Sesame Street Backpedals hard on Firings
Cast members possibly not leaving, sort of. Maybe.
Sesame Street ma be a beloved, prestigious children’s program, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not subject to the same sort of politics that run any other production. Having Sesame Street move over to HBO for a time helped ensure its future, but that also meant that things had to change. After all, HBO wants to make a profit here as well.
When news broke that HBO would be firing three more human Sesame Street cast members, it was a big deal. It brought some negative attention to both Sesame Street and HBO, even if it was done to better cater towards modern children. The three cast members in questions, Bob McGrath, Emilo Delgado, and Roscoe Orman, had been on the show for decades.
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Now, apparently, things have changed, though Sesame Street would prefer you think of the whole thing as just one big misunderstanding. The CEO of Sesame Street Workshop, Jeff Dunn, took to Facebook to clear up some of the confusion. In the statement, Dunn apologizes for the misunderstanding and clarifies what Sesame Street Workshop’s goal is.
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Basically, the cast members are not technically fired. They won’t, however, be appearing on Sesame Street anywhere near as frequently as they used to. Part of that is due to the show’s shorter runtime, and also the aforementioned adaptation to appeal to modern children. Apparently little kids nowadays don’t care much for humans mingling with monsters.
The official word is that they’re not fired, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be returning to Sesame Street anytime soon. So not much has actually changed. It would appear that HBO wasn’t too interested in jumping in here, as it does make more sense for the news to come directly from Sesame Street.
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Dunn also states that they should have communicated more directly with the cast members before this all blew up and it’s tough to disagree with him. That probably would have been good.