the creator was a wonderful woman pioneer, joan cooney came up with the show. i did research on her, my doctoral dissertation. the underlying rule, as far as the golden rule is in the show. it's taught in very subtle ways. besides teaching numbers and letters and colors and shapes, this is the underlying thing. >> love your neighbor as yourself. >> who are the people in the neighborhood. >> and who are your neighbors, that's right. as we're in the season of lent, we focus on loving our neighbors, caring for our neighbors and serving our neighbors. so i'm just s fascinated and curious how these themes were taught to children and through which characters. let's start with big bird. tell us what did big bird teach us about the golden rule, loving our neighbors. >> big bird was designed specifically to be like a 2- year-old. the research has said we needed mr. bumbler kind of character who doesn't know very much and is constantly asking questions. so they designed big bird. and he's probably one of the most visible characters on the show. one of the chapters i writ

but "sesame street's" creator, joan ganz cooney, remembers it well. >> joan ganz cooney: it was justons with no purpose at all. i mean, i would watch them and just be appalled. >> stahl: as you're talking, i'm seeing a cat slam against a wall, be reduced to nothing, slide down, and come back to life. ( laughter ) >> ganz cooney: yes, that was commercial television. >> stahl: ganz cooney, then a public television producer, was asked by the carnegie corporation to study whether television could be something different. >> ganz cooney: the question being, "do you think television could teach children?" >> stahl: ironically, she says the answer was right in front of her, and everyone else... in beer. ♪ ♪ >> ganz cooney: they were singing beer commercials, children were. ( laughs ) well, so obviously, they had learned.. >> stahl: they'd learned the jingle? >> ganz cooney: so if a commercial could teach beer, couldn't it teach one-- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten? >> stahl: and that became the model ganz cooney spelled out in her 50-page report proposing what woul

it was this wonderful woman pioneer joan gance cooney who came up with the show. i did my research on her. and then i started thinking about there are faith themes in the show, even though it never discusses organized religion. but it's kind of the underlying rule as far as the golden rule in the show. and it's taught in very subtle ways but besides teaching numbers and letters and colors and shapes, you know, this is the underlying thing. >> love your neighbor as yourself. >> yes. who are the people in the neighborhood? >> and who are our neighbors. >> yes, yes. >> and as we are in the season of lent we do focus on loving our neighbors, caring for our neighbors, and serving our neighbors. so i'm just so fascinated and curious about how these themes were taught to children and through which characters. so let's start with big bird. tell us what -- what did big bird teach us about the golden rule, loving our neighbors. >> the big bird was designed specifically to be like a 2-year-old. the researchers said, you know, we needed mr. bumbler character who doesn't know