Sesame Street co-creator Lloyd Morrisett has died at the age of 93. Morrisett’s death was announced on social media by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit he co-founded under the name Children’s Television Workshop. Sesame Workshop tweeted, “Sesame Workshop mourns the passing of our esteemed and beloved co-founder Lloyd N. Morrisett, Ph.D., who died at the age of 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.” Morisett’s death comes just eight weeks after that of Sesame Street veteran actor Bob McGrath and less than one year after that of actor Emilio Delgado who played Luis.
Sesame Workshop mourns the passing of our esteemed and beloved co-founder Lloyd N. Morrisett, PhD, who died at the age of 93. pic.twitter.com/I9cSez95Px
— Sesame Workshop (@SesameWorkshop) January 23, 2023
Lloyd Morrisett: C0-Creator of ‘Sesame Street’
Lloyd Morrisett was born on November 2, 1929, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family moved to New York City in 1933. He studied experimental psychology at Oberlin University, continued his studies at UCLA grad school, and earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1953. According to The A.V. Club, he noticed something interesting on a December morning in 1965 while his daughter was watching cartoons. Before the cartoons started, she was watching and engaging with the test patterns. “What is a child doing watching the station identification signal? What does this mean?” he reflected in Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. Understanding from his studies that children who had early education before entering school did better in their early school years, Morrisett went on to create the quintessential early learning kids show.
In 1968, Morrisett and Joan Ganz Cooney founded the Children’s Television Workshop using the newly established National Educational Television, later renamed Public Broadcasting Service or PBS, and numerous grants. From there, Morrisett and Cooney co-created Sesame Street, which premiered in November of 1969. Along with being co-creator, Morrisett wrote 56 episodes of Sesame Street from 1969 to 2010. His legacy included the show, books, video games, a Broadway musical, and more.
Cooney said of her fellow Sesame Street creator, “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.”
