There are some American icons we would not miss too much if they were to disappear tomorrow. Starbucks, McDonald's, Britney Spears: Despite their popularity here, they all have perfectly adequate local equivalents. Japanese would still be able to drink coffee, eat hamburgers and listen to annoying pop music in their absence. But there is no local equivalent for a slightly less conspicuous American cultural institution that really is about to vanish from Japan. "Sesame Street," the groundbreaking U.S. children's television show that is going off the air here next month after more than 30 years, occupies a niche all its own. As such, its cancellation is to be regretted.
"Sesame Street" pioneered a new approach to children's television programming when it was launched in the United States in 1969. There were older shows that sought to entertain, and there were others that sought to educate. "Sesame Street" did both, teaching generations of American preschoolers to spell, count, read, name colors, button their own clothes, cross the street, make friends and acquire many other crucial everyday skills in the company of the late Jim Henson's wildly original and exuberant puppets.
(We pause here for a nostalgic salute to the entire "Sesame Street" cast, including, but not limited to, ingratiating Big Bird, cute Elmo, voracious Cookie Monster, Bruce Stringbean and the S Street Band ("Born to Add"), clever Kermit, silly Grover, the woolly mammoth Snuffleupagus, Forgetful Jones, Dr. Noble Price the scientist, the Oinker Sisters and, last but not least, those squabbling bachelors Bert and Ernie).