As a little kid I watched Sesame Street nearly every day and damn near memorized many of those sketches. I certainly learned how to count and other basic things well before I entered school, which probably helped me stay ahead of my classmates in our dumbed down school curriculum.

I loved it -- it fed my imagination, and helped form my sense of humour. I adored Grover, and Bert and Ernie meeting the martians, and the lower case n song. It also gave me my first picture of what life in a big city might be like, and made me want to see one.

I still think the Oscar the Grouch character is brilliant. Yes, I would say Sesame Street made me more tolerant of difference, in a way I didn't really get in the small-minded town where I grew up.

As an adult...
I worked for a public television station...

OMG! Yes! Of course I watched Sesame Streeet...sunny days, takin' my cares away...etc. etc. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street....

I LOVE Sesame Street. It totally rocks!

It only influenced me in good ways I'm sure. I miss that feeling of watching it.

Not very often, but I did catch it occasionally.

I watched stuff more along these lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T162AsfWDc4

x2 on the Ninja Turtles

that and a lot of Disney movies (The Sword in the Stone still kicks ass)

Though of all the shows on when I was a kid, I was a rabid Reading Rainbow fan. Haha, I still remember, there was this one episode on mummies and afterwards I was terrifed for days because I thought he was saying 'mommies' the whole time (there were pictures of dried up corpses, the whole nine yards).

Cartoons used to be so much better....

My answer would be pretty much the same as RM's. But I think for myself it more had to do with the fact that we lived in the countryside and only had a big old satellite dish to watch tv with and without going through the effort of moving the whole thing, which was the size of a large hottub, Disney and PBS were some of the only channels we got.

It was Romper Room and Capt. kangaroo for my house...

I remember watching it, and there are some segments that I will never forget (the pinball style graphics counting up to 12), but as a little kid I always wanted to watch "Neighbor" (Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood) much more than Sesame Street.

We almost never watched tv when I was young... when we did it was mostly whatever was on PBS, which yes, included Sesame Street. I can't look back on it and say that it influenced me in any way. Lambchop, Reading Rainbow, and Ghost Writer I remember more.

I am told I watched Sesame Street as a child but to be honest I don't have any vivid memories of watching the show. I do remember The Muppet Show, Pee-Wee's Playhouse and Mr. Rogers in much detail.

I have to say the only way it has influenced me is providing me with shared pop-culture references.

I feel like it made me more sexual, because I wasn't exposed to a lot of non-wholesome images at a young age (which I feel great about 25 years later)

No, we didn't have a TV until I was about 7 or 8, so I never developed the TV-watching habit. Plus I'm too old - it wasn't around when I was little.

My parents didn't beleive in TV, that's why I'm such a freak and can't spell. Other kids kept referring to commonly known characters and scenes and I had no clue what they were talking about. Who the fuck was "Chumly"?

Reluctantly, when forced to by adults. I wasn't a child prodigy or anything but I learned how to read and do math pretty early and it made me feel like I was being talked down to. It's inescapeability and the expectation that I like it just made it seem more insulting.

If it had any influence it jaded me early and made me think that everyone was an idiot and that the world was just plain stupid. I didn't truly learn to appreciate the profound hilarity of our pointless and stupid existence for years to come.

If I had kids I would raise them on reruns of You Can't Do That On Television and Wondershowzen, I would let them watch SS but be deeply dissapointed if they liked it.

Sorry, I know everyone loves it but somebody has to call bullshit.