Sesame Street is a children's educational television program on PBS, in production since 1969. From 2016 to 2025, new episodes were shown on HBO and then repeated on PBS. In December 2024, Sesame Workshop announced that a renewal deal with HBO Max had failed, and that production would end with Season 55 unless a new broadcaster could be found. On 19 May 2025, it was announced that Netflix and PBS Kids would stream new episodes of Sesame Street, as well as older episodes.
Sesame Street has made several mentions of Hanna-Barbera characters and shows.
Mentions of Hanna-Barbera Characters
- In a Season 16 episode of Sesame Street, one of the kids has two goldfish named Tom and Jerry. When Olivia learns of their names, she says, "Well, I won't go into that."
- At the end of a Letter of the Day sketch for the letter Z, Prairie Dawn exclaims, "Zoinks!", one of Shaggy's catchphrases in Scooby-Doo.
- In Episode 3908, Telly compliments Baby Bear's clever idea, to which the latter replies that he's "smarter than the average bear," in reference to Yogi Bear.
- In Episode 4055, Papa Bear reads from a book of bear names when trying to come up with a name for their new baby. He suggests Yogi Bear and Boo Boo. (The former may be due to the letter Y being the episode's featured letter.)
- In the Sesame Place stage show, The Not-Too-Spooky Howl-o-ween Radio Show!, Grover (dressed as a pumpkin) must leave the scene after the Count's "Five Little Pumpkins" poem. Before he leaves, Grover says, "Exit Grover, stage left!" referencing the catchphrase of Snagglepuss.
- While the T. rex performs "Do the Dino Groove" in the Sesame Street Live show Elmo's Coloring Book, Baby Bear comments that the T. rex is a regular "Fred Astaire Flintstone" as he dances.
- In an early episode from the first season, Oscar the Grouch expressed his lack of interest in the letter D and said he'd rather watch Superman (later in the SuperFriends series) instead. Incidentally, Superman would be involved with things starting with D.
- Before the launch of SuperFriends, Superman would have his own segment where he describes certain things he defeats or is involved with that start with the letter S.
- In a sketch where a creature with no arms gets followed by a letter Z, the creature eventually eats the Z, and says “ZOWIE!” – referencing the catchphrase of Taffy Dare on Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.
Mentions in Hanna-Barbera Shows
- When Josie and the Pussy Cats crossed over to the The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "The Haunted Showboat", Melody Valentine said of the vessel the gang was following into a cave, "He didn't even say, 'Open, Sesame Street!'"
- Johnny Bravo did it in two episodes:
- In "Super Duped", Johnny is walking along the street to get groceries for his mother. He repeats from the Sesame Street animated insert: "Loaf of bread, container of milk, stick of butter …"
- "The Hunk at the End of This Cartoon" is a spoof of the Grover book The Monster at the End of This Book. Johnny believes that the cartoon's title must naturally refer to him, but ultimately it is revealed that the hunk was a hunk of cheese. The same episode has the following exchange, spoofing the show's tradition of being sponsored by letters:
- Johnny: "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a bevy of beauties begging for some Bravo. (to camera) That sentence was brought to you by the letter B."
Little Suzy: "Oh, brother!"
- Johnny: "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a bevy of beauties begging for some Bravo. (to camera) That sentence was brought to you by the letter B."
Cast Connections
The following Hanna-Barbera voice actors performed in Sesame Street, either as on-camera actors or in voice roles for animated inserts:
- Bob Arbogast voiced animated characters and narrated some animated inserts. In a 1971 insert aired only twice, he voiced a lecturer named Robert W. Unimportant, who demonstrates the rotational symmetry of the lowercase letters b, d and p, but omits q.
- Dick Beals voices a little boy who asks various adults whether they have seen his NO.
- Daws Butler lent his voice in the following segments:
- His first contribution was the voice of the man who hated frogs.
- He also voiced a mad scientist teaching a Frankenstein-like monster to name words that start with F.
- He also voiced the J Train.
- He also voiced a man trying to warn his friend when approaching a cliff, with a word that rhymes with ball.
- He also voiced an orange ball who brags about being the smallest, until his brother comes in.
- Ruth Buzzi played Ruthie, the owner of the Finders Keepers thrift shop, and was the voice of Suzie Kabloozie. She previously appeared in a 1977 film insert, "Where Do Potatoes Come From?"
- Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and their co-stars from The Simpsons joined Grover in the celebrity version of "Monster in the Mirror".
- Danny Dark narrated an animated insert about a man named Joe who wondered why he had a lap when sitting but not when standing.
- Susan Davis provided voices in at least five animated inserts, including the worm who is doused with water by a walrus, and the fisher boy who catches letters of the alphabet instead of fish.
- Richard Dawson hosted the game show segment Family Food, a parody of his most popular show, Family Feud.
- Marshall Efron voiced an inattentive elephant who asked a man for directions to the zoo.
- June Foray voiced Frances the fairy, illustrating F words such as fruit and flowers.
- Joan Gerber lent her voice to Alice Braithwaite Goodyshoes in a series of animated segments during the earlier seasons of the series. She also voiced the girl in "Alphabet Egg Chant", and the elderly woman in the "U for Umbrella" speech balloon skit as well as "H for Horseshoe".
- Kathy Gori recorded the songs "It's a Lovely Eleven Morning" and "L Look Around Song".
- Arte Johnson appeared in a few second-season inserts as Wolfgang, one of his characters from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
- Casey Kasem voiced Robin in two animated inserts, and narrated several others, including:
- The blue man in the "Q for Quarter" segment, who sounds almost like Shaggy.
- The man in the "T for TV" segment.
- He also narrated the "B for Bandit", "C for Clipper Ship", "F for Frog and Fly", and "G for Goat" segments.
- He also voiced separate men in the "C for Cat", "K for Key" and "O for Open" speech balloon segments.
- Maurice LaMarche, in a 1981 insert, voiced an owl who explained his nightly habit to a bluebird sharing a tree with him.
- Howard Morris voiced Jughead Jones (from Filmation's The Archie Show), telling a story about himself with the letter J.
- Gary Owens narrated the "Today's Secret Drawing" inserts, among others. He also played "The Man from Alphabet" in the week of test episodes.
- He was also a voice in three animated letter story segments:
- The letter J segment after two boys remarked that the letter J resembled a fish hook prior to the story "Joe and the Junebug".
- He also announced a similar style segment, with the letter L, asking two boys, "Would you like to hear a story about the letter L?"
- He also voiced the letter D segment where two boys claimed the letter D looked fat, prior to a jazzy story about a dog who digs for dice, wins a duck, and buys a dinosaur with a dime.
- He also voiced the man answering the telephone in the "H for Hello" animated insert.
- He also voiced the man in the "I for impolite" segment, who held a lowercase i in his hand.
- He also voiced the small man in the "J for Jack-in-the-box" animated insert, in which he demonstrates the prop and gets crushed by it.
- He also lent his voice in the "K for Kangaroo" segment.
- He also did voiceovers for the "Y for Yawn" skit.
- He also narrated the segment "Ten Little Greeblies."
- He also opened a cartoon segment about vacuum cleaners by saying "Presenting... the vacuum cleaner!"
- He was also a voice in three animated letter story segments:
- Charlotte Rae played Molly the mail carrier in the early 1970s.
- Olan Soule voiced Batman in three animated inserts, and on Ernie and Bert's TV set during the week of test episodes, to settle their argument over which program to watch.
- Arnold Stang voiced a mad scientist who assembled a large capital H.
- Ginny Tyler provided voiceover for three animated "Letters in Space" segments, in which the letters M, V and Z fly through space and land on a planet.
- Lennie Weinrib voiced Superman in an early animated insert demonstrating S words.
Sesame Street Staff Connections with Hanna-Barbera
- Cliff Roberts, who drew the Sesame Street comic strip and animated many of the original cartoon inserts (including those with Christopher Clumsy, which he created), later wrote scripts for Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including The Gary Coleman Show, The Kwicky Koala Show, and Scooby-Doo.
- Jim Simon, who did the art for "B for Bosco taking a bath", "The 2-2 Train", "I Can Remember", and "I'm six years old today!", also worked on several Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the 1980s, including The Little Rascals spinoff and Pac-Man, in which he worked as a layout artist (and an animator in the latter), and Smurfs, in which he was an animator. He also worked on Shirt Tales.
- Muppet performer Jerry Nelson, known for lending his voice to Count Von Count, Herbert Birdsfoot and Herry Monster, had a voice role in at least one episode of the live-action series Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince. Nelson may be the only Muppet voice actor to be involved with Hanna-Barbera.
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