The new documentary Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street directed by Marilyn Agrelo takes audiences inside the minds and hearts of the “Sesame Street” creators, artists, writers and educators who together established one of the most influential and enduring children’s programs in television history. The film will debut in 2021 on HBO.

In the late 1960s, socially conscious media executive Joan Ganz Cooney and Sesame Workshop co-founder Lloyd Morrisett took on a revolutionary experiment: To harness the burgeoning power of television and create an educational, impactful, and entertaining show that could reach children nationwide. Cooney recruited visionary Muppets creator Jim Henson and acclaimed children’s television writer and director Jon Stone to craft the iconic and uplifting world of “Sesame Street.”

Inspired by the civil rights movement, Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street focuses on the first two experimental and groundbreaking decades of “Sesame Street,” highlighting this visionary “gang” that audaciously interpreted radical changes in society and engaged children in ways that entertained and educated them like never before.