The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

"The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" is a Sesame Street story first read by Bob in Episode 0138. In the story, a little boy can't find his mother, so a village of Anything Muppets ask the boy what she looks like. He replies that she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but the boy rejects all of the beautiful women the village can find. When the boy finds his mother, it is revealed that she is a frail, gray-haired woman -- but in the boy's eyes, she is beautiful.

Performers

• Frank Oz - Lost Little Boy, Villagers
• Jim Henson - Lead Villager
• Jerry Nelson - Villagers
• Fran Brill - The Mother

Lawsuit

In 1975, this segment was the subject of a lawsuit carried out by Rebecca Reyher and Ruth Gannett, who claimed that CTW and writer Jon Stone had plagiarized their 1965 children's book, My Mother Is The Most Beautiful Woman In The World. The story itself was adapted by Reyher from a Russian folk tale her mother told, but the court eventually dropped the suit, citing evidence that both works are derivative of a story in the public domain, and that Stone had been unaware of the book's existence.