Sesame Street is an important TV show, and there have been literally thousands of episodes of that TV show, going back just about 50 years. They belong in a museum! Or at least, they belong in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. It’s a good thing, then, that the Library of Congress the and WGBH Educational Foundation just announced that that’s exactly what’s happening. Get this:
As Sesame Street begins to mark its 50th anniversary, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the WGBH Educational Foundation, has announced that Sesame Workshop has donated a collection of digitized episodes from the past 50 years of Sesame Street, to be preserved for posterity.
Over the next year, nearly 4,500 episodes from the first 49 seasons of the iconic children’s television program will be incorporated into the AAPB’s extensive archive of public media from across the United States. The Sesame Street collection will be available to view on-site at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and by appointment at WGBH in Boston.
It’s exciting and a big relief to know that Sesame Street will be properly preserved for years to come. It’s also slightly disappointing for us greedy fans who don’t live in Washington or Boston that the AAPB isn’t posting all the episodes online, say on a wesbite called “WatchFourThousandEpisodesOfSesameStreetForFree.gov.” But mostly, it’s exciting.
Also, if you haven’t read the Library of Congress announcement linked above, you should, but let me tell you this before you click: It does not specify whether the Wicked Witch episode or the unaired “Snuffy’s Parents Get a Divorce” are included.
Click here to be preserved for posterity on the Tough Pigs forum!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
