Sesame Street Alphabet Kitchen

TIGGLY X SESAME STREET

All images & characters TM/© Sesame Workshop

When we were looking to partner with the right IP for our third toy in the the Tiggly line, Tiggly Words, Sesame Workshop was at the very top of our list.

When it comes to introducing early literacy concepts to children all over the world, NOBODY does it better, or with more warmth, humor, silliness, and sincerity than Sesame.

Fortunately for us, they were really into what we were doing, too!

THE PITCH

FRIDGE MAGNETS?

As these things go, we pitched several concepts to Sesame before landing on the one we all agreed would work best. This was my first concept. We agreed we wanted to create a “consonant, vowel, consonant” learning game, and since we were dealing with physical letters that were placed on the screen, fridge magnets seemed like a good place to start.
COOKIE CUTTERS?

My second idea was cookie cutters. It would be a play pattern that would be a natural fit for Tiggly Words when stamping out some digital dough. If only Sesame had a character that we could pair up with a cookie concept. Hmmmm?
note: the above image is for cookie cutter reference only.
COOKIES IT IS!

Everyone was on board with the cookie cutter concept, and we got the green light to move into development. Cookie Monster is my favorite Sesame character so, personally, I couldn’t be more excited to tackle this project.

FUR REAL!

Simultaneously with gameplay development, we had to work out the aesthetic treatment of the app.

From my perspective, it was non-negotiable that we use images of the actual Muppets themselves for our animation. I wasn’t interested in illustrated versions of the characters. The fur is such a part of what makes them so lovable to us all!

The only issue was that Sesame has a policy that if the real Muppet characters (like the actual show used Muppets) were being brought to life, it had to be by a Muppeteer. Makes sense. Who could do it better?

However, I asked (ok, maybe begged) that they give us a chance to do a proof of concept and, luckily, the amazing guardian of Henson’s creations, Louis Henry Mitchell (Creative Director of Character Design), agreed to give us a shot!

I knew our animator, Dale Clowdis, would knock it out of the park. We both worked on a television series for Nickelodeon called The Wonder Pets! where we used a style of animation called “photo puppetry” (basically cutting up photos and animating them).

As I knew he would…Dale crushed it, and we were on our way to breaking some new ground with our lovable, furry, friends at The Street!

Not the proof of concept…but this was pretty close to how it looked!

an example of the “photo puppetry” preparation process for animation

DEVELOPMENT

SCRIPT, VO, STORYBOARDS

While we were prepping for design, animation, and programming at Tiggly, we were simultaneously working with the incredibly talented crew at Sesame on script, storyboards, and finally recording the dialogue sessions with David Rudman (Cookie Monster) and Ryan Dillon (Elmo).
Having the original performers lend their talent to our app was a privilege that truly elevated the entire experience.
DESIGN

In the same way it was important for me that we use the real Muppet characters, I also wanted the environments to have realistic textures so the overall experience really felt as close to actually being in the kitchen making word cookies with Cookie Monster and Elmo make as we could make it.
From the reflections in the mixing bowl, to the tactile texture of the dough, to the delicious textures of the icing, cookies, and toppings, it was all designed with great care and attention to detail and texture.
BRINGING IT ALL TO LIFE!

What good is everything that came before it if the play experience isn’t completely satisfying?
Luckily we had an incredibly talented team of programmers, animators, and sound designers who created an interactive experience in Unity that is truly incredible. Animating the characters alone is one thing, but being able to interact with the characters, while making and eating cookies with them, is a high water mark in the kids app space, in my humble opinion. What a team!