Oscar's sidekick Slimey will head for the moon in a venture to introduce preschoolers to scienceSlimey, the intrepid sidekick of Oscar the Grouch on "Sesame Street," is poised to go boldly where no worm has gone before: outer space.
In an attempt to do for science what it has long done for the ABC's and 1-2-3s, "Sesame Street" is launching an 18-week story line that will send Slimey to the moon. (Yes, Tony Bennett has recorded a theme song that plays on that irresistible pun)."We've never done anything like this before," said "Sesame Street" executive producer Michael Loman. "But we thought it would be a wonderful way to introduce a science curriculum to the show."
Slimey's lunar adventure begins when WASA, the Worm and Space Agency, announces that it is looking for a few good worms to undertake a mission to the moon. Like many brave space explorers before him, Slimey heeds his country's call and leaps - well, wriggles - into action.
His journey will be the centerpiece of "The Science of Discovery," the running theme of the 29th season of "Sesame Street." Celebrity guests like Bill Nye the Science Guy and author Alice Walker will show up to explore such phenomena as rain, light, and stars with the furry denizens of "Sesame Street" and the at-home audience of 11 million.
Science per se is nothing new to children's television, of course; Nye's own show and "The Magic School Bus" are two top-notch programs that explore the frontiers of scientific discovery.
However, those programs are aimed at an older audience. Walking a preschool audience through a lengthy scientific story line represents something new; indeed, "Sesame Street" is touting this season as "the first-ever science-based curriculum for preschoolers."
Children's TV advocate Peggy Charren, noting that "Sesame Street" has previously tackled such challenging topics as death (when the actor playing Mr. Hooper died), said she welcomes the new science curriculum as a timely addition to the show's repertoire.
"Science is easy, compared to death," said Charren. "Science is something that is getting more and more important, because the health of the planet depends so much on understanding what we're doing to it."
But are toddlers really ready for science lessons?
"We aren't going to be teaching heavy-duty gravity to 2-year-olds," Loman emphasized in an interview. "We just want to give them an idea of the world around them, in the same way we try to prepare them by teaching the alphabet. We'll teach them that the moon is very, very, very far away from them, that it's way beyond the birds flying in the sky."
The idea of introducing science to "Sesame Street" originated among preschool education experts who participated in a series of seminars convened by the Children's Television Workshop, which produces the show. The experts told CTW programmers that science is an underexplored area on television.
"We look for an area every number of years where we can teach something new," Loman said, noting that the show's emphasis on race relations also grew out of the regularly scheduled seminars with academic experts.
"Since our mission is preparing children for success when they go to school, we felt this was a good time to explore science," he said.
Since it premiered in 1969, "Sesame Street" has seen outreach to poor and minority children as a big part of its core mission. Loman said he sees the science story line in that context. For one thing, he said, it will allow "Sesame Street" to incorporate the subject of computers, an area where some fear poor children are being left behind.
The Slimey-in-space story line will represent the latest adventure for a character who is no stranger to danger. In addition to the high-risk occupation of being pet worm and best buddy to the ever-cantankerous Oscar, Slimey has tempted fate in the past by becoming a circus daredevil, even going so far as to put his head inside a fish's mouth.
Slimey becomes an astro-worm after passing WASA's grueling "stickability" test, wherein worms are placed on a Lazy Susan and spun around. Only five worms are able to stick; they go on the moon mission, along with a stowaway chicken.
For the duration of the Slimey-in-space series, the ground team from WASA will be headed by Lynne Thigpen, who is probably best known for "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" (Lunar themes loom large for the basso-voiced Thigpen these days: She is also the voice of Luna, the talking moon, on the Disney Channel children's show "Bear in the Big Blue House.")
From liftoff on Jan. 12 to landing on May 15 (the longest continuing story line in "Sesame Street" history), Slimey and crew will undergo a variety of adventures that are designed to teach basic science, literacy, and social lessons to preschoolers.
For instance, when the worms discover that they are weightless in space, they will attempt to form the letter R with their floating bodies. They will conduct other experiments, cope with mechanical difficulties (think Mir), and collect samples from the moon.
Finally, in an extraordinary coincidence, the spacecraft will splash down not in the Atlantic Ocean, but on Sesame Street itself.
While Slimey is in space, Oscar the Grouch will grow lonesome, enabling "Sesame Street" to explore the theme of "separation anxiety," according to Loman.
"We feel that's important for children who are away from parents or friends," he said.
Charren, the children's TV advocate, said that even the lighthearted approach "Sesame Street" will take to Slimey's exploits can contain important lessons.
For instance, she noted that many children were traumatized by the Challenger explosion in 1986, in which New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe and six other astronauts were killed, and that today's space shuttles often encounter problems as well.
"A lot of things happen in space that can be very scary, and little kids see it on the news," said Charren. "Teaching about the moon, and what those trips are for, can help kids deal with some of the things that happen in space that aren't so terrific."