Home › CAUSE OF DEATH: Sesame Street' co-creator Lloyd Morrisett has sadly passed away at age 93.
CAUSE OF DEATH: Sesame Street' co-creator Lloyd Morrisett has sadly passed away at age 93.
Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Sesame Street' co-creator Lloyd Morrisett has sadly passed away at age 93.
"A Lifetime Honorary Trustee, Lloyd leaves an outsized and indelible legacy among generations of children the world over, with 'Sesame Street' only the most visible tribute to a lifetime of good work and lasting impact," Sesame Workshop (originally known as the Children's Television Workshop) wrote of one of its founders.
Morrisett co-founded the Children's Television Workshop with his close friend and fellow "Sesame Street" creator Joan Ganz Cooney in 1968, where he continued to serve as chairman of the workshop board until 2000. He remained a board member until he died.
Prompted in part by the Civil Rights Movement and the war on poverty, the duo set out to create a TV series that would give disadvantaged children a chance to prepare for school. Thus, they created "Sesame Street" in 1969. After famously spawning the hit children's series, the Children's Television Workshop was later renamed as Sesame Workshop.
"Without Lloyd Morrisett, there would be no 'Sesame Street.' It was he who first came up with the notion of using television to teach preschoolers basic skills, such as letters and numbers. He was a trusted partner and loyal friend to me for over fifty years, and he will be sorely missed," said Ganz Cooney of his passing.
Additionally, Morrisett also served as president of The John and Mary R. Markle Foundation from 1969 to 1998, during which time he launched the foundation's program in communications and information technology. Prior to joining the Markle Foundation, he served as vice president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
After a brief stint in academia which Morrisett found uninteresting for being overly serious, he winded up at the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic organization with education as its focal point, which later became the vehicle that helped finance his causes at Children's Television Workshop. A year after establishing the company, Morrisett who had now risen the ranks to become the VP at Carnegie Corporation was seeking ways to facilitate accessibility to early education for children in need when he came up with the idea for Sesame Street. The idea was born after he noticed how his toddler was deeply engrossed in watching TV, prompting him to wonder if the TV set could serve as a medium for child learning. He shared the idea over dinner with his friend Joan Ganz Cooney and the rest is history.
Sesame Street premiered on PBS in 1969 as a first-of-its-kind kid's learning program and received positive reception. The show utilized live-action and puppetry to educate kids, incorporating humor and cultural references. A true pioneer of kids learning, Sesame Street evolved through the years while gaining a growing influence that spilled into pop culture. The show deserves many commendations for remaining relevant despite the emergence of many other similar learning programs. Sesame Street began airing on HBO in 2016 before moving to the streaming platform HBO Max.