Joan Ganz Cooney

Joan Ganz Cooney began to look at childrens' television under the auspices of the Carnegie Institute. She found herself appalled by the lack of worthwhile programming. Her study led directly to the formation of the Childrens' Television Workshop and the production of Sesame Street. She first met Jim Henson at a seminar about the show.
"This was during the period of the Weathermen. There had been bombings and so on, and we knew there were some people who didn't like what we were doing. I was sitting up front with some CTW people, and this man came in, dressed in what appeared to be hippie clothes with a hippie beard....He walked into the back of the room and sat there, ramrod straight, just staring ahead, rows and rows from the rest of us. I whispered to Dave Connell, 'How do we know that man isn't going to kill us?'
"'It isn't very likely,' Don said. 'That's Jim Henson.'"

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