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In 1969, James Earl Jones recited the ABCs on 'Sesame Street.' It was hypnotically educational.

The 'James Earl Jones effect' was real.

gerlalt/Canva

James Earl Jones helped "Sesame Street" prove its pedagogical model for teaching kids the alphabet.

James Earl Jones had one of the most recognizable voices in the entertainment industry. Most of us probably heard that deep, resonant voice first as Darth Vader in "Star Wars," or perhaps Mufasa in "The Lion King," but just one or two words are enough to say, "Oh, that's definitely James Earl Jones."

Before his passing in 2024, Jones had been acting on stage and in film since the 1960s. He also has the distinction of being the first celebrity guest to be invited to "Sesame Street" during the show's debut season in 1969.

According to Muppet Wiki, clips of Jones counting to 10 and reciting the alphabet were included in unbroadcast pilot episodes and also included in one of the first official television episodes. Funnily enough, Jones originally didn't think the show would last, as he thought kids would be terrified of the muppets. Clearly, that turned out not to be the case.

Jones' alphabet recitation served as a test for the "Sesame Street" pedagogical model, which was meant to inspire interaction from kids rather than just passive absorption. Though to the untrained eye, Jones' slow recitation of the ABCs may seem either plodding or bizarrely hypnotic, there's a purpose to the way it's presented.

As education researcher and Children's Television Workshop consultant Gerald S. Lesser describes the video, "Mr. Jones' recitation of the alphabet takes a full minute and a half. He stares compellingly at the camera. At the time the sequence was made, his head was shaved for his role of Jack Johnson in 'The Great White Hope,' and it gleams in the close-up. His immense hollow voice booms the letter names ominously. His lip movements are so exaggerated that they can easily be read without the sounds.”

The letter is shown on the screen a second or so before Jones says the name of the letter, and there is a pause after he says each one. This pattern allows kids to say the name of the letter if they recognize it and then have the name reinforced by Jones. If kids don't know it, they repeat it after him. For kids who are more visual or who have auditory processing issues, seeing the letter displayed and seeing Jones' clear mouth movements as he slowly says each letter are helpful learning aids.

Lesser and other researchers coined the term "James Earl Jones effect" for how the learning process played out.

Jones' alphabet segment may have helped prove the effectiveness of "Sesame Street"'s educational model, but it's also just mesmerizing to watch. When he gets to "J" and the facial expressions really kick in? Priceless.

Watch and enjoy:

This article originally appeared two years ago.

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The Gen X grief when a 'Sesame Street' character dies is so real

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"original-sesame-street-cast" by walt74 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Bob McGrath, one of the original "Sesame Street" actors, has passed away.

"A loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter."

It's a simple, repeated line from a one-minute sketch, but as a Gen Xer raised on public television, it's one of thousands of "Sesame Street" segments etched into my brain. Such memories still pop into my head at random times, clear as day, well into my forties. Bert singing about his oatmeal box while playing it like a drum. Kermit lamenting that it's not easy—but it is beautiful—being green. Buffy Saint-Marie breastfeeding her baby and explaining it to Big Bird. Mr. Hooper—the sweet, bow-tied man who ran the Sesame Street corner store—dying.

I was 8 when Mr. Hooper died. It was a big deal. I rewatched part of that episode recently to see what I'd think of it as an adult. The "Sesame Street" gang of 1983 handled it masterfully, helping us all process his unexpected death through Big Bird's own experience of learning about what it means to die.

"Big Bird, when people die, they don't come back," said Susan.

Big Bird let that reality sink in, then said that things wouldn't be the same without Mr. Hooper—exactly the sentiment we all had.

Bob comforted Big Bird, saying, "You're right, Big Bird. It'll never be the same around here without him. But you know something? We can all be very happy that we had a chance to be with him, and to know him and to love him a lot when he was here."

\u201cA founding cast member, Bob embodied the melodies of Sesame Street like no one else, and his performances brought joy and wonder to generations of children around the world...\n\n2/4\u201d
— Sesame Workshop (@Sesame Workshop) 1670199193

And now the always kind, always gentle Bob has joined Mr. Hooper and the original Big Bird, Carol Spinney, in whatever comes next. Bob McGrath passed away this past week at age 90, and I found myself mourning the loss more than I would have expected.

I suspect I'm not alone.

Those of us in the original "Sesame Street generation" were the guinea pigs on which the theory of educational children's television programming was tested. It was an experiment that proved beneficial for millions of us, helping us grow up smarter, stronger and kinder, according to research—but it also gave us a unique relationship with the people and characters who lived on Sesame Street.

The generation that came before us didn't have anything like "Sesame Street" or "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" or "The Electric Company," and the generations after us have had so much more educational programming to choose from. But those shows were all we had besides mostly-horrible-in-hindsight Saturday morning cartoons. For us, the people and characters on "Sesame Street" formed a core part of our most wholesome childhood memories. They weren't just entertainers, but teachers. They helped us become better humans in addition to teaching us our letters and numbers, and the emotional connection created from that mentorship during our formative years is profound.

\u201cMe eating an apple today for me friend Bob. \ud83c\udf4e\u2764\ufe0f\u201d
— Cookie Monster (@Cookie Monster) 1670276094

I'm not a huge crier, but I cried when Mr. Rogers died and I cried when Jim Henson died. I didn't expect it, but I couldn't help it. And when I saw the news this weekend that Bob McGrath from "Sesame Street" had died, I had the same visceral reaction. A piece of my childhood is gone, just like that, never to come back. I didn't know him, of course, but I felt like I knew him. And in some odd way, I feel like he actually knew me, because he knew and understood kids.

Perhaps that's why so many of us feel an emotional attachment to our childhood educational show icons. We weren't just mindless consumers of cartoon entertainment to them, but precious children with the potential to learn and discover, to become more caring and more knowledgeable. We knew they saw us and understood the stages we were going through. I felt that genuine respect for me as a human being even as a young child. And as an adult, I've learned about the sincerity and earnestness of the "Sesame Street" creators and how hard they worked to create the absolute best for kids, which only crystallizes what I felt back then.

"Sesame Street" didn't just make learning the alphabet and counting entertaining. It taught us about life, about people, about relationships and about ourselves—lessons that became part of our identities. I've often thought that the world would be an entirely different place if every young child was raised on a steady diet of "Sesame Street," and the older and more experienced I get, the more I believe that. It really did make us smarter, stronger and kinder.

Rest in peace, Bob. Thank you for everything you taught us and for being such a positive part of our childhood memories.

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Old episodes of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' are streaming. This is not a drill.

In a world gone mad, when war is endless and politics are chaos ... there's only one man who can reassure our troubled souls.

Photo via Everett Collection.

Unfortunately, he's no longer with us (RIP).

Fortunately, we've got a lot of Mister Rogers on tape — and for the next two weeks, you can binge him 24 hours a day.

Twitch, the online video streaming service, is currently marathoning all 866 episodes of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" in chronological order.

Photo via Everett Collection.

That means you have until June 3 to relive the most soothing, gray sweaterful moments of your childhood.

It's an opportunity every American should be pretty grateful to seize right about now — and it's for a good cause.

The marathon is an effort to raise money for local PBS stations, many of which have trouble keeping their funding levels up.

As of this writing, over $14,000 has been donated.

Periodically, PBS has to fight to survive in the face of apathy and political calls to cut its funding. Now is one of those times.

Photo via HBO.

A budget proposed by the Trump administration in March 2017 would have eliminated funding for the network.

The initial version of the budget did not pass, and PBS remains in on the air for now, but the threat is real for the kind of enriching children's programming that Fred Rogers spent his life making and advocating for.

A 2015 study found that shows like "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" and "Sesame Street" — available to anyone with a TV set for decades — made low-income children who watched regularly 14% less likely to fall behind in school.

"These findings raise the exciting possibility that TV and electronic media more generally can be leveraged to address income and racial gaps in children's school readiness," study co-author Melissa Kearney said in a statement.

48 years ago, Rogers appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications to convince skeptical elected officials to allocate $20 million for public television.

His heart-wrenching, six-minute testimony was key to convincing the lawmakers to provide the funding.

Though Rogers may no longer be with us, this two-week fundraising marathon allows his message of kindness and empathy — broadcast for over 30 years to millions of American children from all walks of life — to speak for itself.

You should check it out — and prepare yourself for a nostalgia-and-classic moment tsunami. In a just world, that would be enough to secure PBS the funding it needs.

Here's hoping.

David Attenborough opened up an actual dinosaur egg. Here's what he found.

Did you know that there are intact dinosaur eggs lying around? I did not know this.

An actual intact dinosaur egg, next to a replica. Image via Nature on PBS/YouTube.

I know this now because David Attenborough just cut one open on PBS' "Nature" show, and my 8-year-old self was screaming and jumping and doing laps around the room the whole time.

GIF via Nature on PBS/YouTube.

It wasn't just any old dinosaur egg. It was a titanosaur egg. Titanosaurs, as their name suggests, are — to use a presently fashionable term — yuuuge.

America has gone so dinosaur crazy, even some of our frontrunner presidential candidates have views straight from the Jurassic era! Photo by Branden Camp/Getty Images.

And on the inside, the skull of an actual dinosaur embryo...

Image via Nature on PBS/YouTube.

...plus more. Go ahead. Take a look. You won't be disappointed. You will be the opposite of disappointed. You will be ... appointed. So appointed:

The best part of all this? This is your tax dollars at work, folks! In a good way!

Any time there's an election, literally every single candidate pledges to lower taxes (Republicans for everybody, Democrats for everybody but rich people). It's a solid strategy! Most people like having more, rather than less money, and thus, hate paying taxes.

Most people, paying taxes. Photo by PDPics/Pixabay.

Not me, though. I love paying taxes (really). Love it with all my heart (straining credibility, but still telling the truth!) 'Cause it funds stuff like this. For all the talk about government waste this and small government that, paying David Attenborough to open meticulously preserved, 300 million year old dinosaur eggs on television is the fourth most-important thing I'd want the United States of America spending my money on after roads, bridges, and the fire department. And while programs like "Nature" do get a lot of support from private individuals, foundations, and corporations — (and it should be noted that private corporations — and private non-profits like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — do sponsor a lot of PBS programming). including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit — they wouldn't be broadcast here if not for PBS.

Privately owned networks make good TV too, of course, mostly of the Kardashian variety. That's great! The world needs the occasional Kardashian. But these networks make choices based on what's going to make them a crap-ton of money, and ultimately, that determines what gets made, which is why we're currently on season 89 of "The Bachelorette."

PBS doesn't need to make a profit and can spend on what's weird and cool and interesting. Like David Attenborough and dinosaur eggs.

PBS actually doesn't cost us that much either.

The network cost taxpayers $445 million in 2012. That's roughly $1.42 per person and roughly 0.06% of the defense budget (which clocked in at $676 billion that year).

I'd pay $1.42 for that 90-second clip by itself.

Without public funding for cool, educational programming, you wind up with a bleaker programming picture. Sesame Workshop — the production company behind "Sesame Street" that depends heavily on government support — was recently forced to move the iconic show to HBO to pay its bills (new episodes will still air on PBS several months after they premiere on the cable network). It's a tough blow for a show that was launched with a mission of providing a free daily education to the neediest kids.

For now, at least, we still have awesome dinosaur egg dissections.

Anyway, I recommend stopping everything you're doing and watch Attenborough open up that egg over and over again. You earned it. You paid for it, after all.

GIF via Nature on PBS/YouTube.

Better yet, save it for Tax Day.

From Your Site Articles

public television

In 1969, James Earl Jones recited the ABCs on 'Sesame Street.' It was hypnotically educational.

The 'James Earl Jones effect' was real.

The Gen X grief when a 'Sesame Street' character dies is so real

We're the first generation to have educational programs molding our core memories.

Old episodes of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' are streaming. This is not a drill.

In a world gone mad, when war is endless and politics are chaos ... there's only one man who can reassure our troubled souls.

Fortunately, we've got a lot of Mister Rogers on tape — and for the next two weeks, you can binge him 24 hours a day.

It's an opportunity every American should be pretty grateful to seize right about now — and it's for a good cause.

Periodically, PBS has to fight to survive in the face of apathy and political calls to cut its funding. Now is one of those times.

48 years ago, Rogers appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications to convince skeptical elected officials to allocate $20 million for public television.

Though Rogers may no longer be with us, this two-week fundraising marathon allows his message of kindness and empathy — broadcast for over 30 years to millions of American children from all walks of life — to speak for itself.

David Attenborough opened up an actual dinosaur egg. Here's what he found.

Did you know that there are intact dinosaur eggs lying around? I did not know this.

I know this now because David Attenborough just cut one open on PBS' "Nature" show, and my 8-year-old self was screaming and jumping and doing laps around the room the whole time.

It wasn't just any old dinosaur egg. It was a titanosaur egg. Titanosaurs, as their name suggests, are — to use a presently fashionable term — yuuuge.

And on the inside, the skull of an actual dinosaur embryo...

...plus more. Go ahead. Take a look. You won't be disappointed. You will be the opposite of disappointed. You will be ... appointed. So appointed:

The best part of all this? This is your tax dollars at work, folks! In a good way!

PBS actually doesn't cost us that much either.

Anyway, I recommend stopping everything you're doing and watch Attenborough open up that egg over and over again. You earned it. You paid for it, after all.

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