“Sesame Street” starts new season on HBO in January

When “Sesame Street” debuts early next year on HBO, it won’t just be behind a paywall for the first time. The HBO version of S-Street will also feature a new theme song. HBO plans to produce 35 episodes a season, almost twice what was produced on PBS.

Back in August, we found out that first-run episodes of Sesame Street, the long-running children’s series about fuzzy and playful puppets teaching kids to read and share, would be moving from its free home on PBS to HBO, a premium network generally associated with dragons and mobsters and wine and nudity.

“Families will see fun and fresh changes to Sesame Street and can depend on their favorite Muppet friends to provide them with engaging and educational content”, Brown Johnson, executive VP and creative director, Sesame Workshop, said.

In the new season, Big Bird has a new nest, Cookie Monster has moved above Hooper’s Store, and Elmo has moved into the 123 Sesame Street brownstone house. “We’re excited to bring the timeless lessons of Sesame Street to HBO viewers, like learning numbers from The Count, inner strength from Elmo and kindness from Abby”. Spanish-dubbed new episodes will simultaneously air on HBO Latino. The deal means that new episodes won’t air on PBS until next fall.

The first episode will debut January 16, 2016 at 9:00 a.m. ET – and it sounds like it’ll be a must-watch!!

A number of celebrities are scheduled to appear in the new season, including: Gwen Stefani, Pharrell, Nick Jonas, Alan Cumming, Ne-Yo, Tracee Ellis Ross and Gina Rodriguez.