PARTY ANIMALS

Spotlight

The thing about Sesame Street is that it was cool. Sure, it was worthy; before Joan Ganz Cooney and her colleagues at Children's Television Workshop no one had ever designed a program to prepare four-year-olds for kindergarten. But Sesame Street was hip.

Your toddler would be listening to "The Alphabet Song" and you'd realize that that dude singing "A-B-C-D-EF-G" was Ray Charles. (You haven't lived until you've heard the incomparable tenderness he brings to Y and Z.) When Ernie wanted to play the saxophone while holding his rubber duckie, Madeline Kahn appeared, solemnly warbling, "Put down the duckie!"

Blink your eyes and there was a chorus from Ladysmith Black Mambazo, or Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman jitterbugging, or Jeremy Irons doing a lighter-than-air soft-shoe. Any retrospective of Barbara Walters' career should highlight her delivery of "Put down the duckie!"

When Grover sang about the "monster in the mirror," Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, and Jeff Goldblum popped out of trash cans singing backup. When Elmo explored Hamlet, Mel Gibson commanded, "Get thee to a library, Elmo." In a segment on "happy feet" and "sad feet," the big yellow sneakers belonged to Jim Carrey.

Several generations of little ones have learned their numbers and letters as their parents watched Savion Glover tap-dance and James Taylor croon "Jelly man Kelly." So for 30 years of unexpected delights, we say, Happy birthday, Sesame Street.

LESLIE BENNETTS

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