Lloyd Morrisett, longtime Irvington resident and co-creator of “Sesame Street, dead at 93

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Sesame Street co-creator Lloyd Morrisett with friend

January 27, 2023

By Barrett Seaman–

Lloyd Morrisett, formerly of Irvington, best known as the co-creator of “Sesame Street,” passed away at age 93 at his current home in San Diego CA. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Mary Pierre Morrisett, who presided over the board of the Irvington Public Library during its transition from Village Hall to the Burnham Building. They also have two daughters who attended Irvington schools, Sarah Morrisett Otley of Farmington, Maine, and Julie Morrisett of Oakland, California, and two grandchildren.

The germ of “Sesame Street” was planted in Morrisett’s mind in the 1960s when he found his daughter Sarah one Sunday morning, staring at the test pattern on the family television set. Fascinated, Morrisett, who held a PhD in experimental psychology from Yale, shared the story with Joan Ganz Cooney, a New York public television producer, wondering whether television could be used as a teaching tool.

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Together, Morrisett and Cooney created the Children’s Television Workshop, brought in puppeteer Jim Henson and his Muppet characters and launched the show on November 10, 1969. According to IMDb.com, an entertainment web site, the show reached more than half the country’s pre-school children in its first year alone, won six Primetime Emmy awards and spun off a second popular children’s show, “The Electric Company.”

“Without Lloyd Morrisett, there would be no ‘Sesame Square’,” Cooney said in a statement. “He was the one who first came up with the idea of using television to teach preschool-age children basic skills, such as letters and numbers.”

Born November 2, 1929 in Oklahoma City, Lloyd Morrisett graduated from Oberlin College, whose Board of Trustees he would chair from 1975 to 1981. After a brief stint as a college professor in Los Angeles, he moved to New York to work at the Social Science Research Council and then the Carnegie Corp., which would become a major funder of the Children’s Television Workshop. So too was the nonprofit John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, which he headed up from 1969 to 1998. He also served on the board of the RAND Corporation for 30 years and chaired its board from 1986 to 1995.

“Lloyd leaves an outsized and indelible legacy among generations of children the world over,” tweeted Sesame Workshop, “with ‘Sesame Street’ only the most visible tribute to a lifetime of good work and lasting impact.”

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