In 1974, when viewers got their first glimpse of “Maria” — arguably the most famous of all the human characters on “Sesame Street” — she was a teenager.
Several decades later, the character created by Bronx-born Sonia Manzano — who was in her early 20s back then — has grown up with the show. In the process, generations have watched as Sesame Street and its magnificent Muppets made television history, revolutionalizing the way parents and teachers approach education.
“I think the most remarkable thing about Sesame Street is that it discovered that children are learning earlier and earlier than was ever thought before,” Manzano said during an interview held in Grand Army Plaza, where the Brooklyn Public Library was kicking off its summer reading program — with her as the celebrity guest star.
“They harnessed the power of television and used it to teach,” she emphasized.
To a large extent, this meant not doing it the way the other kids’ shows did.
“We were mandated not to act like it was a children’s show,” Manzano said. “We were told never to talk down to children.”
There was no need to tell kids that something was fun, she added.
“They know if it’s fun, and they’ll tell us,” Manzano stressed.
In fact, Manzano said, the creators of Sesame Street made viewers aware of a truth that had been little known until Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster burst onto the scene: Learning can be fun.
From that grew the show’s other great revelation — even very young children are primed to learn, if the information is presented appropriately. While now, Manzano noted, it is common knowledge that 2 and 3-year-olds can master letters and numbers, and will thrive when they are challenged intellectually, in pre-Sesame Street days, such education generally did not begin until children headed off to kindergarten.
But, that wasn’t the only pot that Sesame Street stirred, Manzano remarked.
Before Sesame Street, Manzano recalled, child-oriented TV was limited, by and large, to shows like “Romper Room” or “Leave it to Beaver,” which were populated mostly by middle-class Caucasian youngsters. Then, the rise of public television created the right environment for a kids’ show that not only made learning fun, but also let youngsters of diverse backgrounds see people on TV who looked like them.
With its quintessentially urban, stoop-fronted rowhouses, the setting for Sesame Street clearly mirrored her neighborhood, noted Manzano.
“There were Latin people and black people, and then to be part of it,” she said. “It’s like I had a second chance to grow up, only better.”
That second chance included some wonderful opportunities. Manzano’s favorite memory is of Stevie Wonder singing “Superstition” on the show, and, she said, she cherishes the fact that she was able to incorporate both her marriage to Luis, and the birth and upbringing of her daughter, Gabriella, now an adult, into the show’s plotline.
Who’s Manzano’s favorite Muppet? Oscar the Grouch, she confesses.
“He’s negative and interesting. He’s nuanced,” she said. “He can be either 45 or eight, so he’s interesting to perform with and write for.”
If Sesame Street has shaped the futures of countless youngsters, Manzano’s own move to Sesame Street shaped the arc of her career.
“I was in the right place at the right time,” Manzano says of her move from the cast of Godspell to the cast of the show, which, she recalls, she did not believe would last much longer.
“It had already been satirized on Saturday Night Live and they had already done the Johnny Carson show, so what else was there? I thought it would probably be over pretty soon,” she confessed.
How wrong she was!
Over the decades, Sesame Street has become the gold standard for children’s entertainment, thriving and reinventing itself to reflect changing times.
“It’s remarkable to think that Sesame Street has been on the air for 40 years,” Manzano mused.
The proof is in the devotion that the show inspires, she noted, pointing out that today’s 30-something parents once were in the same place as their toddlers — enjoying the radiance of Sesame Street’s perennially “sunny day,” and learning while they basked.
