Sesame Street Episode Shooting

[BigBirdABCDEFGH]

Is it true that each Sesame Street episode is usually taped one month prior to its intended air date? Some episodes were actually taped only one day before it was scheduled to air.

If anyone could give me the exact answer as to episode shooting durations, please reply.

~Ben

 

[D'Snowth]

Maybe in the old days, but nowadays, they actually tape/film/shoot episodes close to a whole year before it finally airs.

Caroll Spinney said in an interview once that they used to be able to tape two whole episodes in a single day: one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, but now it takes much longer because they have a lot more special effects to work into the show among other things that takes them longer to complete a full episode.

I really can't imagine any TV show taping or filming an episode only one day in advance before it goes on the air, I'm pretty sure they have regulations that tell you how much time you have to finish it before it can air... I DO know that in most cases, you have to have a minimum of three full episodes completed before a new season of a show can begin airing, but that's probably for regular network shows that film new episodes during the summer when all TV is mostly reruns of the previous seasons.

 

[FrackleFan2012]

Did you know which ones were filmed one day before their airdate, BigBirdABCDEFGHI?

 

[BigBirdABCDEFGH]

Did you know which ones were filmed one day before their airdate, BigBirdABCDEFGHI?

I can't think of any off-hand right now. Still waiting...

 

[dwmckim]

Don't have specific episode dates but yeah, in the early days this wouldn't have been uncommon. Remember in the goldie oldie days, they were doing 130 episodes a year - that's one new episode every weekday for six months! That's basically the same as a soap opera shooting schedule and even today some still shoot scenes a week before air due to how far they get behind schedule or if rewrites, recasts, mishaps occur.

But in the 70's, it seems a lot of television was really done under the wire in regards to when post production on an episode or special finished and when it aired on tv. Jim's Red Book has some interesting examples of things wrapping so close to its air date. More recently i know there were some episodes of Farscape were post was really scrambling to get the completed episode ready for broadcast.