‘Sesame Street’ gets Lifetime Achievement award at 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Sesame Street at the 36th Daytime Emmy Award for its 40 years of educating and entertaining children. Actress Sandra Oh presented the Lifetime Achievement award to the longest running educational show ‘Sesame Street’, which also took away four other Emmys – Best Directing in Children’s Television, Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series (Kevin Clash as Elmo), Best Costume Design, and the brand new award for Best New Approaches for the website (to the Digital Media group and Web team). This brings the total to a record-breaking 122 Emmys for ‘Sesame Street’.

Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award, along with Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird, Oscar, Abby Cadabby, and the Sesame gang. The Muppets also received a standing ovation for performing a special medley of beloved songs from the show.

The Indian adaptation of the show, ‘Galli Galli Sim Sim’, has been on air since 2006, on Cartoon Network, POGO and Doordarshan. ‘Galli Galli Sim Sim’ follows the same well-researched process of ‘Sesame Street’ to ensure that it addresses the educational and developmental needs to preschool children in India and has reached over 44 million children aged 4-6 years. (TAM Media Research, 2006 – 2009, All India, CS 4 –9). The television show is supported by an extensive community outreach across six cities.

Speaking on the occasion, Sashwati Banerjee, Executive Director, Sesame Workshop India, said, “We are inspired by ‘Sesame Street’s global achievement, and hope to create the same magic for our Indian audiences with ‘Galli Galli Sim Sim’. We have already received tremendous response from our viewers on last three seasons and we hope to further continue our impact with the upcoming season as well.”