Why the Wicked Witch’s ‘Sesame Street’ Episode Got Banned
What To Know
- In 1976, Margaret Hamilton reprised her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in a Sesame Street episode that aired only once.
- The episode received numerous complaints from parents who said the witch’s appearance frightened their children and caused nightmares.
- After internal research confirmed the negative impact, producers decided not to re-air the episode, effectively banning it from future broadcasts.
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little public broadcasting children’s show, too!” Margaret Hamilton might as well have screeched such a taunt as she reprised her role as The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West in a Sesame Street episode that aired just once 50 years ago — before producers deemed it too wicked to re-run.
How did the Wicked Witch of the West end up on Sesame Street?
The infamous “Episode 847” debuted on February 10, 1976, as the 52nd episode of Sesame Street’s seventh season. More than three and a half decades after the release of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton once again donned green faceprint and a pointy black hat as she played the Wicked Witch once more.
20th Century Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Collection
Hamilton, then 74, was a fan of Sesame Street, according to The Memphis Press-Scimitar. The Oz alum and former kindergarten teacher had discovered the show through watching TV with her three grandchildren. “When I was a child — and that was some time ago — going to school wasn’t a particularly joyous experience,” she said at the time. “I see no reasons why learning shouldn’t be fun, and Sesame Street demonstrates that it can be a very happy experience.”
But Episode 847 was not a very happy experience for young viewers, apparently…
The Wicked Witch threatened David & Big Bird… and attracts Oscar the Grouch
In the episode, Sesame Street resident David (Northern Calloway) nearly gets decked by a broom falling from the sky on a windy day. The Wicked Witch arrives and demands that David return it, but he refuses unless she shows him a little respect. Her evil ways don’t scare David — and Big Bird is unmoved by her threat to turn him into a feather duster — but Oscar the Grouch is enticed. (“You have got to be the most beautiful person I have ever seen,” he moons. “I think I’m in love.”)
Finally, the Witch goes undercover as an unassuming elderly woman — with normal-looking skin — but David sees through the disguise. Thinking fast, David gets the lady to ask for the broom nicely. And thus, the Witch gets her broom back, and David and the other Sesame Street residents are freed from their green-skinned menace. Until, of course, the Witch attempts a daredevil broom-flying maneuver high above Sesame Street, and once again, her broom drops right back into David’s hands.
The episode scared children & gave some nightmares
After the airing, producers fielded a deluge of complaints about the Wicked Witch scaring children watching at home.
“My two children (ages 3 and almost 5) found her simply terrifying,” reads one parent’s letter to the Children’s Television Workshop. “Then last night they each woke twice, sobbing with nightmares about ‘the Wicked Witch on Sesame Street.’”
Another parent wrote, “It got my 3 1/2-year-old quite scared, and he ran out of the room about three times.”
(One letter came from a woman who identified as “part of a world-wide community of women who are healers and creators variously within and outside the framework of witchcraft.” The woman wrote that she felt she “[could] say that ‘we’ are truly oppressed by such a negative portrayal.”)
Internal research indicated the show should “not be re-run”
Everett Collection
Afterward, Children’s Television Workshop researcher Ana Herrera investigated the matter and screened the episode for 26 children at a day care center. “The segments on the Wicked Witch of the West have been the first to have received this large amount of mail (with negative comments); all within a very short period of time,” Herrera wrote. “Due to the parents’ reactions, the contents of their letters, and our impressions from group observation data, we suggest that the Margaret Hamilton show not be re-run.”
Ultimately, the episode was pulled from syndication, according Mental Floss, but was archived at the Library of Congress, according to USA Today. And at a 2019 “Sesame Street Lost and Found”event at New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image, writers of the show discussed why the Wicked Witch never reappeared on the show.
The episode resurfaced online in 2022
Finally, in 2022, a high-quality version of the Witch’s segments hit Reddit in the Lost Media forum, and the same video hit YouTube the same day.
As the episode resurfaced, some social media users flashed back to the horror they felt when they watched Hamilton on Sesame Street during their youth, as USA Today noted.
“This episode scared me beyond belief when I was 5,” one YouTube user wrote.
“I know she scared the [bejeezus] out of me when I was a little one,” another said.
And they weren’t the only ones, apparently!