Elmo's World
| Elmo's World | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Educational Puppet show Animation Segment |
| Opening theme | Elmo's World Theme Song (sung to Elmo's Song) |
| Ending theme | The Close Song (usually sung to the tune of Jingle Bells) (1998-2009) The Happy Dance (2017-present) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 68 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 18 minutes (1998-2009) 5 minutes (2017-present) |
| Production company(s) |
Panasonic Curious Pictures Children's Television Workshop (1998-2000) Sesame Workshop (2000-2009, 2017-Present) |
| Distributor |
Sony Wonder (1998-2007) Genius Entertainment (2007-2009) Warner Home Video (2009-present) Star Records Video (Philippines) (2003-2005) Viva Entertainment (Philippines) (2003-present) |
| Release | |
| Original network |
PBS (1998-2009) Disney Junior (Asia) (2011-2016) HBO (2017-present) |
| Picture format |
480i (SDTV) (1998–2007) 720p & 1080i (HDTV) (2008–2009) |
| Audio format |
Stereo (1998–2001) Dolby Surround (2002–2006) Dolby Digital (2007–Present) |
| Original release | November 16, 1998 – 2009 |
"Elmo's World" is a five minute -long segment that was shown at the end of the children's television program Sesame Street. It premiered on November 16, 1998 as part of the show's structural changes, designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied the changes in the viewing habits of their audience, and the reasons for the show's lower ratings. "Elmo's World" used traditional elements of production, but had a more sustained narrative. It was presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, who was performed by Kevin Clash. In 2002, Sesame Street's 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. Instead of the realism of the rest of the show, the segment presented Elmo moving between and combining two worlds of live action and computer-generated animation, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life" created by the host, and with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it". Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy and the members of the Noodle family were silent in order to allow Elmo to do all the talking, and to give children the opportunity to respond to what they saw on the screen.
In 2009, "Elmo's World" temporarily ceased production and was replaced by Elmo the Musical in 2012.
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, by the growth of the children's home video industry, and by the increase of thirty-minute children's shows on cable.Sesame Street's ratings declined, so the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the organization responsible for putting the show on the air, responded by researching the reasons for their lower ratings.
For the first time since the show debuted, the producers and a team of researchers analyzed Sesame Street's content and structure and studied how children's viewing habits had changed. The analysis was conducted during a series of two-week-long workshops and was completed in time for the show's 30th anniversary in 1999. The CTW found that although the show was produced for children between the ages of three and five, their viewers had become more sophisticated since its debut and began to watch the show sooner, as early as ten months of age. 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.
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