James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones on the set of Sesame Street.

Episode 1148

A Walking Tour of Sesame Street

A Walking Tour of Sesame Street

James Earl Jones with Elmo in 2004.

James Earl Jones (1931-2024) was an actor noted for his work on stage, film, and television, as well as his distinctive resonant and stentorian voice. On stage, his breakout was the lead in The Great White Hope on Broadway, winning a Tony and reprising it for the 1971 film (earning an Oscar-nomination), and he won a second Tony for Fences. Prolific movie credits include Dr. Strangelove, Conan the Barbarian, Field of Dreams, and Patriot Games. He lent his voice to Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, Mufasa in Disney's The Lion King, and frequent narration, commercial and promo voice-overs (such as for CNN), and many other voice-only outlets from radio to records.

Early in his acting training, when studying at the American Theater Wing, one of Jones' teachers was Will Lee, who in 1969 would play Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street. Jones is considered by Sesame Workshop to be the first celebrity guest on Sesame Street, since inserts of the actor reciting the alphabet and counting numbers appeared in the unbroadcast test pilots and heavily influenced the show's pedagogical models. These inserts were later included in first season episodes, beginning with Episode 0002.

In 1978, Jones appeared on Sesame Street in Episode 1148 as a movie star who visits Hooper's Store in search of the perfect egg cream. In the story, Mr. Hooper slowly recognizes him as a famous movie star, "I've seen almost every picture you've made!" (As a big fan, Mr. Hooper makes no mention of Jones's segments from Sesame Street’s early years where the cast would sometimes transition to his recitation of the alphabet by name. One of which, in Episode 0077, includes Mr. Hooper so furious over the misplacement of his glasses that he can't even think of the alphabet. Gordon urges him to watch James Earl Jones to help.)

Jones hosted the 10th anniversary Sesame Street special, titled A Walking Tour of Sesame Street, in 1979. He discussed the variety of curricular topics covered in the show's first decade, interspersed between chats with Mr. Hooper, Oscar, and Big Bird.

For the 1991 song "Wuntafordy," an animated Sesame segment singing the numbers "1 to 40" a cappella-style by The Lemmings, Jones contributed the spoken voice saying "30."

The actor contributed a "Chilean Sea Bass" recipe for Miss Piggy's 1996 cookbook, In the Kitchen with Miss Piggy. He supplied the voice of the Mountain King in the 1999 Creature Shop-effects TV-movie Merlin.

He returned to Sesame Street in 2004, taping a "My Favorite Sesame Street Moments" intro for Season 35. He recalled his early involvement with the series:

“My favorite Sesame Street moment was sitting in Matt Robinson's office when they were first putting the show together, and he had asked me to come and do something on it. And I said, "I will, *but* I gotta warn you, the Cookie Monster and the Muppet characters will not work, because they'll terrify children." What did I know.”

The James Earl Jones Factor

CTW Board of Advisors chairman Gerald S. Lesser and other researchers paid particularly close attention to James Earl Jones' appearance, in terms of children's response and the effectiveness of his alphabet recitation. Lesser described the basic performance as follows:

“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.”

During the recitation, each letter appeared briefly near the actor's head prior to its being named, remains for the recitation and then disappears, and a pause in both Jones' speech and the visuals occurs before the next letter. The result of this particular staging prompted a particular positive response from viewers that producer Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr. and research director Edward L. Palmer, as well as Dr. Lesser, termed "the James Earl Jones effect." The first time a child sees the performance, he responds to the invitation to say the alphabet along with the actor. Upon later viewings, the children would name the letter as soon as it appeared, but before it was named by Jones. Further repetition encouraged children to shout out the letter even before it appears. The "James Earl Jones effect" thus demonstrated to Sesame Street's producers and curriculum advisors the value of both repetition and anticipation, and supplied proof that Sesame Street could promote interactive learning as opposed to merely passive viewing.

External links

• Internet Broadway Database
• IMDb