MONDAY
E-mail a friendDr. Loretta Long
airdate November 9, 2004
A nationally known educator, Dr. Loretta Long is widely recognized for educating through entertaining. In her role as "Nurse Susan," she's been with Sesame Street since its first season. Her entertainment credits include Broadway productions and feature films. Long has a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts and has held several visiting professorships. She conducts diversity workshops for parents, librarians and educators.
Dr. Loretta Long
Tavis: As we commemorate the 35th anniversary of 'Sesame Street' this week, I'm pleased to be joined now by Dr. Loretta Long. Dr. Long has played Susan on the long-running PBS series since its first season back in 1969 when I was just a little kid of what, 3, 4, years old? Here's a look back first at the early years of 'Sesame Street.'
Gordon:
Susan:
Both:
a family, loving each other,
family, forever and ever,
we're a family
Susan: Yes, we are. Sing!
Tavis: Oh, we're a family. Speaking of family, Dr. Loretta Long joins us tonight from New York. Dr. Long, nice to have you on the program.
Dr. Loretta Long: Well, thank you. We're a family.
Tavis: We are a family. Let me start by saying congratulations to you and the wonderful people at 'Sesame Street.' 35 years.
Long: Who knew?
Tavis: Yeah. Tell me how you got--how'd you get started? How'd you get your opportunity on 'Sesame Street'?
Long: Well, that's what you call it, an opportunity. And I do a lot of career days and I keep telling young people just be what it is you want to be. See, I was an actor who happened to be teaching school, but I was an actor...you get my point?
Tavis: I got you, I got you.
Long: Yeah, and then I was on Channel 13 on a local show called 'Soul.' We didn't have the train yet, Tavis, just soul.
Tavis: Just soul, all right.
Long: And I taped on Sunday, and I went to my school up in the Bronx on Monday, and it was very confusing to my children 'cause they would see me on TV, and then they'd see me in their classroom.
Tavis: Right.
Long: And one little boy was making a lot of money. He would bet people, and he'd come in my room, and he'd say--you know, little black children call everything a movie.
Tavis: Right.
Long: So he'd say, 'You be that one that be playin' on that movie ‘Soul'?' And I'm an English teacher, so I began to correct his grammar. It's not 'Do you be the one?' It's 'Are you the one?' And 'It's not a movie, it's television.' And he'd hit the little kid. 'Give me my quarter. I told you she be the one.'
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha. I ain't mad at his hustle, though. Don't hate on the hustle.
Long: That's right. He was making money.
Tavis: He was getting paid.
Long: And he was paying attention. He was watching PBS.
Tavis: Yeah, well, I ain't mad at him. Of course, I guess, to an English teacher, I shouldn't use the word 'ain't,' so forgive me for that. Tell me about your audition. How'd your audition go? What did you do?
Long: Well, on the show, my set decorator was named Charlie Rosen. Now he's gone to Hollywood. Now he's Charles Rosen.
Tavis: OK.
Long: But Charlie Rosen was building a mock-up of 'Sesame Street,' and I didn't know what it was. I saw the house and the swing and everything, and he said, 'It's going to be this educational show. You should try out for it. They're gonna have educational guides.' And I said, 'Oh. What age?' And he said, 'Little children.' And I said, 'Oh, never mind.' 'Cause before 'Sesame Street,' children's television was, like...
Tavis: Right.
Long: So, I never could get Charlie Rosen to admit it, but he left out an essential piece of information. They wanted a Joan Baez-type folk guitar player. Now, Tavis, in 1969, I looked more like Angela Davis than I looked like Joan Baez.
Tavis: That's 'cause you had soul.
Long: Oh, child! And a big Afro.
Tavis: Yeah.
Long: I had big hair, short skirt, and show tunes. Well, I show up, and they said, 'Where's your guitar?' I said, 'What guitar?' They said, 'Everybody here plays the guitar, so stand over there.' Now, see, I always tell kids these are defining moments in your life. See, I could have got huffy and puffy and went back up to the Bronx, but I came all the way downtown in a cab to keep my Afro together, so I stood over there. So, I waited and waited and waited, and they were getting ready to leave. And I said, 'Uh, could I give my music to the piano player so I can sing for you?' They said, 'We didn't hire a piano player. Everybody here plays the guitar.' And I said, 'What?! But I came to sing for you.' So, very unenthusiastic, they said, 'OK, so sing.' So my audition was I laid my music down. Tavis, I started patting my foot, clapping my hands. Here's my audition:
Tavis: Yeah.
Long: And the little kids in the daycare, when they played the tape--I said, 'Everybody sing,' they all stood up and started to sing.
Tavis: Aw, man!
Long: So that--I have some 4-year-olds to thank for a career.
Tavis: But that really speaks to the essence and the spirit of what 'Sesame Street' is all about, does it not?
Long: Absolutely, because we always believed in the integrity of the child, you see. And I had been doing commercials, so I looked directly at camera, and little kids think you can see them, you know. They ask, 'Did you see my new couch? Did you see my puppy?' They think you're looking into their living room. So when I invited them to sing, that was the first time we really knew for sure that if we designed the show to be interactive, the kids would participate.
Tavis: Wow. Tell me about how your character Susan has changed over the years. You've changed professions and a lot of other things over the years, and you're not rockin' that Afro no more, either.
Long: Ha ha ha! You had to notice that.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Long: Well, I said television is the only place where your hair gets smaller and your body gets bigger. They did a montage of my hairdos at one point. I said, 'That's mean. Can I buy that tape back from you?' Anyway...
But what happened was, the first thing that happened, Susan, Gordon, Mr. Hooper, Bob--3 guys, one girl. I never initiated anything. I was always standing in the back asking, 'You want to have milk and cookies?' NOW, the organization for women, monitored the show and pointed that out. So they said Susan should be--have a career. And I did not come and ask my husband, 'Could I go back to work?' We sat down and we had a discussion, and I said, 'I'm trained as a nurse, and I want to help people,' and I became a public health nurse.
But this was funny, Tavis, because public health nurses wore navy blue, and we always researched and everything, and the little kids uptown said, 'You be the police. You're a crossing guard, right?' So I had to start wearing a more traditional-looking nurse's outfit 'cause little kids were confused. They thought I was the police.
Tavis: Speaking of moments in the show that you've been so integral in as a part of, um, let me throw a few things at you right quick, get you to topline them for me, as my time is running here: one, the way you all handled Mr. Hooper's death.
Long: Oh, this was--because we have the research department, they did a good job of how we could talk about that to children the age of our viewership. We were very careful to do it over a Thanksgiving holiday where there would be a lot of adults in the house to help the children. And then we were very straightforward: Mr. Hooper died. We used that word. And, so, people come up to us and say, 'Thank you. Now we can explain what happened to grandma, what happened to grandpa,' you know. So, it was very straightforward.
Tavis: The adoption show.
Long: Oh, that was--we did a lot of research on that, too, about black adoption, black families, informing a family, and making sure that the adopted child knows that--when a child is born into your family you gotta take what you get. But when you adopt, you can pick out a special child. That's the way we put it, and children would come up to me and say, 'I'm special like Miles,' and I'd look over, their parents are over in the corner crying, you know. But it gave the parents an edge to tell the children very quickly, at a very young age, that they're adopted.
Tavis: What's the legacy of 'Sesame Street,' now 35 years into it and still going strong?
Long: That the way we bury the curriculum in the technology, because that's a very now thing. Our legacy is that we're still experimental. We don't just have a concept and ride it off into the sunset and then you see it on the rerun channel for 50 years. Our research is current. We're addressing the--I like to call them the audio-visual-digital hip hop new millennium learner, and we documented--Howard Gardner came along and codified what we've been doing since '69--the multi-intelligences, that we don't all learn the same way. So by the time the letter 'A' sang, danced, flipped over, changed color, and invited you to make something on your body into a letter 'A,' you had addressed a lot of different learning styles, and I think that's--to me that's our legacy.
Tavis: Well, you're doing great work. You're on a satellite monitor, so you can't see this, but I've got 2 of my favorites with me in my hands. In my right hand I'm holding up one of my favorites, Grover, and in my left hand one of my favorites, Elmo. And I love these characters. Anyway, nice to have you on. Congratulations to you and all the people at 'Sesame Street' and we have to do this again sometime.
Long: Well, we love you. You sure turned out good. You're a Sesame seed. You're one of our graduates.
Tavis: That's exactly why. Because of 'Sesame Street' I'm on PBS today. Who knew? Thank you, Dr. Long.
Long: OK, honey.
Tavis: That's our show for tonight. As always you can catch me on the radio on NPR. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching, and
Back to November 9, 2004