'Sesame Street' was almost called 'The Video Classroom.'

According to Sesame Street archivist (yeah, they have one of those) Susan Tofte, the name for the show was a last minute idea--so last minute that producer Jon Stone describes the title chosen at "the 11th hour and 59th minute."

The origination story is detailed on the Sesame Street blog (yeah, they have one of those, too), which says that early promotional materials simply went with the jazzy description of "preschool educational television show," and remained noncommittal to a title during the entire production and development of the first episode.

Potential titles that gained traction were The Video Classroom and 1-2-3 Avenue B, the latter of which was seriously considered but feared as too New York City-oriented for a national audience.

In the end, writer Virginia Schone is credited with coining Sesame Street--but not everyone was wowed by the title. Some staffers feared children would have difficulty pronouncing Sesame (think: the Cindy Brady lisping episode of The Brady Bunch), but the title stuck, if only because there was no time left to think of something different.

And that, my friend, is how we got to Sesame Street.