The most famous street in America and arguably most famous children's TV show in the world celebrated its 40th birthday today with a basket of vegetables and a visit from the first lady, Michelle Obama.
Obama - wearing one of her signature style cardigans in, appropriately, a shade of vegetable green - is famously an advocate of healthy eating and her birthday present to Sesame Street's stars of lettuce and carrots was in keeping with the apples she distributed to (possibly disappointed) trick or treaters on Halloween last month. If her assurances that vegetables "taste great" were not enough to convince, she exclusively revealed to Elmo and Big Bird that vegetables were what made her so "big and strong".
That's right: those famous biceps were built by cucumbers, not crunches.
Ever since Sesame Street began in 1969 it has been teaching the joys of counting, sharing and spelling, with the help of neon-coloured muppets, hypnotic animations and hugely catchy songs.
But in the past decade it has taken on an extra responsibility: teaching good health. This is no easy lesson in America where two-thirds of the population are now overweight.
Once the show's liberalism was reflected by the multi-ethnic cast. That is still true (the first lady was ably assisted by Caucasian, Asian and black children), but there are now also references to yoga. Even Cookie Monster has to describe cookies as "treat foods" these days.
The celebrity guests are one of Sesame Street's most popular features, with appearances over the decades spanning the quality spectrum from Stevie Wonder to James Blunt and they, rightly, often look more starstruck than the muppets. But Michelle Obama, true to Obama tradition, played it cool.
Well, until the lettuce looked up and told her, "We think you're great!" Then she got a very pleasing fit of the giggles.
