Programs/Content

The doctors are in as Sesame Workshop tackles effects of mass incarceration

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Two doctors who focus on the relationship between incarceration and public health have teamed up with a Sesame Street Muppet to call attention to the issue. Prompted by Sesame Workshop’s “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration” initiative, the video released in October features two experts on prison health, the creator of the Sesame Workshop initiative and Alex, a Muppet with electric blue hair and an incarcerated father. The video followed the publication of “Sesame Street Goes to Jail: Physicians Should Follow,” an article in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Drs. Dora Dumont, Scott Allen and Jody Rich called for physicians to pay more attention to mass incarceration and took note of Sesame Street’s involvement.

Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: Ruiz gets Sundance fellowship, new Muppet helps kids stay clean

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• Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz (The Graduates/Los Graduados, Reportero) has received the Time Warner Fellowship from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to work on his latest doc, Recolectores (The Gatherers). As a fellow, Ruiz will get services from the institute including mentoring, grant assistance and attendance at its famous film festival. Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) also got a production/post-production grant in this round of Sundance awards, which went to 35 filmmakers out of 750 applications from 93 countries. • Sesame Workshop is participating in this week’s annual Reinvent The Toilet Fair: India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event that showcases the latest in modern hygiene for developing nations. Making her debut at the fair is new Muppet Raya, who always wears her sandals to the latrine and washes her hands with soap.

Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: Flappy Bert takes to the air, WAMU host skis to work

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• Less than a week after the maker of the wildly popular mobile game Flappy Bird announced he would pull the plug on his creation, Sesame Workshop has introduced the browser game Flappy Bert. The gameplay, where players control a bird as it navigates Sesame Street’s Bert among obstacles, draws heavily on the original. It’s one of several Flappy Bird clones on the market but the only one starring Bert in an 8-bit sheen. • Today marks the premiere of a series of web video specials co-produced by PBS NewsHour and Al-Monitor, a news site featuring reporting and analysis by journalists and experts from the Middle East. The first, posting at 7 p.m. Eastern time, focuses on Syria.