Elmo's World - WikiHQ

Elmo's World is a segment that is shown in the American children's television program Sesame Street. It always comes last before the episode's "sponsors" - the letter and the number of the day - are announced to close the show, and premiered on November 16, 1998, during the thirtieth season of Sesame Street, as part of a broader structural change to the show. It originally lasted fifteen minutes at the end of each episode. The segment was designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment is presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, performed by Kevin Clash in the original series and Ryan Dillon in the 2017 reboot.

The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied changes in the viewing habits of Sesame Streets audience, and the reasons for the show's lower ratings. Elmo's World used traditional production elements, but had a more sustained narrative. In 2002, Sesame Streets producers changed the rest of the show to reflect its younger demographic and the increase in their viewers' sophistication.

Long-time writer Judy Freudberg came up with the concept of Elmo's World, and writer Tony Geiss and executive producer Arlene Sherman helped develop it. In contrast with the realism of the rest of the show, the segment presented Elmo moving between and combining a live action world and a computer-generated animated world, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life", with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it". Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy and the members of the Noodle family were silent to allow Elmo to do all the talking, and to give children the opportunity to respond to what they saw on the screen. A brief clip from Elmo's World appears in Sesame Streets 2002–2006 intro.

In 2009, production on Elmo's World went on hiatus. Reruns continued until 2012, when it was replaced by Elmo: The Musical. The segment returned in 2017, although each episode now only runs for around 4-5 minutes. The revival is alternated by two more Elmo-centered segments, Elmo & Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries and Nature Explorers, which are both produced entirely with animation.

Background

By the early 1990s, Sesame Street had been on the air for over 20 years and was, as author Michael Davis put it, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of preschool television". The show's dominance began to be challenged throughout the decade by other television shows for preschoolers such as Barney & Friends, Blue's Clues, and Teletubbies, by the growth of the children's home video industry, and by the increase of thirty-minute children's shows on cable. Sesame Streets ratings declined, so the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) (now Sesame Workshop), the organization responsible for putting the show on the air, responded by researching the reasons for their lower ratings. The producers found that the show's original format, which consisted of a series of short clips similar to the structure of a magazine, was not necessarily the most effective way to hold young viewers' attention. They also found that their viewers, especially the younger ones, lost attention with Sesame Street after 40 to 45 minutes.|group=note The segment used traditional elements (animation, Muppets, music, and live-action film), but had a more sustained narrative. Elmo's World followed the same structure each episode, and depended heavily on repetition.|group=note It focused on child-centered topics such as balls and dancing, from the perspective of a three-year-old child, and was "designed to foster exploration, imagination, and curiosity". the show. They changed the structure of the entire show to a more narrative format, making the show easier for young children to navigate. Arlene Sherman, a co-executive producer for 25 years and one of the creators of Elmo's World, called the show's new look "startlingly different". from the rest of the show during the CTW's workshops, and writer Tony Geiss further developed the idea with her. For more complicated shots that showed Elmo's entire body, a puppet called "Active Elmo" was operated with assistance from other puppeteers; the puppet was also filmed in front of a blue screen and edited later. Visual effects for the series were provided by Curious Pictures (1998 to 1999), Protozoa (2000) and Celefex (2001 to 2009).

In addition to Freudberg and Geiss, other writers of Elmo's World included Emily Kingsley and Molly Boylan. Writer Louise Gikow and The New York Times called it "a show within a show". Clash called it "a playdate between the child and Elmo", and felt that its intimacy provided an effective teaching tool. Davis compared Elmo's World with the Saturday Morning children's TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse. until Clash took over the role in 1985. Elmo became, as writer Michael Davis reported, "the embodiment" of Sesame Street, and "the marketing wonder of our age" when five million "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls were sold in 1996. Clash believed the "Tickle Me Elmo" phenomenon made Elmo a household name and led to the Elmo's World segment. Clash called Elmo's World "a colorful, lively celebration of creativity" and "one of the most imaginative endeavors I've ever been involved in". When he became unavailable, Sherman asked her friend Michael Jeter to replace Irwin as Mr. Noodle's brother Mister Noodle. Jeter was in the role beginning in 2000, until his death in 2003. According to Freudberg, "Mr. Noodle, who never speaks, is all about trial and error. When you throw him a hat, he acts like he's never seen one before. Kids feel empowered watching him because they can do what he can't."

Elmo's World was replaced by Elmo: The Musical in 2012. Elmo's World continued to appear on repeats of Sesame Street, on DVDs, In 2017, the 47th season of Sesame Street began airing on the cable subscription service HBO; Elmo's World returned, in a newly designed segment that ran five minutes at the end of each episode. Steve Youngwood, the Sesame Workshop's CEO, called it "fresh, contemporary".