"Sesame Street," that institution of good-for-you children's television, will be in Detroit for three days in June to film a segment for the show's 50th anniversary, as part of a national tour.
Watch where you step, Elmo. Some people don't clean up after their dogs. (Photo: U.S. Air Force)
For three days in June, Sesame Workshop will host a free family festival and stage show at Lafayette Park, visit local landmarks around the area and film a segment for the actual show. The free festival and “Sesame Street” stage show will take place June 22 in Downtown Detroit.
“'Sesame Street’s’ visit to Detroit reminds us that 50 years later, Sesame is still making a tremendous difference in the lives of children here in Detroit and across the world,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a news release from the group.
The show’s three days in Michigan will include a nostalgia-induced social media campaign, “a signature research report,” and the launch of a new local version of “Sesame Street” for “displaced Syrian families and their new neighbors in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.”
All well and good, and the weather in June is about as predictably fine as weather can be in the Motor City, so no one will have to rewrite the theme song:
Crummy day! Ugly sky's charcoal gray!
Also, this being "Sesame Street," which has never shrunk from tackling tough topics, we wonder if it'll all be Motown Museum and Campus Martius in the local-landmarks tour, or if crews and the Muppets will venture farther from the thriving city center to do segments on Oscar's overflowing dumpster, or maybe something on how Bert discovers blight. Unlikely.
Whatever happens, we hope if nothing else we get a few Muppet photo ops with Duggan and Martha Reeves.
