Sesame Street (Various Dubs and International Co-productions, 1970s-1990s)

Shortly after Sesame Street premiered in the United States in 1969, television producers, teachers, and officials of several countries approached the show's producers and the executives of Children's Television Workshop (CTW) about the possibility of airing international versions of Sesame Street. Creator Joan Ganz Cooney hired former CBS executive Michael Dann to field offers to translate and adapt the show into a number of international co-productions in other countries.

Originally, international co-productions had a certain amount of American Sesame Street episodes dubbed and repackaged, or cut to a half hour running time. Later international co-productions, beginning with Brazil's Vila Sésamo, started taping their own original street scenes with new original characters, puppets, and sets.

As characters and set designs for these co-productions had been changed or the entire international franchise is revamped over the years, older international co-productions are believed to have ended up becoming lost in the shuffle, due to the lack of their availability on DVD, VHS, or online. While classic episodes of some of the well-known international co-productions like Sesamstrasse (the German co-production) made their way onto DVD or online, other classic foreign co-productions from the 70s are believed to be lost. Here are some international co-productions that are believed to be lost, not taped off television broadcasts, or hard to find anywhere on home media or online.

Sesame Street Canada (Partially found Canadian co-production)
In 1972, the initial five minute segments of the US Sesame Street series were aired over the CBC as interstitials. In January 1973, a Canadian version of Sesame Street, called Sesame Street Canada, began as an edited version of the one-hour American program, occasionally including specially filmed Canadian cartoon and film inserts (i.e. "A Quarter Has a Caribou on It," a 1982 animated song explaining the value and appearance of the Canadian quarter). By the 1980s the show's title had been modified to Canadian Sesame Street. Sometimes Canadian-exclusive animated clips (including those made by Ishu Patel) would be shown in American episodes during the late 1970's-early 1990's, redubbed in English.

So far, Canadian versions of Episode 1813 (Season 14), Episode 2058 (Season 16), and Episode 3128 (Season 24) have been seen on YouTube to date.

Sesamo Apriti (Lost 1971 Italian co-production)
Sesamo Apriti ("Open Sesame") was the Italian version of Sesame Street, first broadcast in 1971. Approximately 50 episodes of the American show were cut to a half hour, and translated into Italian. A Sesamo Apriti board game and record album were released in 1978.

No episodes of the show have been taped off broadcast and remain lost today. However, Sam P. has uploaded Italian dubs of two Sesame Street classic clips (both taken from other coproductions, but dubbed with audio taken from the Sesamo Apriti record) to YouTube.

Vila Sésamo (Partially lost Brazillian Portuguese co-production, 1972-1977)
Vila Sésamo is the Brazilian co-production of Sesame Street that ran from 1972 until 1977 on TV Globo and also ran until 1974 on TV Cultura. It was the first international Sesame Street co-production, not counting 1971's Sesamo Apriti (which only consisted of dubbed versions of the American Sesame Street episodes).

A few episodes of the original 1972-1977 era have been found on YouTube, most of which are in black-and-white.

Plaza Sésamo (Mexican co-production; Lost 1972-1980 Abelardo era + Partially found 1981-1994 Montoya era)
Plaza Sésamo is the Mexican version of Sesame Street that debuted in November of 1972 (at the time of the fourth season premiere of Sesame Street). The cast consisted of Panamanian, Argentinian, and mostly Mexican performers and featured "neutral Spanish." The original series also featured two Muppet characters, Abelardo and a small grouchy green parrot called Paco. The set of the street was turn into a plaza that would be a typical city block in Central or South America with a center fountain, benches, vacant lot with playground equipment, houses, a combination grocery store-cafe, and mechanic's repair shop.

While new Plaza Sésamo episodes from 2001-present (as well as a few from the 90s) are available, no episodes of the original Plaza Sésamo from the 70s-80s can be found nor seen online, reportedly due to Televisa (the network who co-produced Plaza Sésamo with CTW in the 1970s) losing their master archive of the show's earlier material that had been destroyed in a 1985 earthquake. No one has taped any of the show's earlier material at the time, and there is no footage of Abelardo the crocodile (or dragon) preserved on any VHS recording. All that survives are some photos and a screenshot of the show's opening title card. Only one classic episode, Episodio 327 (aired in 1976), has been documented.

Sesamstraße (Partially found German co-production)
Sesamstraße is the German version of Sesame Street that debuted on and has been primarily running on Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) since January 8, 1973 and has a total of 42 seasons. Sesamstrasse's 30-minute episodes can also be seen on ARD's children programming affiliate KI.KA.

While a certain amount of Sesamstraße episodes are available on DVD and online, many of the episodes have been kept in storage in not viewable in public since. In 2006, many classic Sesame Street inserts dubbed in German and ripped off of KiKA had been posted on YouTube, but eventually swept to dust and have not resurfaced since due to the uploader of these clips getting terminated as a result of the February 2007 Viacom takedown that pulled 400,000 YouTubers. Some episodes have been taped off of broadcast and uploaded to YouTube, while only title cards of the episodes have surfaced.

1, Rue Sésame (Lost French co-production)
1, Rue Sésame is the original French Sesame Street co-production, which premiered on January 4, 1978. The French Muppet characters are Toccata the large Albatross, Mordicus the saxophone-playing blue Grouch, and Trepido (a pink snail). Another French co-production from 2005, titled "5, Rue Sésame" is not to be confused with this version.

No episodes of this co-production have resurfaced online at all. Only the theme song has been found, a few skits dubbed in French have resurfaced (though lejukeboxer1 used some of the video sources to dub some skits with the soundtrack), and a few vinyl LP soundtrack records of the show have been released (which are difficult to find today).

Sesam (Lost 1976 original Swedish dub)
Sesame Street was first shown in Sweden in 1976 under the name Sesam. Twenty six of the American episodes were dubbed.

In 1981, Sweden started their own full co-production using the name Svenska Sesam.

A new batch of Open Sesame episodes were dubbed and shown on Sveriges Television from 1996 to 1998, under the same name, including newer characters such as Elmo. 8 episodes of the 1996-1998 broadcast can be found on YouTube. The original 1976 Swedish broadcasts are entirely lost.

Iftah Ya Simsim (Partially found Kuwaiti co-production)
Iftah Ya Simsim (Arabic: افتح يا سمسم‎; meaning "Open Sesame") is the first international co-production of the American children's television series Sesame Street created in the Arab world. It premiered in Kuwait in 1979 and was broadcast in 22 Arabic-speaking countries, running until 1990, when the Gulf War brought it to an end. According to Rym Ghazal of The National, "Such was its popularity that it is said the Iraq invaders stormed the set ... taking away not just videos of the show but some of the Muppet costumes as prisoners of war. It is said that the Nu'man costume, as well as Cookie Monster were never found or returned to Kuwait".

The master tapes of the show's episodes also were never recovered, but luckily were preserved by many Arabic fans who taped the show while it was still on the air. Many episodes have been uploaded from time to time on YouTube, but many of them are out of order and the episode number is not identified correctly for some of them. YouTube links to several playlists and channels having Iftah Ya Simsim episodes are provided below.


 * VHS captures of 45 episodes (all of them split up) via user drxvb: https://www.youtube.com/user/drxvb/videos
 * More episodes uploaded via user mohammed alayesh: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKLWtj6tU27VI1QYxNxkEUKQneww2hDX1
 * The first 24 episodes uploaded in better quality via user CARTOON ZAMAN: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbXneORxd74Xk-9-MAY5MIBKyqxzi-k93
 * Later episodes uploaded via user حسين عبدالرضا: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5f-Cbz8AtGcGNFiyFiIfO9vtWavGAi_2
 * The 278th and 279th episodes uploaded via user comicstime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y750623vaOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGjOHCXvyi0
 * Episodes, believed to be in order, plus newly uploaded episodes, via user abuwahab: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnC3iIhMRhtMsvuSzZxpC9sSovQ8VYTlw

Episodes 75, 105, 108, and 109 are missing from the first batch of episodes. Episodes 262-315 were also once uploaded by CARTOON ZAMAN to YouTube in 2016, but he unexpectedly deleted them. However, episodes 261-291 can be found in a torrent here.

Barrio Sésamo (Partially found Castilian Spanish co-production)
Several episodes during the "Espinete y Don Pimpon" era can be shown on Youtube, and all 40 episodes have been released on the DVD box set "Espinete y Don Pimpon" (though hard to find even online). Some users have uploaded many episodes on YouTube, and links are provided below:
 * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7fvGVEQN3_00-DEO1_JWc3SsasymRNel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERBKYsFJXO8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0dx-acC83E
 * https://www.youtube.com/user/cacafundi/videos
 * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnvv-8Z31mnOeWFf8YReqUWzfUQaI4Fb3

Svenska Sesam (Partially lost Swedish co-production)
Svenska Sesam was the second Swedish version of Sesame Street. 30 episodes were produced and aired on the network SVT2 (Sveriges Television) from October 31, 1981 to April 11, 1982. The show took place behind the scenes of "Galateatern" (a theater) and had Swedish live actors and no puppet characters at all. The only puppets on the show were from the American sketches, which were dubbed in Swedish.

The show went into a re-run August 23, 1982 and ended in January 28, 1983. The last time the show was seen on Swedish TV was from March 28, 1984 to July 13, 1984. Of the 30 episodes, only the first 8 have surfaced on YouTube. The rest of the episodes have not been taped off SVT2 and remain lost. Only time will tell when someone will find the remaining 22 episodes and release the whole series in a Swedish DVD box set or possibly on YouTube.

Rua Sésamo (Partially found Portuguese co-production)
Only the first 30 episodes from Rua Sesamo 's first season are released on DVD (one episode per disk) and they can be seen on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLapqUe7ahAreM8XeYi__gDPfAJqMvfs-9

Susam Sokağı (Partially lost Turkish co-production)
Susam Sokağı is the Turkish co-production of Sesame Street. It aired on TRT, from 1986 until 1991.

Only a few episodes (and dubbed inserts) have been found online, some on YouTube, others on Izlesene.com.
 * Susam Sokağı - 4. Bölüm: https://www.izlesene.com/video/susam-sokagi-4-bolum/9800513
 * Susam Sokağı - 5. Bölüm: https://www.izlesene.com/video/susam-sokagi-5-bolum/9800500
 * Susam Sokağı - TRT 2. Tam Bölüm(1993): https://www.izlesene.com/video/susam-sokagi-trt-2-tam-bolum1993/8979712
 * Susam Sokağı (TRT Tam Bölüm 2): https://www.izlesene.com/video/susam-sokagi-trt-tam-bolum-2/8806005
 * Susam Sokağı TRT Tam Bölüm 1993 ( TÜRKÇE ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2HbDOZXn8
 * Susam Sokağı Tam Kayıt 1. Bölüm (TV1 1989): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sGuWhTYzXE
 * https://www.youtube.com/user/79taneraydemir/search?query=susam+sokagi+bolum

Sousami Anoikse (Missing Greek co-production)
Sousami Anoikse is the Greek co-production of Sesame Street that aired on the ET1 television network. The show has been considered lost over the years; only the Greek dub of Ernie's "One of These Things" song has survived and has been up on YouTube.