Play with Me Sesame

Play with Me Sesame is an American children's television series, created by Sesame Workshop and Nickelodeon for their former joint venture Noggin. It is a spin-off of Sesame Street hosted by Bert, Ernie, Grover, and Prairie Dawn. The series' backgrounds and animated elements were made by Nickelodeon Digital in New York City. Nickelodeon and Sesame developed the show to expand on Sesame Street by directly encouraging young viewers to interact with the characters. To do this, they combined classic Sesame Street footage with new segments, where the hosts invite preschoolers to join them in games.

The show began development in 1999, when the Jim Henson Company still co-owned the rights to the Sesame characters. To start production, Nickelodeon had to seek approval from Henson. Kidscreen reported that "the series marks the first time a State-side entity other than Sesame Workshop has been given permission by Henson to use the Sesame Street Muppets." Noggin shot footage of the characters on a green screen, and animators at Nick Digital added in new graphics. Many of the background designs in Play with Me Sesame were simultaneously used in Nickelodeon's Moose and Zee interstitials.

Play with Me Sesame premiered on April 1, 2002 and ran for three seasons. The show was heavily linked with Noggin's website, Noggin.com, and it featured a regular segment where computer games from Noggin were played. Nickelodeon extensively promoted the show across all of their networks, using a musical infomercial sung by Grover. Noggin also launched a live show, called Noggin's Play with Me Sesame Mall Tour, across the United States. At its launch, it was announced that Play with Me Sesame would continue to be produced for Noggin through 2009, but the show instead wrapped in 2007. The last new episode aired on September 2, 2007.