Play with Me Sesame is an original series created by Noggin and Sesame Workshop. When the show was made, Sesame Workshop co-owned the Noggin channel. The show is a spin-off of Sesame Street created specially for Noggin. It features interactive segments hosted by four characters: Bert, Ernie, Grover, Prairie Dawn. A rewritten version of the song from Sesame Street, "Somebody Come and Play" served as the show's theme song.
The show is unique in that it was the first and only time an outside company (Nickelodeon) made its own series with the Sesame Street characters. The show started development in 1999, when the Jim Henson Company still had partial rights to the characters; to start production, Nick had to seek the company's approval. Kidscreen reported that "the series marks the first time a State-side entity other than Sesame Workshop has been given permission by Henson to use the Sesame Street Muppets."
The show premiered on April 1, 2002. This was the same day that Noggin redesigned itself to include a daytime block for preschoolers. Play with Me was the "anchor series" of the block and the main attraction of the revamped Noggin. The first season contained 26 episodes and the second season, which premiered on June 7, 2003, contained 17 episodes. [1](source) In the second season, Cookie Monster, Ernestine, Slimey, Super Grover, and Zoe started making occasional appearances. Chicago the Lion also made at least one appearance. The show continued to air on Noggin until September 2, 2007 as Nickelodeon lost the rights to air the series.
The third and final season was produced solely by Sesame Workshop in 2007 with 26 episodes with Noggin not involved at all.
By 2004, the footage from the first two seasons was re-edited to form new versions of the episodes to be shown in international markets. Season one remained 26 episodes, while season two was turned into 52. These versions aired on Sprout channel (now Universal Kids) on September 26.
History
The show's animated segments, computer games, and intro sequence were animated by Nickelodeon's New York studio, Nick Digital. (source)
The original broadcasts of each episode included videos of kids sent to Noggin by their parents. The videos were first collected in March 2002 as part of a campaign on Noggin's website, where parents were asked to send in any play-themed videotapes they had of their kids. The campaign advertised Play with Me Sesame as "Ernie & Bert's new show." The original page for the campaign can be found here and here.
Screenshot of the webpage
Summary
The series mixes classic Muppet footage with brand-new interactive segments. Bert, Ernie, Grover, and Prairie Dawn are the main hosts. The host segments also feature guest appearances by Cookie Monster, Zoe, Slimey the Worm, and Ernie's cousin Ernestine.
Cast
- Bert - Played by Eric Jacobson
- Ernie - Played by Steve Whitmire and John Tartaglia
- Grover/Super Grover (Season 2) - Played by Eric Jacobson
- Prairie Dawn and Zoe (Season 2) - Played by Fran Brill
- Cookie Monster, Chicago the Lion and Ernestine (Season 2) - Played by David Rudman
- Slimey the Worm (Season 2) - Played by Martin P. Robinson
Segments
- Ernie Says - A game similar to "Simon Says," hosted by Ernie as he asks the viewers to imitate him. This game usually appears at the start of each episode, and Noggin's website says that it was designed to get "kids up and playing along right from the start."
- Prairie Dawn's Art Class - A segment where Prairie Dawn showcases drawings made by users of Noggin.com. Viewers were encouraged to visit Noggin's website and send in their own videos, drawings, photographs, e-mails and other creations. On two episodes, Grover and Prairie Dawn sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with the drawings, and Cookie Monster eats the keys off of Prairie Dawn's piano.
- Sesame Computer - The gang plays games on the computer from their website at Noggin.com, such as "Oatmeal Art", "Pigeon Patterns", "Perfect Pair", and "Ducks in a Row".
- Classic Muppets - Archive footage from classic episodes of Sesame Street were integrated into the series.
- Move and Groove with Grover - A music video is played for the viewers to dance along with. Grover often interrupts the video to add commentary or tell the viewer more about the video. Other times, Grover sings basic songs such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "A Very Simple Dance." Noggin describes this segment as a way to incorporate "beloved Sesame Street songs" into the show.
- End Segment - A short and final game of Ernie Says is played. The first statement is usually "Ernie says, say goodbye..." The special circumstance in which the characters say goodbye ties into the theme. For example, Ernie says to say goodbye while wiping windshield wipers in the car-themed episode.
Episodes
The show had three seasons and 104 episodes in total. However, only the first two seasons were produced for Noggin, while Season 3 was produced solely by Sesame Workshop in 2007. (source)
Trivia
- Unlike Noggin’s other original shows released on video, featuring their Noggin versions, the home media releases from this series were not made exclusively from Noggin, nor used there Noggin versions for the videos. They were instead made more as in a Sesame Street form (similar to the Elmo's World video releases), using their version that was shown in international markets. However, the DVDs Let's Play Games, Imagine with Me and Furry, Fun and Healthy Too mention in the copyright on the back, MTV Networks, which the show's original Noggin version was distributed by.
Gallery
2002
2003-07
Online
The show had a major presence on Noggin's website, Noggin.com, which was a big part of the show itself. Kids could submit their own artwork to Noggin to see it featured on the show. The "Sesame Computer" segments featured Bert and other characters playing games that were available on Noggin.com.
Links
Original series on Noggin
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Daytime block
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| Sesame Street Unpaved • 123 Sesame Street • Phred on Your Head Show • A Walk in Your Shoes (seasons 1–2) • Oobi • Citizen Phoebe • Maisy (US) • Big Kids • On the Team • The URL with Phred Show • Sponk! • Tiny Planets (US) • Story Time • Play with Me Sesame • Tweenies (US) • Miffy and Friends (US) • Connie the Cow (US) • Jack's Big Music Show • Pinky Dinky Doo (US/UK) • The Upside Down Show | |
The N block
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| A Walk in Your Shoes (season 3) • Out There • LOL with The N • Girls v. Boys • O'Grady • Miracle's Boys • South of Nowhere • What Goes On | |
Streaming app
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| Yoga Friends • School of Yum • Kinderwood • Noggin Knows • The Noggins • Balloon Builders | |