Lucid Waking

Newsflash: The New Kid

All right, I couldn’t resist: I’m going to do news. My parents already know this, but for those of you who don’t, Sesame Street has a new resident. Three-year-old Abby Cadabby moved to Sesame Street from Fairyside, Queens. She’s the first new female character in thirteen years to join the show and has been brought on to honor their thirty-seventh season on television. Her mother is a fairy godmother and she is the show’s first fairy godchild. Yep, a fairy. She also has a magic wand that she likes to use for magic. But the only magic trick she knows is turning things into pumpkins. Because she’s only a fairy-in-training, she can’t turn them back. In an interview for TV Guide, she said, “But you know what, for the fall, what could be better?” Read the rest of the interview here and learn a lot more about Abby.

Abby took nine months of careful planning to create. Every detail from eye shape to color was taken in account to create a character that kids-specifically girls- could relate to. Fairies have never been on the show before and executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente hopes that by adding another species, it “will give the show another way to teach about diversity.” and “by having her be a fairy it allows us to deal with entering new social groups, accepting differences, and having her learn about the differences of the characters on our street.” They also wanted to create a strong role-model for girls, hoping to make her strong and girly but not a girly-girl in the way of a victim. “Creating characters for girls is the ‘challenge of trying to write so that they’re reflective of girls and their character, but also are strong and smart and funny,’ Parente says.” And she’s also a role model for healthy female relationships to girls in the audience. “There’s not a lot out there that models healthy female relationships,” Parente says. “There’s a mean-girl syndrome, so this was a good opportunity to show how girls get along in healthy ways.” Hopefully, with helping kids to deal with differences and new things, she’ll help with the literacy basics Sesame Street is trying to help with. All of her spells have to rhyme in order to work, so girls that want to be Abby, knowing how to rhyme is a must.

But what does she have to offer for the show? While Rosita is teaching kids Spanish, Abby says she’s trying to teach Rosita Dragonfly. “It’s like Morse code, only it’s flap-flap, flutter-flutter-flap…. I’m trying to teach that to Rosita, but she’ll need to make herself some wings first or something,” she says. It’s good for kids to learn a little magic because you only live once. She’s not just there because the producers love puppets, she’s there because they love kids. She’s meant to teach about diversity and teaching kids that it’s ok to have a new kid join your group of friends. Children need these good values because by the time they’re my age, they long since lost them.

Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, voice of Abby Cadabby

Bibliography:

1. NPR
2. Toronto Star
3. TV Guide
4. ABC 7 News
5. Muppet Central <--learn more about Leslie here (but you'll have to scroll down)
   
6. United Press International

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Newsflash, Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.