Sesame Street’s next chapter: Elmo talks back

The episodes presage the next step in the evolution of television, adding an interactive element to what's still a passive, lean-back experience. The game is sure to arouse jealous feelings among football fans who yell at their TV sets during Sunday's game. As you watch children playing the ``Sesame Street'' game, it's easy to imagine a not-so-distant future where viewers become participants, affecting a show's outcome _much more than they do when they vote for ``American Idol'' contestants.

``Kinect Sesame Street'' `'allows the child to participate in the narrative plot,'' says Emory Woodard, communications professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Woodard, who worked at Children's Television Workshop _ what is now Sesame Workshop _ in 1995, notes that a lot of TV programming aimed at preschoolers involves characters talking to the kids. ``But in this case,'' he adds, ``The characters can react to the child's response.''

It's not entirely clear, though, whether that makes a difference to them.

``That's a research question to explore,'' Woodard says.

Two-and 3-year-olds, he notes, are at a very ``ego-centric'' stage of development. They already experience on-screen characters as if they were talking to them, even with traditional television programs. They start growing out of that around 4, but by 5 they'll have more or less grown out of ``Sesame Street,'' too. (''Kinect Sesame'' is recommended for children 3 and up).

Microsoft recently gave The Associated Press and several bloggers an early look at ``Kinect Sesame.'' Jack and Zoe Shyba, the 5 and 4-year-old kids of mommy blogger Jessica Shyba, at first just watched the show intently when they saw it at the Sesame Workshop in New York. The letter of the day, as it happens, was ``S.'' But as soon the characters started to ask them to do things, they obliged.

Kinect works by first calibrating to users' bodies so it can track their movements when they throw a virtual ball to an on-screen character or pluck virtual carrots from Elmo's garden. (Kinect is also used to play more traditional video games and control entertainment features on the Xbox). With teenagers and adults, this means moving your body into various poses that are reflected by a bare-bones figure on screen.

With small children as the focus, the creators tried a different approach. Instead of having an on-screen avatar mimic their movements, ``Kinect Sesame Street'' has them step into an on-screen mirror so they can see themselves on TV.

``We were spending a lot of time talking about how to get a kid calibrated in a way that was fun,'' said Josh Atkins, Xbox executive producer of Kinect Sesame Street. The best way, it turned out, was to have an on-screen ``character'' that is essentially a mirror. ``When they see themselves on TV they tend to pay attention.''

``Sesame Street'' first aired on public television in 1969, with the aim of educating preschoolers and helping them transition to school. ``Kinect Sesame Street TV'' starts off by using content from the show's 42nd season. The game is available in disc form and as a download through via Xbox Live. For $30 users can purchase a package that includes eight 30-minute episodes on two discs. Users can also purchase single episodes for $5. (AP)