The children's educational TV show featuring Muppet characters such as Big Bird and Elmo is Sesame Street.
Created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, Sesame Street was designed to help preschool children learn letters, numbers, vocabulary and early reasoning skills. Its format mixes live-action scenes, animation, short films, music and puppetry, making lessons feel like entertainment rather than classroom drills.
The series premiered on November 10, 1969, and was produced by the Children's Television Workshop, now called Sesame Workshop. Jim Henson's Muppets became central to the program after early testing showed that children responded especially strongly to the puppet segments. Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch were created to interact directly with the human cast on the street set.
Elmo became especially prominent decades later through the recurring segment Elmo's World. Sesame Street is sometimes mixed up with The Muppet Show, but the programs have different formats: Sesame Street is structured around preschool education, while The Muppet Show is a variety comedy series for a broader family audience. The two productions have occasionally crossed paths.