Lesser is also involved in consulting with foreign co-productions of Sesame Street. The first of the co-productions was launched in 1971, when Mexico began a Spanish program which is now shown in 16 Latin American countries.

Since then Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, Russia, China and Spain have all begun their own productions.

Sesame Street cast and crew, including Lesser, Executive Producer Michael Loman and Elmo muppeteer Kevin Clash travel to new sites to help production teams plan out their curriculums.

All of the topics for regional productions are derived from issues of local importance. The American team serves simply as consultants.

Most recently, Lesser has been involved in advising the new Israeli-Palestinian co-production which went on the air less than a month ago.

In the works are both a South African and Egyptian programs, Lesser says.

While Sesame Street is almost universally acclaimed, one persistent criticism has been that it caters to and encourages short attention spans in children.

Chall responds that this has been a criticism from the earliest days of the show, and that it is "a criticism that should be investigated."

She also notes that addressing this critique is complicated by the current distance between Harvard and Sesame Street. Independent researchers are now less involved in the show which makes it harder to objectively evaluate it, she says.

Taking the Street on the Road

"Sesame Street Unpaved" is our way of thanking those of you who have grown up with Sesame Street for being loyal fans," Pam Green, vice president of Children's Television Network, said during the Harvard presentation earlier this month.

Green congratulated the 65 million Sesame Street graduates, over 400 of whom were crammed into the GSE auditorium.

Long greeted the audience of Harvard students by declaring in a proud parental tone, "You guys turned out pretty well."

While there are many imitators of the Sesame Street paradigm, none have yet come close in originality or in the unique ability to appeal to both children and their parents which comes from the exhaustive, painstaking research of many scholars.

"It was quality from the start," Chall says, "People don't realize that scholars and artists had a lot to say. It paid off."