Wednesday, January 28, 2009

New Sesame Street TV Special Deals with Change

Queen Latifah, John Mayer, and Elmo are teaming up for a new prime-time special entitled "Coming Home: Military Families Cope with Change." The new half-hour special is scheduled to air on April 1, 2009 on PBS - check your local listings for details. The program will tell the stories of U.S. service members who return home with injuries, both visible and invisible, and explores the struggles that their families face.

Back in 2006 Sesame Workshop produced a special video designed to help military families cope with the strains of deployment; the resource video was followed-up with a television special (hosted by Cuba Gooding Jr.) entitled "When Parents are Deployed" which also aired in prime-time on PBS. Last year Sesame Workshop released a set of follow-up videos to give support to families that now have to deal with the reality of homecomings and changes associated with military service. This upcoming PBS special, "Coming Home", will be hosted by Latifah and Mayer and will take a look at the issues associated with parental homecomings and changes while also including sincere and touching moments with the Muppets of Sesame Street.

Sesame Workshop is producing this new special for PBS in association with David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants Inc. and Lookalike Productions. For more information on the "Talk, Listen, Connect" initiative, and to view the "Deployments, Homecomings, Changes" resource videos, be sure to visit the initiative's official website at SesameWorkshop.org. I will keep you updated as more information on this, and other Sesame Street outreach initiatives, continue to surface.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This is an excellent and thoughtful use of the media. Keep making a difference!!

frogboy4 said...

What a great project! Letterman's company is working on it too? Wow. I always wondered why he didn't do anything with the Muppets. Homecoming is an often overlooked part of military life. Sesame Workshop has shown another great effort with this.

RetiredSailor said...

As a retired military citizen, I just want to say what a great idea it is to honor those who have served upon their homecoming. We all want to give praise when they are deployed, fighting the battle, ensuring our freedom, but they are often forgotten about once the battle ends and they come home to resume a "normal life" ~ after you've been on the front lines, nothing is "normal" any more so whomever conjured up this wonderful idea to bring a little light and laughter to these women and men ~ GREAT JOB!!!