Elmo's World
| Elmo's World | |
|---|---|
 Original title card when the segment first began | |
| Genre | Children's show Educational Puppet show Segment |
| Based on | |
| Written by | Judy Freudberg (1998–2009) |
| Presented by | Kevin Clash Ryan Dillon |
| Starring | Bill Irwin Michael Jeter (2000–03) Kristin Chenoweth (2001–06) Daniel Koren (2017–21) Daveed Diggs (2017–21) Ilana Glazer (2022–present) |
| Voices of | Andrea Martin (1998–2009) Deborah Grausman (2017–present) |
| Opening theme | "Elmo's World Theme Song" (sung to "Elmo's Song" prior to 2017) |
| Ending theme | "The ____ Song" (1998–2009) "The Happy Dance" (2017–present) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 17 |
| No. of episodes | 64 (+3 specials) (original run) 82 (revival) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 15 minutes (1998–2009) 4–5 minutes (2017–present) |
| Production companies | Children's Television Workshop (1998–2000) Sesame Workshop (2000–present) |
| Original release | |
| Release | November 16, 1998 – present |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
Elmo's World is a segment featured in the American children's television program Sesame Street. It is always the last segment of an episode (before its "sponsors"—the letter and the number of the day—were announced to close the show), and premiered on November 16, 1998, during the thirtieth season of Sesame Street, as part of a broader structural change to the show. It originally lasted fifteen minutes at the end of each episode. The segment was designed to appeal to younger viewers and to increase ratings, which had fallen in the past decade. The segment is presented from the perspective of a three-year-old child as represented by its host, the Muppet Elmo, performed by Kevin Clash in the original series and Ryan Dillon in the 2017 reboot.
The segment was developed out of a series of workshops that studied changes in the viewing habits of Sesame Street's audience and the reasons for the show's lower ratings. Elmo's World used traditional production elements but had a more sustained narrative. In 2002, Sesame Street's producers changed the rest of the show to reflect its younger demographic and the increase in their viewers' sophistication.
Long-time writer Judy Freudberg came up with the concept of Elmo's World, and writer Tony Geiss and executive producer Arlene Sherman helped develop it. In contrast with the realism of the rest of the show, the segment presented Elmo moving between and combining a live action world and a computer-generated animated world, which looked like "a child's squiggly crayon drawing come to life", with "a stream-of-consciousness feel to it". Elmo's pet goldfish Dorothy and the members of the Noodle family were silent to allow Elmo to do all the talking, and to give children the opportunity to respond to what they saw on the screen. A brief clip from Elmo's World appears in Sesame Street's 2002–2006 intro.
In 2009, production on Elmo's World went on hiatus. Reruns continued until 2012, when it was replaced by Elmo: The Musical. The segment returned in 2017, although each episode now only runs for around 4–5 minutes. Until the show's 56th season in 2025, the revival alternated with two more Elmo-centered segments, Elmo & Tango’s Mysterious Mysteries and Nature Explorers, which were both produced entirely with animation.