earliest merchandising

superboober

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How soon after the show began did the first merchandise based on it appear? And do you think they went into it with merchandising in mind?
 

minor muppetz

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1969 or 1970. There was something called The Sesame Street Learning Kit released in 1970, which was available through mail by Time-Life, and I've read that this merchandising deal was actually made before the series went on the air (I don't know the exact month it was released). This kit contained five books (The Sesame Street Book of People and Things, The Sesame Street Book of Shapes, The Sesame Street Book of Puzzlers, The Sesame Street Book of Numbers, and The Sesame Street Book of Letters), plus the first album and a set of stickers. Eventually the books and record were all sold seperately in stores.

One cool thing about the books is that most of them featured stills from various sketches, with dialogue written underneath. Kermit the Frog appeared in some of the books (and even appeared on the cover of The Sesame Street Book of Puzzlers). These books prominently featured not only The Mupets and human cast, but also various animated characters from the show. The set of stickers featured Alice Braitewait Goodyshoes and Wanda the Witch in addition to Bob, Gordon, Susan, Mr. Hooper, Ernie and Bert, Big Bird, Oscar, and the Anything People. Some of the book covers featured animated characters as well (the cover of The Sesame Street Book of Numbers featured the spies from the Jazz cartoons). Though most books featured material from the show, I've read that the pages for the Letters and Numbers books only feature letters and numbers on each page.

During the first year of Sesame Street, there were a number of unnofficial Sesame Street albums. I don't know if the record companies actually got permission from Sesame Workshop for the use of the Sesame Street name or it's songs, but these albums featured cover versions of Sesame Street songs, and whetehr or not Sesame Workshop granted permission I don't think Sesame Workshop even produced them. There was one album, Songs from Sesame Street, which only featured songs that were covered on Sesame Street but not written for the show (and amazingly, while Sesame Workshop most likely didn't approve of this album, the makers of the album knew what epsiodes each song appeared in, as the back of the album contained lists of episode numbers that the songs appeared in).
 
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