Cookie Monster to Star in Food Truck Segment
The beloved monster will teach kids where food comes from.
Image: Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images
Cookie Monster likes cookies! And now he’s into the farm-to-table movement, too.
On November 11th, Sesame Street returns to HBO, and so too does the world’s most beloved furry blue gourmand. This season—the show’s 48th—Cookie Monster is getting his very own segment in which he and his new pal Gonger will travel around in their food truck, teaching kids where their food comes from.
The premise of the 5-minute segment, called “Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck,” is as follows: Cookie Monster gets an order in his food truck from a hungry kid. In order to make the requested food, though, he needs excellent products! So the pair travels around, visiting “farmers and artisans” in order to get the key ingredients and learn about the origins of their food. According to a press release, sources include “a cranberry bog, a pasta factory, an avocado farm, and more.”
“The video field trips to farms and factories are reminiscent of classic Sesame Street, and Cookie Monster [...] is the original food fanatic,” said Brown Johnson, the EVP and Creative Director at Sesame Workshop. “Who better to teach kids how food gets to their plates, putting a Sesame spin on the food truck culture that’s unfolding in communities across the country?”
This season of Sesame Street will be centered around themes of “mutual respect and understanding,” according to the press release, and aims to help kids “recognize similarities and celebrate differences – particularly around race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class.”
Fans of the show were critical after it was announced in 2015 that the show would be moving from the publicly-funded broadcaster PBS to the subscription cable network HBO. The airing of the hour-long primetime special, “The Magical Wand Chase,” on November 11th marks the beginning of HBO’s second season of Sesame Street. After a nine-month period of exclusivity for HBO, new episodes will be available to PBS and its member stations for no cost.
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