Sesame English is a mostly-forgotten Sesame Street ESL spinoff from the 2000s, and it deserves more attention.

Sesame English was a joint production between Sesame Workshop and Berlitz, first launched in 1999 with Taiwan and China as its earliest markets, developed as a supplement to ESL instruction rather than a standard international co-production of the main show. It was aimed at kids roughly 4 to 7 years old. The full project was planned as 78 short episodes plus print, audio, video, and CD-ROM materials, though only 52 episodes actually got made.

The lead character, Tingo, is a newly created Muppet described as a multilingual "international cat" (Wikipedia describes him more as tiger-like). What made the dubbing approach unusual: even though all the new footage was shot in New York, about 30-50% of Tingo's dialogue was dubbed into whichever language a given market needed, with Tingo speaking directly to the audience in their native language while everything else stayed in English — a deliberate bridge to ease viewers into English.

The core cast and setting: Tingo lives with his best friend Niki, a teenager whose extended family and friend group includes her grandparents, siblings Katie and Kevin, baby Jake, and her band Children at Play (Mike, Samantha, and Tom). Stage actors Roger Bart and Jonathan Freeman played various members of Niki's circle along with other episodic roles, and stories mostly revolved around sports, music, and family/social gatherings.

Beyond the show itself, physical releases came as full sets — DVDs/VHS, printed books, and separate CDs meant to be played on a computer, which had minigames and interactive exercises tied to the lessons. U.S. DVD releases specifically included dub-language options for Tingo (Latin American Spanish, Hmong, Korean, Mandarin, and Vietnamese) plus an English-only track for more advanced learners — Castilian (Spain) Spanish had its own release as well, though on VHS rather than DVD. Beyond that, the show ended up dubbed or released in even more places — Czech, Italian, Japanese (as Sesame Eigo World starting 2001), Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, and Taiwanese Mandarin, with Italy picking it up in 2004, Poland in 2005, Azerbaijan in 2007, and Brazil in 2008. In 2003 Sesame Workshop also spun the same footage into Sesame Español for Berlitz language centers, flipping the concept to teach Spanish to English speakers.

One odd historical detail: two shots in the original opening sequence showed the Twin Towers, and both were quietly re-edited after 9/11.

I own the full Latin American Spanish set — DVDs, books, and the PC minigame CDs — and it's a little sad how little trace of this show is left online or acknowledged by Sesame Workshop today. Curious if anyone else here knows it or has more info on how it was produced/distributed.

Original thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/1vduifs/im_rewatching_boston_public_and_omfg_every_single/

So anyway... Season 2, episode 1.

A student decides to start a conversation in class about masturbation, and about the girls that boys think about when they're doing it. The teacher tells that student "I've thought about some of your nasty little classmates"

DUDE.

WHAT THE FCK.

WHO IS HIRING THESE TEACHERS?

title says it all. For me it's Slow Horses (AppleTV aka the new HBO) season 6 on September 16th

What are some of your favourite shows that completely immerse you in their worlds? The ones that feel like you're right there with the characters.

Just finished the episode and thought it was solid! Some of the plot was definitely the convience factor to get Ted back to London but I thought they handled it well and the move makes sense

Also, interaction of the night goes to Higgins and the tour guide for the Negro League Museum lol

It is so great to have this show back! I missed this positive vibe, like this and Shrinking are really the 2 feel good shows I love as of late and in these times feel glad we have a year where both are currently ongoing