Big Bird was the biggest star, I mean, children's favorite for a number of years. I have a 22-year-old granddaughter whose first words were 'Big Bird.'

I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries - on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn't think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them.

In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'

There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when 'Jolene' was a big hit.

There are so many unbelievable words... But that doesn't mean I have a favorite word.