Happy Birthday Sesame Street

On this day – 40 years ago – the first episode of Sesame Street was screened. It’s remarkable when you look at old film – how much of the original recipe has remained.  Guests come and go, as do presenters, but Sesame Street continues to engage, enthrall and educate children.  The horoscope for the first episode is set for Brooklyn, NY. The time, 09.30 in the morning, which is when I believe the show was originally sent out.

Sagittarius rises and one of the key features of this sign is dissemination of knowledge. Sagittarians often make good educators . Earth teaches through discipline, water through familiarity, air through abstract thinking, but fire teaches through inspiration. Fire loves to play, to fool around to dramatize. However Sagittarius is also about higher learning and Sesame Street is one of the most researched programs on tv. All of the characters are designed to teach children something about human nature. For example, Oscar the Grouch’s role was to teach children about positive and negative emotions. Children have also been used in experiments which determine at what point attention is diverted from the episode. The central tenet of Sesame Street is however quite simple, “if you can hold the attention of a child, you can educate them”  Malcom Gladwell.

With five planets – including the all important Moon – in Scorpio, Mars in Aquarius and Saturn in Taurus, there is a preponderance of fixed signs. Fixed in this sense suggests staying power. Sesame Street is the longest running children’s program in US history. Apart from a make-over around its 30th birthday, the show still seems to be going strong. In fact today, Michelle Obama will be making a guest appearance on the show to mark the big day.

So is there anything really unique in this horoscope, something that screams out, hugely succesful kids show? Something that is a recipe for enchantment, wonder, imagination? Well, if there is, then it must surely be the Moon conjunct with Neptune. Neptune is blissfully chaotic and children love a touch of madness. Actually, judging by the host of high profile guests the show has attracted over the years, adults don’t mind a spot of lunacy themselves. 

A poem about childhood suddenly springs to mind, entitled “Blue Remembered Hills..” the last stanza goes like this….” The land of Lost Content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went, And cannot come again.” Growing up, becoming an adult, is a particularly Saturnian excercise – one that teaches us all about disenchantment. Thank Goodness for Neptune… Neptune is about keeping the dream alive and Sesame Street has succeeded in that…

Sunny Day
Sweepin’ the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street…