Judy Freudberg, Who Wrote for "Sesame Street," Dies at 62 Judy Freudberg, who entertained millions of children as a writer for Elmo, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and other residents of "Sesame Street" for 35 years and shared more than 15 daytime Emmys, died on Sunday in Manhattan. She was 62. The cause was complications of brain cancer, her sister Joan Leibovitz said. Ms. Freudberg started working on "Sesame Street" in 1971, two years after the show's debut, as an assistant in the music department. She became a writer in 1975. In an interview on Thursday, Lou Berger, a former head writer at "Sesame Street," described Ms. Freudberg as the show's "moral barometer"; if she thought something was not right for the show, he said, she would say so without hesitation. Ms. Freudberg was the first to propose a daily segment centered on the sweet-natured red Muppet monster Elmo, Mr. Berger said. The segment, which was developed with other writers, became "Elmo's World," with a kind of stream-of-consciousness format based on Elmo's musings. Combining animation, live actors and Muppets - Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy, and the bumbling Noodle family were co-stars - the segment, starting in the late 1990s, was designed to keep restless toddlers watching. "We were the only hourlong program on," Ms. Freudberg once said in an interview. "Children's television was almost all 30-minute shows, and that's when we came up with "Elmo's World," to go in the last part of the show, to win back their attention. Ms. Freudberg eventually became the head writer for "Elmo's World." She and Tony Geiss, who died last year, wrote two animated films directed by Don Bluth and produced by Steven Spielberg, "The Land Before Time" and "An American Tail." They also co-wrote "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird," the first feature-length "Sesame Street" film. Judith Freudberg was born on July 12, 1949, in Memphis. She graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in communications before starting her career with "Sesame Street." She had homes in Manhattan and Middletown, N.Y. In addition to Ms. Leibovitz, Ms. Freudberg is survived by another sister, Jean Ballin, and a brother, Lee. She wrote for "Sesame Street," produced by the Children's Television Workshop, now called Sesame Workshop, until she retired in 2010. Collaborating with Mr. Geiss, Mr. Berger and Belinda Ward, Ms. Freudberg had finished a pilot script for a live-action comedy, tentatively titled "Woof!," shortly before she died.