Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 20, 2016
Sesame Street's format includes skits featuring Jim Henson's Muppets as well as animation and short films to help its preschool audience prepare for school. The American children's television program uses music, humor, and sustained action to capture young viewers' attention. Premiering in 1969, it was the first television show to base its contents and production values on laboratory and scientific research, and the first to base its curriculum on what its researchers termed "measurable outcomes". It was also the first to use an authentic inner-city street and neighborhood setting for a children's program. The producers switched in 1998 from a magazine-based structure to a more narrative format after the show's ratings dominance was challenged by programs such as Barney and Friends and Blue's Clues. The popular fifteen-minute segment "Elmo's World", hosted by the Muppet Elmo, was added the same year to make the show more accessible to a younger audience. The new format was expanded to the entire show in 2002. (Full article...)