Street Gang (40 page)

As a producer, Stone was a fair-minded judge of talent. In an age when top production jobs were denied women, Stone evinced gender bias of a different sort. He actively sought ways to hire and promote capable women, sometimes even at the expense of capable men. The product of his enlightened policies provided
Sesame Street
with a seamless succession of top-flight women in the studio and elsewhere behind the scenes in production, many of whom went on to become the architects of the boom in children’s programming at Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and PBS in the 1990s and 2000s.

The grand marshal of this parade of progress was Dulcy Singer, who ultimately rose to become the first female executive producer of
Sesame Street
and a magnificent mentor of her own. “I never found a glass ceiling at the Workshop,” Singer said. “Jon encouraged me, forever told me that I underrated myself. And I was not the only person he did that with. One thing that helped was I certainly was never competitive with him, and I never wanted to top him. I was only too happy to assist him. It’s why we got along so well. Jon instilled it. He hired great people who took pride in their work.”

Singer came to
Sesame Street
at the age of thirty-five, following the series of promotions and transfers that were triggered by the development of
The Electric Company
in 1971. When Dave Connell and Sam Gibbon went off to work on the new show, Stone moved up to executive producer at
Sesame Street,
the position he had backed away from in 1969.

A 1955 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Singer grew up in a theatrical household. Her father, producer Louis J. Singer, introduced Tennessee Williams’s
Glass Menagerie
to New York audiences in 1945, followed by many more Broadway successes produced with his partner, Eddie Dowling.

Singer spent three of her college summers working at the Westport Country Playhouse, the storied red-barn theater in suburban Connecticut. “The first summer I was an apprentice. The second I worked in the box office. The third I was the assistant stage manager.”

Soon after earning her degree in English, Singer applied for work at CBS in Manhattan. Just as Stone’s first job in television was answering
Captain Kangaroo
’s mail, part of Dulcy Singer’s initial responsibilities at CBS was to answer fans of
The Garry Moore Show,
a daytime variety program starring the congenial entertainer and game-show host. “We had these printed cards to send that would include a personal note from Garry . . . that I wrote,” she said. “It would be like, ‘Thanks so much for the nifty argyles.’ I used to go home at night and practice his handwriting.”

Singer said, “I just wanted a job that was fun and paid the rent. I had no ambition back then, and I never for a minute thought I’d even become a producer.”

When the show jumped to a Tuesday night prime-time spot in 1958, she was assigned to coordinate research for
That Wonderful Year,
a long segment that celebrated the highlights of a year in comedy and song. When Moore’s show was canceled in 1964, Singer signed on as a production assistant for the venerable daytime drama
The Secret Storm.

In 1966, a revamped
Garry Moore Show
returned to prime time, and Singer became the host’s personal secretary. “He was a lovely, easy man, and a mentor to many performers who went on to become stars,” she said. “It was through Garry that I got into public television. He wanted to be the host of PBL and asked me to go with him to the studio to be his secretary. Garry didn’t get the job, but the producer later called me to ask if I’d like to work at PBL.” She rose there to the level of associate producer.

When PBL folded after two years, Singer was doing production assistant work when Tom Kennedy gauged Singer’s interest in working for CTW.

“I said
‘Ugh.’
I really wasn’t interested in working on a children’s show,” she recalled, “but when I came back from [a trip to] Europe I spoke with someone at a party about
Sesame Street,
and called Tom to say I was interested.”

What she saw convinced her more than what was said. “During my interview, Dave Connell and Sam Gibbon showed me the pilot, and what appealed to me was that it was essentially a comedy-variety show that children could understand. That, and the fact that it was double-level entertainment, that adults could enjoy it. I saw that it was so much more than a children’s show.”

Connell and Gibbon hired Singer as an assistant to the producer. “It was just a title,” Singer said. “I was a PA in the studio.” But from her very first few days, Stone picked up on her quiet competence and ability to anticipate and ward off problems. Stone later told her that he’d noticed that whenever she was around, “the right props and other things would appear miraculously, even before he would ask for them.”

That began a relationship that lasted for twenty years, with Stone and Singer forging an extraordinary professional bond based on trust and mutual respect.

 

Of all the cutups from the annals of the
Sesame Street
crew, and they are legion, the O’Brien brothers were tops. How many productions could boast that their stage managers had danced on the vaudeville stage with female Siamese twins? Or claimed to have romanced the same woman in a hotel room one night, switching on and off by means of a pass-through? Or who worked with Abbott and Costello, Howard Cosell, a bevy of Miss America titleholders, and Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus?

But more than merely being spinners of show-business tales, Chet and Snooks were among the best backstage pros in show business. Chet,
Sesame
’s longtime stage manager, played a critically important role in the first seasons of the series, when cast and crew were pumping out the live-action elements for two sixty-minute shows every three days. It was Chet who broke down every episode into component parts, arranging them in an order for maximum efficiency and lowest cost.

“I remember the storyboard panels Chet prepared at home,” said Brian Garfield, a nephew. “First, he’d list all the scenes in weeks to come. They were taped out of sequence, as the Muppets were only available for a certain number of days each month. All of their segments had to be taped at once. Guest stars sometimes were scheduled to appear on various shows, all of which had to be taped on the same day. Chet brought home the scripts for an entire arc, which was a season or a significant part of a season. He used them to draw boards showing virtually every shot and setup. He appended lists of all required props and personnel for each one. They were done in various colors. He then figured out the arrangement in which the setups needed to be shot, so as to make the most efficient use of (and to avoid wasting the time of ) everybody concerned. He’d arrive at work amazingly prepared. I have the feeling that his system cut the time and complications by somewhere between fifty and ninety percent before they even started taping.” Jon Stone, who prized efficiency as a director and producer, was well served by O’Brien methods and manner.

“Chet genuinely liked people,” Garfield added. “He had good things to say about nearly everyone, and he was genuinely kind to people. He loved his work and wasn’t ambitious to move up in the world. Quite often, a former subordinate would become his boss. He didn’t step on anyone on the way up. And therefore few people felt they had reason to step on him.”

O’Brien, a patient and encouraging mentor, took a shine to Lisa Simon, a Hunter College night student who by day looked after the children who were brought in to appear on
Sesame Street.
“Chet—and later, Snooks—were incredibly knowledgeable about the craft and skill of putting on a show,” Simon said. “They knew how to run a studio, how to organize, how to treat people. They were just masters at making people feel welcome and involved. They not only knew how to do things the right way, they talked about it and taught you how to do it. The pervading atmosphere was, ‘Stick around. You can watch and then try it.’ ”

Simon, who became a protégée of not only the O’Briens but also Jon Stone and Dulcy Singer, would become one of
Sesame Street
’s first homegrown masters of the craft of kid entertainment, starting at the babysitter bottom and rising to become one of the premiere directors of children’s television.

“It was a remarkable group of people to learn from,” she said.

If laughter is the universal lubricant, the O’Briens provided it by the gallon.

“Sometimes when they appeared onstage they did a routine where Snooks played the piano and Chet danced,” said Garfield.“The routine usually began with Snooks sitting down at the piano and moving his head slowly side to side, while he searched the keyboard.

Eventually Chet said.“What are you doing?”

Snooks replied, “I’ve never played this piano before. I’m searching for middle C.”

 

If Joan Ganz Cooney was queen of CTW’s domain, Chris Cerf was its minister of mirth and high priest of the practical joke. Son of a famous wit and pals with the
National Lampoon
set, Cerf approached a joke the way Michelangelo approached marble.

Cerf’s most memorable stunt was developed over long weeks of painstaking work, all toward the goal of convincing Cooney that her worst corporate nightmare was about to come true.

With coconspirators Frank Oz, Joe Raposo, and Danny Epstein, Cerf planned an elaborate ruse that would supposedly herald the launch of a new product bearing the likeness of Cookie Monster and the
Sesame Street
logo. This would be no book, record, or toy, nothing of educational value, as policy dictated. Rather, this product would represent a striking departure from those dictates.

The forked-tailed boy inside Cerf’s head prompted him to imagine Joan Cooney’s reaction when she was presented with a steaming platter of
Sesame Street
kielbasa, served in her own office by waiters who would arrive with an oompah band dressed in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats with feathers.

The first step in the ruse came after Cerf had Raposo write and record a jingle for the sausage, with Oz chiming in as Cookie Monster. A tape was sent to Cooney’s office. “Somebody played it for me,” she said. “There was the voice of Cookie Monster advertising a kielbasa place out on Long Island. It was definitely a local commercial, and I couldn’t understand how our people got involved in this commercial business. I was going crazy trying to get to the bottom of it. Who were these people out on the Island?”

Cerf paid for custom-designed shrink-wrap labels for some sausages, packaging that had a likeness of everyone’s favorite ravenous Muppet, saying, “It better than cookie!” He arranged for a delivery. “These people sent crates of kielbasa!” Cooney said. “I was so upset.”

To add to the mystery, Cerf had a fake print-ad campaign worked up, complete with mock-ups for billboards. Word of this began to circulate among horrified CTW executives, especially the humorless suits in legal affairs and accounting, Cerf’s favorite targets.

And, finally, it was time for product launch. “Into my office came Joe Raposo leading a five-piece Polish band,” Cooney said. Cerf had also arranged for the completely bogus owner-operator of the Polish Imperial Kielbasa Factory to phone in, just to thank Cooney for the grand opportunity to bring to market a kielbasa that would make kids beg for more.

The legend of the kielbasa caper grows with each passing year. In some versions, Cooney was fooled right up until the last minute, enraged that the imbeciles she hired had failed to protect the
Sesame Street
brand. “She was ripped,” insists oompah drummer Epstein, who arranged for the faux radio commercial recording session. “When she was let in on the joke she said, ‘Get out! I ought to fire every last one of you!’ ”

Another, perhaps more credible version goes like this: Fearing that her boss would succumb to stress, Cooney’s assistant clued her in to the joke on the day of the reveal. “All she said was, ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have a heart attack if you don’t understand this is a joke.’ No one told me any details. I didn’t know that they were going to burst into my office with this band. I just remember that it was the most well-executed, detailed practical joke imaginable,” she said.

Sonia Manzano recalled riding on the Third Avenue elevated train as a child in the 1950s, gazing at the posted advertisements overhead. “I asked my older sister what the ads said, and she encouraged me to figure it out, saying, ‘Why don’t you just try reading it?’ It had never occurred to me that reading is everywhere, that it’s something everyone does. I found that I could read the ads, and I learned how smoking was good for you and how wonderful it was to be in a Maidenform bra.”

Manzano’s laughter spills out from a small office at Sesame Workshop, her creative home for all but five years of her adult life. Clearly, time has been her ally. As she approaches age sixty, her skin is smooth, her body fit, and her vibe joyously youthful. Often in television, an actor’s stage persona is at odds with his or her off-camera personality, at times even diametrically opposed.

But Manzano, the actress, and Maria, the character she has portrayed for so long, are hardly distinguishable. That Manzano grew up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood not unlike the one Charles Rosen had in mind when he designed the
Sesame Street
set suggests that she may have been born to the part.

“The Bronx is where I learned about life,” she said. “My mother was a seamstress and my father was a day laborer who put tar on roofs. They met in this country, having come to New York in the 1940s when the first group of Puerto Rican immigrants came from the island. My mother told me that she used to learn sewing terms phonetically so she could go to work the next day and ask for thread or seam binding or scissors. That’s how she learned English. My parents were poor and in the odd position of being American citizens that didn’t speak the language. They weren’t welcome in the United States, in the mainland, anyway, but they prevailed, like most immigrants.”