Elmo's World
Debut: January 01, 1998
Ended: January 01, 2017

a five minute-long segment shown at the end of the American children's television program Sesame Street. It premiered on November 16, 1998, as part of the show's structural change and originally ran fifteen minutes at the end of each episode until 2009. It was designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment is presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, performed by Kevin Clash in the original series and Ryan Dillon in the 2017 reboot.The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied the changes in the viewing habits of their audience, and the reasons for the show's lower ratings. Elmo's World used traditional elements of production, but had a more sustained narrative. In 2002, Sesame Street's producers changed the rest of the show to reflect its younger demographic and the increase in their viewers' sophistication. Long-time writer Judy Freudberg came up with the concept of Elmo's World, and writer Tony Geiss and executive producer Arlene Sherman helped develop it. Instead of the realism of the rest of the show, the segment presented Elmo moving between and combining two worlds of live action and computer-generated animation, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life" created by the host, and with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it". Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy and the members of the Noodle family were silent in order to allow Elmo to do all the talking, and to give children the opportunity to respond to what they saw on the screen. In 2009, Elmo's World temporarily ceased production and was replaced by "Elmo the Musical" in 2012, until returning in 2017.By the early 1990s, Sesame Street had been on the air for over 20 years and was, as author Michael Davis put it, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of preschool television". The show's dominance began to be challenged throughout the decade.

Intros
Credits
Posters
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