Co-creator of ‘Sesame Street’ Lloyd Morrisett dies

• Sad news for Sesame Street fans.
• Co-creator of the iconic children’s show, Lloyd Morrisett, has died.
• He was 93 years old.

«Thank you for all the memories.» In the early hours of Tuesday, January 24, children’s television fans received bad news. Co-creator of Sesame Street, Lloyd Morrisett died at the age of 93. May he rest in peace.

According to TMZ, Sesame Workshop reported that the renowned experimental psychologist, with a career in education, communications and philanthropy, died on Monday. Together with Joan Ganz Cooney, he created the Children’s Television Workshop in 1968, an organization that created the revolutionary TV show.

Who was Lloyd Morrisett?

Born on November 2, 1929 in Oklahoma City, Lloyd N. Morrisett, Jr. thought he would become a teacher like his father, a renowned professor at UCLA. “I was raised to believe that being a teacher was the best job in the world,” he once said without imagining what fate had in store for him later on.

During his time at Carnegie Corporation, Lloyd developed a specialty in early education and also became involved in projects related to human creativity. He became increasingly aware of the educational disadvantages of poor and minority children and wanted to find a way to improve their access to preschool learning. Under his direction, the foundation supported six experiments to test children’s responses to teaching methods.

Lloyd Morrisett and the Children’s Television Workshop

In December 1965 Lloyd Morrisett’s little daughter Sarah was watching the test patterns while waiting for her cartoons to start. The psychologist noticed something in this behavior: «I was surprised that there was something fascinating for Sarah about television.» In his book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, Michael Davis goes into more detail about it.

“Sarah Morrisett had memorized an entire repertoire of TV jingles. It’s not too hard to say that Sarah’s mastery of jingles led to a central hypothesis of the great experiment we know as Sesame Street. If television could successfully teach words and music to ads, couldn’t it teach children more? Were the substantive material co-opting the very elements that made the ads so effective?”

The start of Sesame Street

Sesame Street made its television debut, starring Jim Henson’s Muppets, on November 10, 1969. John Gardner, former Chairman of the Carnegie Corporation, had this to say about Lloyd Morrisett: “It sums up his role in the development of Sesame Street. He is modest, but people who saw his early days agree that he played a very significant role as a member of that very small group.»

After 2008, this popular television series had received 118 Emmy Awards and an estimated 77 million Americans watched this series as children. Aside from Sesame Street, at least 17 locally produced indigenous versions of the show are seen in countries around the world. (Filed Under: Sesame Street Co-Creator Lloyd Morrisett Dies)

People offer condolences after Lloyd Morrisett’s death

TMZ recalled what Joan Ganz Cooney once said that Sesame Street would not exist without Lloyd, because «it was he who first came up with the notion of using television to teach preschoolers basic skills, such as letters and numbers.» The two discussed this proposal at a dinner in 1966.

Sesame Workshop described Lloyd Morrisett as “a wise, thoughtful, and above all kind leader, who was fascinated by the power of technology and constantly thinking of new ways it could be used to educate.”