It looks a lot like “Sesame Street,” only that’s no Cookie Monster
“What is so exciting about yams? Everything!” Zobi, a taxi-driving Muppet, shouts in a Nigerian lilt to anyone who will listen. “I can fry the yam. I can toast it. I can boil it. I love yams!”
“Sesame Street,” once a mainstay for a generation of Nigerian children who grew up with the U.S. show on Nigeria’s state-run TV network, will return to Africa’s most populous nation this fall, funded by American taxpayers but distinctively Nigerian.
Produced and voiced by Nigerians in formal — if squeaky — English, the show aims to educate a country where almost half of the 150 million population is 14 or younger. Its focuses on the challenges faced by children in a country where many have to work instead of going to school: AIDS, malaria nets, gender equality — and yams, a staple of Nigerian meals.
“Nigeria is diverse; we have 250 different ethnic groups, so many different languages. We don’t have the same customs; we do think differently,” executive producer Yemisi Ilo said. But “children are children. All children love songs, and all children love furry, Muppety animal-type things.”
Renamed “Sesame Square,” the show will air 26 episodes in the first of its scheduled three seasons, with one show for each letter of the alphabet.
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