"Sesame Street" Turns 50

50 years ago, actress Carl Burnett appeared in the first broadcast of a peculiar television program in the company of several hairy dolls. The show is Sesame Street, BTA reported.

She immediately became addicted to the show, in which she returns repeatedly. ""I was a big fan. I would have done anything they wanted me to do," she said. "I loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.", Burnett says.

The first episode of the series aired on November 10, 1969, in a turbulent American time, marked by the Vietnam War and the assassination of Martin Luther King the previous year.

Enter "Sesame Street" creators Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, who worked with Harvard University developmental psychologist Gerald Lesser to build the show's unique approach to teaching that now reaches 120 million children. Legendary puppeteer Jim Henson supplied the critters, Voa News reported.

Over the years, the show introduces characters with Down Syndrome, AIDS, invites children in wheelchairs, touches on topics for deprived parents, homeless people, women's rights. In 1991, the bilingual Rosita - the first Latin doll - was introduced. In 2017, 4-year-old Julia Autism Doll takes the stage.