Sesame Street’s 52nd Season Launches on Thursday, November 11 on Cartoonito on HBO MAX
Elmo’s adopted puppy Tango makes her Sesame Street debut – including a brand-new animated segment Elmo & Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries
Star-studded season includes appearances from Jon Batiste, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman, Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, Kacey Musgraves, Naomi Osaka, Anderson .Paak, and Keke Palmer
(November 1, 2021 – New York, N.Y.) – Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind decades of award-winning educational programming, today announced that Sesame Street’s 52nd season will debut on Thursday, November 11 on Cartoonito on HBO Max. New episodes of the iconic children’s series, 35 in all, will drop every Thursday. The season streams on PBS KIDS in Fall 2022.
“Creating this season of Sesame Street during the pandemic has been an enormous undertaking,” said Ben Lehmann, Sesame Workshop’s Senior Vice President & Head of Live Action and Sesame Street Executive Producer. “Just as our characters use playful problem-solving in the face of challenges, we, too, took a creative approach, finding innovative solutions while keeping our cast and crew safe. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to produce and are grateful to our partners at WarnerMedia and PBS for their continued support of Sesame Street.”
This season welcomes Tango, Elmo’s new adopted puppy, to the Street, where she will debut as a live-action Sesame Street Muppet in the first Season 52 episode on Thursday, November 11. Tango was introduced in the animated special Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy in August 2021 and will appear regularly in Sesame Street episodes.
Tango will also join Elmo in the new animated segment Elmo & Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries, comprised of 13 five-minute episodes interspersed throughout Season 52. The series follows Elmo and Tango as they search for clues on Sesame Street and help their friends solve mysteries, including the disappearance of Abby’s magic wand, a search for buried treasure, and more.
Season 52 continues a playful problem-solving curriculum, designed to build critical thinking skills in young children and equip them to handle challenges in school and beyond. As characters and kids approach challenges creatively, they repeat the phrase “I Wonder…What if…Let’s Try!” This framework for finding solutions is used in Street Stories, interstitials, and Elmo & Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries segments.
“The pandemic has presented immense challenges for us all, but particularly for children as they experience this drastically different way of life in their formative years,” said Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Sesame Workshop’s Senior Vice President of Curriculum & Content. “In spite of those difficulties, we know that children are incredibly resilient. This season’s curriculum is designed to encourage and inspire them to be persistent, continuing to try until they succeed. It’s a message kids and parents can take to heart.”
As a part of Coming Together, Sesame Workshop’s ongoing commitment to racial justice, this season features two racial justice-themed episodes: Martin Luther King Day (Thursday, January 13), in which Elmo, Tamir, and friends make a Peace Tree to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy and the holiday; and Let’s Grow Together (Thursday, February 17), where Alan shares his Japanese American heritage with the Sesame Street gang as they learn to make pickled daikon for the community garden food stand.
Celebrity and special guests Jon Batiste (Thursday, November 18), Kacey Musgraves (Thursday, December 2), Naomi Osaka (Thursday, January 6), Anderson .Paak (Thursday, January 13), astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison (Thursday, January 27), Amanda Gorman (Thursday, March 24), Keke Palmer (Thursday, April 21), and Billie Eilish (Thursday, June 16) join for Street Stories, songs, and other segments.
This season, Sesame Workshop took seven of its 35 new Sesame Street episodes to the great outdoors. In Elmo Mails a Letter (Thursday, November 18), Elmo meets a real U.S. Postal Service mail carrier in Queens, N.Y., to learn how mail is sorted and sent to the right place. Abby, Rudy, and Freddy follow a map to find hidden treasure at Croton Gorge Park in Westchester, N.Y., in Hike Pirates (Thursday, January 6). Five episodes were filmed on-location at Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard in North Salem, N.Y., starting with Sesame Street Goes to the Farm (Thursday, April 21).
Sesame Street continues to be available on PBS stations and streams on PBS KIDS.
Sesame Street is the flagship series in Sesame Workshop’s burgeoning slate of shows, which includes Sesame Street spinoffs The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo and forthcoming CGI-animated Mecha Builders; Esme & Roy; Ghostwriter; Helpsters; Bea’s Block; and first docuseries Through Our Eyes, as well as year-round Sesame Street and Sesame Studios digital shorts, stories, and songs. The nonprofit additionally creates Sesame Street in Communities content addressing the complex challenges faced by children and families today.
Sesame Street is underwritten in part by Beaches Resorts®, Progressive, and SC Johnson.
Learn more about Sesame Street Season 52 at the press kit link here.
About Sesame Workshop
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, the pioneering television show that has been reaching and teaching children since 1969. Today, Sesame Workshop is an innovative force for change, with a mission to help kids everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. We’re present in more than 150 countries, serving vulnerable children through a wide range of media, formal education, and philanthropically funded social impact programs, each grounded in rigorous research and tailored to the needs and cultures of the communities we serve. For more information, please visit www.sesameworkshop.org.
About Cartoonito
Cartoonito is the WarnerMedia Kids & Family preschool programming block on Cartoon Network and HBO Max. Inspired by Positive Psychology and 21st Century Learning, Cartoonito is based on the proprietary preschool educational framework of Humancentric Learning, which aims to support every child’s humanness by celebrating their unique selves and encouraging them to treat others with compassion, respect, and fairness. With a roster of originals actively in development, Cartoonito will offer modern programming that leans into WarnerMedia’s Kids & Family iconic IP that stems from Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios. Mush-Mush & the Mushables and Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go are among a slate of 20 new series that will be available at launch. In addition, a portfolio of originals including Batwheels, Bugs Bunny Builders, Little Ellen, new series and specials from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, and a collection of projects from bestselling children’s book author Mo Willems will add to thousands of hours of content from WarnerMedia’s legacy library and global acquisitions.
About HBO Max
HBO Max™ is WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer platform, offering best in class quality entertainment. HBO Max features the greatest array of storytelling for all audiences from the iconic brands of HBO, Warner Bros., DC, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, and much more. The streaming platform launched in the United States in May 2020 and introduced an advertising-supported subscription tier in June 2021. HBO Max recently began its global roll out launching in 39 markets across Latin America and the Caribbean and will be followed by the replacement of HBO-branded streaming services in Europe later this year.
Contact
Brit Edwards, Sesame Workshop
brit.edwards@sesame.org
Victoria Saavedra, DKC for Sesame Workshop
victoria_saavedra@dkcnews.com
