Sesame Seeds (Epsiode 11): Maria Rodriguez

 

Greetings everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Sesame Seeds. The series where we look at the progression of a Sesame Street character from humble beginnings to the present day.

Today, we’re not just looking at another human, but probably the most popular and well known human cast member Sesame Street ever had: Maria.

Maria has shown us how to fix toasters, speak spanish, what love is and many other lessons in the 48 years we’ve known her, and she’s also gone through a significant amount of changes.

It all started when season 3 of the show was being created. The team thought it was time add a few new human characters of latin descent to the cast to give kids and families of latin descent someone to look up to, and one person they found happened to be a Bronx raised, puerto rican teenager named Sonia Manzano.

Manzano, at the time, was mostly known for playing a role in the musical Godspell. And afterwards, her agent suggested she audition for Sesame Street. For the audition, Jon Stone had Manzano to sing the One Of These Things song while pretending someone was following her. So she did, and the very next day, she got the job.

Now, when Miss Sonia was growing up, she didn’t see many other people of her race, if any at all, but that soon changed when she started watching Sesame Street. The street setting reminded her a lot of her home, and the human cast members reminded her of her neighbors. When she was cast as Maria, she wasn’t sure how she should act for this part, but Jon Stone assured her he just wanted her to be herself, because herself was the self kids would relate to the most.

So Maria made her first appearance in the first season with Big Bird talking about the letter M. Before the scene was filmed, Caroll Spinney had told her not to worry, because there were thousands of kids and families watching them through the camera they were filming with, and I guess it must’ve worked, somehow.

For her first years on the show, Maria was a peppy young woman, who was ready to show the world she could do anything she wanted. She didn’t like being called “little lady”, especially by the guy characters like Oscar and Biff, and she took on many jobs like library helping and construction working.

But it wasn’t just that, she also got a chance to be a little silly, in the segments that aired between the street scenes. The most notable of which acting as famous british mime, Charlie Chaplin.

Maria also had great chemistry with her co-workers. By the tenth season she had already had at least one scene in which each of the main and supporting characters, muppet and human alike. (Her most popular partners being Oscar, Big Bird, David and Luis) She was also present for every single outing the cast took, especially in season 11, where they went to Puerto Rico to celebrate Maria’s birthday with her family.

As the 80s went on, Manzano noticed that there were no hispanic/latin writers on the writing staff for Sesame Street. So Dulcy Singer, the executive producer at the time, suggested she take a crack at writing, so she did, and she was really good at it. Manzano went on to write plenty of material for the show, her character, and whatever latin concepts they were trying to get across. She would also task herself with writing a plotline involving Maria getting into a relationship.

Now, previously Maria was shown to be interested in David, and vice versa, but due to certain issues Northern Calloway, David’s performer was going through at the time, he had to be replaced with a different character: Luis.

Maria had already landed herself a job at Luis’ Fix-It Shop 12 seasons ago, and the two were very good business partners, but during season 19, they would start to go through a process known as “falling in love”.

In episode 2383, Big Bird and Gina would show up at the shop with a stray kitten they found, and together, Maria and Luis would take care of it until it was ready to be on its own, and in the process, start to notice things about each other that they never did before.

All of this culminates in episode 2404, where the two hold hands crossing the street, and after they each have a talk with Big Bird and Snuffy, respectively, they’re in love. So they come back to each other, confess their feelings and share a kiss.

For the next few episodes Maria and Luis were now an actual couple. The perfect couple it seemed like, so everyone asked the obvious question: When were they going to get married?

The answer would come in episode 2455, where after constantly telling their friends that they’re not ready for marriage, the two would have dinner with Big Bird, who assesses the situation and deduces they ARE ready. And at the end of the episode, the couple announces it to everyone.

The last three episodes of the season would then be devoted to the wedding. Episode 2483 is about Luis’ uncle and Maria’s mom coming over for the big day. Episode 2484 is about the couple taking care of the final details, and episode 2485 is about the actual wedding.

The entire cast was there to celebrate the occasion, and they all had a great time. Even Oscar, I’m sure.

In the next season, Maria and Luis went on their honeymoon in the Adirondacks, which lasted for five episodes. Then afterwards, Luis moved into Maria’s apartment, and for the majority of the season we got to see Maria and Luis actually being a loving, married couple.

But their story was far from over, as the two were about to take on something many married couples go through: Having and raising a child.

In episode 2544, they tell Big Bird about Maria’s pregnancy, and he, in turn, tells all of his friends, and throughout the rest of the season, we got witness Luis and Maria go through baby check-ups, pregnancy cravings, a baby shower, building a nursery, and practicing for the big moment, with everyone on Sesame Street pitching in to help them.

Then, in episode 2614, the day came, and Maria was ready to give birth. After a few last minute shenanigans, Oscar drives Maria and Luis to the hospital, and in the next episode, Gabriela Rodriguez was brought into the world.

From season 21 and onward, Maria now had to balance toaster-fixing, motherhood and being a popular muppet target in each episode she appeared in. And like Gordon, her personality was pretty much set in stone.

In 2002, for season 33, The Rodriguezes stopped fixing stuff for a brief period of time and opened up a Mail-It Shop, where the characters could send and receive letters and parcels.

The Mail-It shop lasted for four seasons, until it turned back into the Fix-It Shop in season 37, and then in season 39, the shop was gone for good, in favor of a Laundromat.

But that didn’t mean Maria and her husband were done fixing things. Whenever something was broken, they were still the top two people who were usually called to help. Maria even landed herself a job as the superintendent of 123 Sesame Street.

Then in season 45, Maria and Luis would make their last entry of business by starting a bike shop located to the right of the subway entrance. You may notice I said last entry of business, because this was around the time the SS cast was about to disappear.

But unlike her peers, Manzano would be the most formal, announcing her retirement in June 2015. The truth was, she actually had been planning this for years, she just didn’t know when she should do it, but since the show was giving its human characters less and less involvement, she figured now would be as good a time as any.

But she handled her retirement with grace, and even got to release her new memoir, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx.

And despite being one of the only actors to openly retire, Manzano is still keeping herself closely tied to the show, especially during the 50th Anniversary. She was present for the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors, which Sesame Street was an honoree of, she made a live appearance along with Alan for an event at Sesame Place, she visited Comic Con with her Sesame co-stars and she was among the many returning human guests for the 50th Anniversary special.

When Covid hit, nothing changed, Miss Sonia was still made appearances in the many Sesame Street production shot during 2020 and 2021, including the CNN town hall special, Coming Together: Standing up to Racism, the documentary, Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street, and the new ABC special, Sesame Street: 50 years of Sunny Days.

So as you can see, Maria has clearly made her mark on the show. But before I get into that, I have to talk about my experiences with her.

Maria was pretty much the only human I ever really paid attention to growing up, aside from Gordon. It was probably because Miss Manzano’s performance made her so welcoming and approachable. And I’m not the only one who thought so. Everytime I see a post talking about Sesame Street humans, I always see a bunch of people talking about how Maria was their first crush, or their role model, or just a really great friend. And it’s not hard to see why. She was funny, charming, witty, pretty, smart, and made every scene she was in work.

Miss Manzano said herself said when she became Maria, she became the person she needed to see on television, but never saw, and in turn, she was also the person other kids needed to see on TV, but did see. And because of that, I think we can all agree Maria is a meaningful and valued member of the show.

Well, that brings us to the end of another episode. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find someone who can fix my toaster. I knew I shouldn’t have tried to do four slices at once.