grouch way. He's just fucking with them to hurt them.

... was that they just didn't know how to pronounce the letter "Z".

For me, it was an American children's show hidden away on Channel 4.

Loved watching Sesame Street as a kid.

Had another flashback to the show earlier this week. Our toaster went out, and I told my husband we need to find a fix-it shop like they used to have on Sesame Street in the 70s.

I remember Maria's and Luis' wedding. So sweet!

And best wishes to a fantastic addition to Sesame Street back in the day!

For those of us who lived in urban areas, Sesame Street was closer in experience to us than Mr. Roger's Neighborhood for sure. And to think how many times the GOP tried to torpedo funding to the CTW and this show over the past couple decades, it boggles the mind.

I am DYING now. And look at Morgan Freeman!!!

I have that song in my head more than I care to admit. On the regular.

For alot of us, SS and EC were the only times we got to see actual BLACK CHILDREN on television. And actual BLACK WOMEN. (My mom wouldn't let me watch Good Times. She said it was a "white man's interpretation of how black people lived" but I sometimes snuck and watched The Jeffersons.)

So if you didn't watch Good Times or the Jeffersons or the occasional Wonder Woman or Six Million Dollar Man where the AMAZING Jayne Kennedy showed up, you just didn't see people who looked like you, and especially not children back then. One of the many, MANY reasons that both my babies watch Sesame Street every chance they get. I even got them the DVD of the episodes from the 60s and 70s before I was even born!

used to go dancing around the house singing that song.

And this song (while spinning with a corded "microphone&quot -

the window opened just a bit in the '70s with shows that addressed "urban" America. Of course Fat Albert was technically supposed to be taking place here in Philly (since Cosby is from here) but as kids, we really didn't realize it or pay attention to that.

True story - the original Sesame Street character "Gordon" (Matt Robinson, Jr.) was from here in Philly and his son Matt Robinson, III was in my 3rd grade class. Near the end of the school year in 1969, our teacher got up in class and announced that Matt was leaving the school because his family was moving to NYC where his father was going to be in a new TV show called "Sesame Street". And as a side note, his sister (who was much younger... around my little sister's age) is Holly Robinson-Peete. I never knew her as she was just a toddler when the family left Philly but I sure did know Matt back then (he had the ultimate J5 fro ) and we were sad to see him go!

It was Sesame Street. Boy did I love it. ... I had a crush on Bob, for some reason.

Thanks for the memories, Maria!

siete, ocho, nueve, diez. Once, doce, trece, catorce, quince...

And got one of my degrees in it.

As a kid, Sesame Street impressed upon me how cool it would be to know another language, and as a high school/college student, I thought about how great it would be to be able to impress a babe like Maria with my Spanish-speaking skills.

I can still remember vividly my favorite episode of Sesame Street even though I haven't seen it since 1979 - Maria decides to go visit family in Puerto Rico, and everyone in the neighborhood misses her (or thinks she's not coming back) so they all go to Puerto Rico to find her. And when they do, they play pranks on her where she thinks she sees one of them, does a double-take and looks again, and it's a Puerto Rican who looks like them. So Maria shakes her had and continues whatever she's doing, and then Gordon or Bob and even Big Bird, come out of hiding and shakes hands or thanks their doppelganger for their help (for Bird it was a large rooster).

Also Oscar meets a Puerto Rican Grouch after wandering around the island asking people, "Can you tell me how to say, 'No,' in Spanish?" getting angrier everytime someone replies, "No," to him.

TlalocW

I entered first grade in 1969. In Florida. Sometime that year they began bussing the black kids in from the other side of town. Of course, among the older kids there was great animosity and fighting.

But for my age, six years old, we got Sesame Street wheeled in on a cart every single day, without fail. And most of us adapted pretty quickly to the cultural differences. I honestly think Sesame Street played a HUGE role in making it "okay" for us all to consider ourselves friends and equals.

In fact, the only other influence I can think of that "cured" us of racism (to some extent anyway) was music. At first, the black kids would sit on one side of the classroom at recess, and the white kids on the other. Both sides could play their records during recess, and honestly, they always had WAY better music: while we were listening to "yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy," they'd have out the Supremes and the Temptations. I'd always sit close enough to their side that I could hear their music, and I remember even at that young age thinking that we on the white side of the room were really no competition musically, whatsoever.

not only racially but inter-racially, inter-religiously, and included a safe haven for LGBT (this was in the late '60s, through the 70s and continues today). We also had Hare Krishnas in the neighborhood and they established a large Temple about 5 blocks from my house.

So as an AA child, I listened to "Yummy Yummy Yummy..." and The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" (and the other "bubble gum pop" songs). My parents were older (born in 1924 & 1930), so there was a massive generation gap in the household, and not that much "contemporary" music (outside of what was played on my little transistor radio, the AM-only car radio, or at the homes of younger uncles and my cousins). My father did eventually join the Columbia House "record of the month club", and he did get the occasional Quincy Jones. Fifth Dimension, or Sly and the Family Stone. But due to the huge competition between "Top 40" radio stations here (WFIL & WIBG), I locked onto songs like "Spirit in the Sky" (Norman Greenbaum) and many Neil Diamond songs (loved "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Sweet Caroline&quot , as well as Bobby Sherman ("Easy Come, Easy Go&quot . 1969/70 seemed to be great years for music from both genres (including "Grazing in the Grass" where we kids used to practice singing the "dig-its" over and over to get it right... )

We lived next door to an AA family where the oldest boy was about 5 years older than me and was a Beatles fanatic. I heard the White Album 24/7/365 and ended up loving the song "Revolution". I remember going over there and he took me to his bedroom and showed me his whole collection.

So it does go both ways (assuming you get exposed to all of it). One of the most revered "R&B" artists in the AA community, was Teena Marie, who many in the community assumed was black but was not.

My respect for white musicians eventually came around when I discovered the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkle.

But eventually, just another 5 years down the road, came disco . . . which IMO changed everything and finally merged black and white music, and the rest as they say is history.

and Three Dog Night... There were a bunch of popular "fusion" groups that blurred the line - Chicago, War, Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Santana, Doobie Brothers, Tony Orlando & Dawn - and that was before disco! I laugh because I was in high school during the entire disco era (1975 - 1979) and I think one of the few "credible" crossover groups for the disco genre was KC & The Sunshine Band (and I don't think the re-tooled Bee Gees counted ).

Oh Maria, you will live in my heart forever.

A beautiful woman in every way.