The kids on Sesame Street: Where are they now?

[dogteacher]

Oops, sorry--I didn't know there was already a thread about this (my post got moved here). Like I said, I'm a newbie!

 

[JLG]

Since we know where Jon-Jon ended up (at least as of 1998---a San Antonio accountant and a veteran of the Air Force), I thought I'd mention two others I know of---

Shola (not Charla, as someone thought her name was earlier)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MGC7gPYoY6E

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2w-OYoKzMY8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9FHFUPkaqnA

Shola--or as I like to call her, "The Mad Frog Strangler" ---is Shola Lynch, who became a track star in high school and is now a filmaker. Her most significant project to date has been the documentary "Grisolm '72". Just Google "Shola Lynch" and you'll find a few articles about the film. A couple even have pictures of her now.


Tatiana Ali
The future "Fresh Prince" kid and singer was a regular on Sesame Street, as well as other Henson projects like the Play-Along Video series, in the late '80s. A great clip with her can be found on YouTube--the real star of the moment however is Herbie Hancock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn1LW3wyRrc



There was an argument on YouTube concerning the little light-skinned black girl who can be seen in some of the early intro sequences crying about something. (The intro scenes that were shot in 1972 and used for the next 18 years or so). One guy was insisting that that girl was his fiance, but then a woman poster chimed in and insisted that it was her. The guy said his fiance had always known her whole life that she was that girl, but the woman was unimpressed, adding that she knew it was herself, and that she knew exactly where in New York that playground had been. It's weird how there can actually be arguments like that. One of them's wrong, obviously, which would probably mean that one of those women's parents fed them tall tales.

And here's three kids I have no idea what happened to, but are great entertainment:

Brian, a real sharpster who struggles valiently to express his understanding of grammatical logic http://youtube.com/watch?v=2-pfqF3MJ3g

Chelsea, while being so cute it's almost ridiculous, nonetheless behaves like a kindly patronizing parent
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CVGKET-FzGA

Eric, who would win first prize in a giggling contest.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tDY9YUHr7X4&mode=related&search=



A lot of the kids who hung around on the set, however, always struck me as looking like they really wished they were somewhere else. They just seemed completely disinterested and apathetic. (The complete, polar opposite of the kids on, say, Barney ) I always wondered why they had even been taken there. If the kids aren't interested, why'd their parents take them to the set?

 

[ISNorden]

A lot of the kids who hung around on the set, however, always struck me as looking like they really wished they were somewhere else. They just seemed completely disinterested and apathetic. (The complete, polar opposite of the kids on, say, Barney ) I always wondered why they had even been taken there. If the kids aren't interested, why'd their parents take them to the set?

I suspect the parents just wanted to brag about their kids being on Sesame Street (at the very least; I've heard of parents trying to push their kids into becoming child actors, too).

 

[mikebennidict]

Since we know where Jon-Jon ended up (at least as of 1998---a San Antonio accountant and a veteran of the Air Force), I thought I'd mention two others I know of---

Shola (not Charla, as someone thought her name was earlier)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MGC7gPYoY6E

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2w-OYoKzMY8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9FHFUPkaqnA

Shola--or as I like to call her, "The Mad Frog Strangler" ---is Shola Lynch, who became a track star in high school and is now a filmaker. Her most significant project to date has been the documentary "Grisolm '72". Just Google "Shola Lynch" and you'll find a few articles about the film. A couple even have pictures of her now.


Tatiana Ali
The future "Fresh Prince" kid and singer was a regular on Sesame Street, as well as other Henson projects like the Play-Along Video series, in the late '80s. A great clip with her can be found on YouTube--the real star of the moment however is Herbie Hancock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn1LW3wyRrc



There was an argument on YouTube concerning the little light-skinned black girl who can be seen in some of the early intro sequences crying about something. (The intro scenes that were shot in 1972 and used for the next 18 years or so). One guy was insisting that that girl was his fiance, but then a woman poster chimed in and insisted that it was her. The guy said his fiance had always known her whole life that she was that girl, but the woman was unimpressed, adding that she knew it was herself, and that she knew exactly where in New York that playground had been. It's weird how there can actually be arguments like that. One of them's wrong, obviously, which would probably mean that one of those women's parents fed them tall tales.

And here's three kids I have no idea what happened to, but are great entertainment:

Brian, a real sharpster who struggles valiently to express his understanding of grammatical logic http://youtube.com/watch?v=2-pfqF3MJ3g

Chelsea, while being so cute it's almost ridiculous, nonetheless behaves like a kindly patronizing parent
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CVGKET-FzGA

Eric, who would win first prize in a giggling contest.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tDY9YUHr7X4&mode=related&search=



A lot of the kids who hung around on the set, however, always struck me as looking like they really wished they were somewhere else. They just seemed completely disinterested and apathetic. (The complete, polar opposite of the kids on, say, Barney ) I always wondered why they had even been taken there. If the kids aren't interested, why'd their parents take them to the set?

I don't know about that.

 

[CensoredAlso]

The kids on Barney generally do over-the-top acting, and are in some cases older than the kids on Sesame Street. With Sesame Street, it always looked more like the adults and puppets were just ad libbing with the kids, who were just being themselves in the scene, not trying to act.

Plus, it does take a long time to shoot a TV show; adults can get bored, nevermind the kids! Hehe.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

All man! Thanks so much for the clips! Man! That beat Herbie Hancock was playing at the end was so awesome. I know people are going to throw things at me, but I wish that that could have been the actually theme song.

But I know what you mean! I've notices the kids acting uninterested and like they just don't want to be there. It's like the adults are having more fun then they are, LOL!

Oh! Here's the interview featuring Shola Lynch! I've been looking for it forever!

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200502/20050204.html

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Yeah! That would be really great!

 

[JLG]

It would be interesting to see some of them on our site here

Didn't one come around here once? Looking for someone to get old episodes from? I don't remember the name of the thread, or what specific things the kid had been in, but I'm pretty sure that happened.


Also, on YouTube, someone posted a brief video of the Count counting bubbles blown by a little boy, whom the poster says was himself. (you have to turn up the sound REALLY loud for this one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y82OZmlypIQ

 

[JLG]

By the way, I goofed. Shola Lynch's documentary is named Chisolm '72, not "Grisholm '72."

I suppose the fact that I got this person's name wrong is a case in point of why Ms. Lynch felt compelled to make a film about her in the first place....

By the way check this out:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=20NnQLpgFko

Her high school track days. She would have given the Flash a run for his money.

 

[JLG]

Stumbled on another prominent kid----the incomparable Lexine.
Here she is with a "friend".
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kYf8Lo9MjPA

Some of you might not know her since she was from the mid-90s, but I remember she was around quite a bit. My strongest memories of her are her skits with Cookie Monster, though I can't remember what they were talking about. It's always stuck in my head how Cookie (via Mr. Oz) would pronounce "Lexine".


And that reminds me of another mid-90s kid, Tara. Anybody know her? She had short hair, glasses, and was in a wheelchair. She would usually show up in street stories, and as I recall she was a good friend of Big Bird's. I remember thinking at some point in the late '90s (pre Elmo's World) that she seemed to have been around for a long time without changing very much, just like Imani Patterson as Miles.

(Anybody know what I mean about him? He played Miles for a quite a while, but it seemed to me that he was barely changing all that time. I remember thinking it seemed odd. I might be wrong, but I think he left the show before puberty really started to kick in [must have been a late bloomer], and the kid who replaced him was much more mature.)