Obituary Lloyd Morrisett

1940 — 2024

SESAME Street co-creator Lloyd Morrisett passed away in January, according to Sesame Workshop . He was 93 years old.

”A Lifetime Honorary Trustee, Lloyd leaves an outsized and indelible legacy among generations of children the world over, with Sesame Street only the most visible tribute to a lifetime of good work and lasting impact,” Sesame Workshop (originally known as the Children’s Television Workshop) wrote of one of its founders.

Morrisett co-founded the Children’s Television Workshop with his close friend and fellow Sesame

Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney in 1968, where he continued to serve as chairman of the workshop board until 2000.

He remained a board member until he died.

Prompted in part by the Civil Rights Movement and the war on poverty, the duo set out to create a TV series that would give disadvantaged children a chance to prepare for school.

Thus, they created Sesame Street in 1969. After famously spawning the hit children’s series, the Children’s Television Workshop was later renamed as Sesame Workshop.

Without Lloyd Morrisett, there would be no Sesame Street. It was he who first came up with the notion of using television to teach preschoolers basic skills, such as letters and numbers. He was a trusted partner and loyal friend to me for over 50 years, and he will be sorely missed,” said Ganz Cooney of his passing.”

In co-creating Sesame Street and other Children’s Television Workshop programing, Lloyd Morrisett not only gave start to some of the world’s most beloved — and most Emmy-awarded — television programs; he and Joan Ganz Cooney defined the gold standard for a whole genre of television,” said Adam Sharp, president and CEO of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), in a statement.

Sharp continued: “Today, the original ‘Sesame Street’ audience can share the delight of his creation with their own grandkids, who will undoubtedly share the experience with yet more generations as his impact long endures.

“Our Academy mourns his passing and knows that the love and warmth so ever-present in all his work is today being reflected back to his family by the millions of viewers whose lives he enriched.”