There’s a brand new child on the block.
“Sesame Avenue” just lately launched TJ, its first Filipino muppet, on a phase with Kal Penn. TJ and his buddy Ji-Younger, a Korean American muppet who debuted in 2021, speak to the actor concerning the phrase of the day: confidence.
Confidence, Penn defined, is “if you imagine in your self and your skills, or within the skills of others.” TJ marvels at Grover’s confidence as he makes an attempt to leap over the Sesame Avenue signal whereas driving a unicycle and balancing a tall stack of books. And when Penn shares with TJ and Ji-Younger that he leans on others when he doesn’t really feel assured, TJ opens up about his personal experiences.
“I’m studying Tagalog. It’s a language my Filipino household speaks and I've confidence as a result of I can all the time ask my lola for assist after I don’t know a phrase,” TJ says.
The character of TJ is voiced by puppeteer and performer Yinan Shentu and created partly by Bobby Pontillas, a Filipino American animator. Pontillas wrote on Instagram that he collaborated with Louis Mitchell, Sesame Workshop’s artistic director of character design, on the character. TJ’s look, Pontillas mentioned, was primarily based on two of his pals’ kids.
Rosemary Espina Palacios, Sesame Workshop’s director of expertise outreach, inclusion and content material growth, additionally celebrated TJ’s arrival on Sesame Avenue.
“I’m so proud to assist convey some Filipino illustration to the neighborhood, and simply in time for API Heritage Month to point out the vary in our diaspora,” she wrote on Instagram. “His first phase with @kalpenn and Ji-Younger is all about confidence, one thing I personally really feel might help unravel the mannequin minority stereotype.”
TJ is the newest addition to a various solid of recent characters on “Sesame Avenue.” Along with Ji-Younger, this system’s first Asian American muppet, the present launched two Black muppets in 2021: Wes and his father Elijah.
Final yr, Ameera, a muppet character who makes use of a wheelchair, made her debut on “Ahlan Simsim,” the model of “Sesame Avenue” that airs within the Center East and North Africa.
The-CNN-Wire
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