Terry Tao’s parents credit his early development with learning to read around age two. He learned to read from Sesame Street Season 9 - which happened to be whe

Terry Tao’s parents credit his early development with learning to read around age two. He learned to read from Sesame Street Season 9 - which happened to be when they were experimenting with an improved curriculum for “higher-order reading skills, such as verbal blending and letter sounds”. Despite being publicly funded, these early seasons are now basically inaccessible to the public (except for curated clips). Why aren’t old seasons made freely available online? Instead they are locked up in the National Archives with strict access control. If I knew how to peddle conspiracy theories this would be my favorite one: That "they" are suppressing Sesame Street Season 9 because it was making people too smart. Why are they keeping it under lock and key? Show us the tapes!!! Also, HBO ruined sesame street. The pacing and noise is totally wrong for child comprehension. It used to be educational. Now it's just the same commercialized brain-scrambling bullshit as everything else "made for kids".