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Christopher Cerf

Christopher Cerf (born August 19, 1941) is a U.S. author, composer-lyricist, and record and television producer. He is perhaps best known for his musical contributions to Sesame Street, for co-creating and co-producing the award-winning PBS literacy education television program Between the Lions, and for his humorous articles and books.

His parents were co-founder of Random House, publisher, editor, and TV panelist Bennett Cerf, and actress, journalist, and children's book publisher Phyllis Fraser.

Musical compositions

Since its first season in 1970, Cerf has played a significant role in the creation and production of the Sesame Street television program, most notably as a regular contributor of music and lyrics, and as the producer of many of its music albums. In the process, he has won two Grammy Awards and three Emmy Awards for songwriting and music production. Since writing and performing his first song for Sesame Street, "Count It Higher" (1972), Cerf has written or co-written over 200 songs featured on the program, including "Put Down the Duckie," "The Word Is No," "Dance Myself to Sleep," "Monster in the Mirror," and such notable parody songs as "Born To Add," "Letter B," and "Furry Happy Monsters." Cerf also played a pivotal role in the ongoing funding of Sesame Street, founding and serving as the original editor-in-chief of Sesame Workshop's books, records, and toys division.

In addition to his contributions to Sesame Street, Cerf’s musical material has appeared on Saturday Night Live, The National Lampoon Radio Hour, The Electric Company, Square One Television, Between the Lions, and in numerous Muppet productions, and his songs have been performed by such stars as Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, R.E.M., James Taylor, Tony Bennett, Dixie Chicks, Tracy Chapman, Carol Channing, Randy Travis, The Four Tops, Melissa Etheridge, Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, Wynton Marsalis, Little Richard, B.B. King, Jimmy Buffett, Bart Simpson, and the Metropolitan Opera's José Carreras—not to mention the blond, curly-haired Muppet character from Sesame Street who is his namesake and the lead singer of the rock group "Chrissy and the Alphabeats."

1963–70: Cerf at Random House

Before joining Sesame Street, Cerf spent eight years as a senior editor at Random House (co-founded by his father in 1927), where he worked with such diverse authors as George Plimpton, Andy Warhol, Abbie Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, Richard Fariña, and Dr. Seuss. In 1993, Cerf renewed his ties to Random House when he assumed the role of Chairman of the Modern Library's Board of Advisors.

Collaborations with Marlo Thomas

One of Christopher Cerf's best-known projects was the editing and production of Marlo Thomas & Friends' Free To Be...A Family book, album and TV special. The book reached #1 on The New York Times bestseller list within a week of its publication in 1987, and the show received a prime-time Emmy as the year's outstanding children's special.

Cerf and Thomas recently collaborated again, co-editing and co-producing Thanks & Giving: All Year Long, a book and CD about generosity and sharing (and their polar opposites, selfishness and thoughtlessness). Royalties from the project, for which Thomas and Cerf won a 2006 Grammy Award, go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded by Thomas’s father, Danny Thomas, in 1962.

Between the Lions

Currently, Cerf serves as Executive Producer, and Music and Audio Producer, of Between the Lions, the children's literacy series that his company, Sirius Thinking, Ltd., created for PBS. Between the Lions has twice won the Television Critics’ Award as the nation’s outstanding children’s television program, and, in its six seasons on the air, the show has amassed six Emmy Awards. (In 2006, Between the Lions was nominated for three more Emmys, including Outstanding Children’s Show.) In two independent studies, conducted by the University of Kansas and Mississippi State University, the program has also demonstrated success in helping kids – including those at the highest risk of literacy failure – to learn how to read.

Humorous writings

Christopher Cerf is perhaps best known to the general public for his work as an author and satirist. In 1970, he helped launch the National Lampoon, serving as a Contributing Editor from its first issue until the mid-1970s, and in 1978, he co-conceived and co-edited with Tony Hendra, George Plimpton and Rusty Unger the journalistic parody Not the New York Times.

The Experts Speak, the "compendium of authoritative misinformation" that Cerf co-authored with Victor Navasky in 1984, has recently been reissued. In 1986, Cerf collaborated with National Lampoon colleague Henry Beard on The Pentagon Catalog: Ordinary Products at Extraordinary Prices, which offered readers the historic opportunity to obtain a free hex nut—valued at $2,043 by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation—with every copy they purchased. (The book has a die-cut hole in its front cover and first few pages: the book was sold in clear plastic shrink wrap with a steel hex nut inside this hole, slightly less than flush with the cover. The shrink wrap displayed the hex nut and prevented it from falling out before the book was purchased.) The Official Politically Correct Dictionary, also written with Beard, first appeared in 1992.

In 2008, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of George W. Bush's historic (if premature) victory speech aboard the U.S.S. Lincoln, Cerf again collaborated with Victor Navasky to produce Mission Accomplished!, a compendium of misstatements, failed predictions, and outright lies uttered in connection with America's military adventure in Iraq.

Selected bibliography

Alligator (Harvard Lampoon parody of Goldfinger), 1962
The Vintage Anthology of Science Fantasy (editor), 1966
"The World's Largest Cheese," 1968
Not the New York Times (co-editor, with Larry Durocher, Josh Feigenbaum, Tony Hendra, George Plimpton, and Rusty Unger), 1978
The 80's: A Look Back at the Tumultuous Decade 1980-1989 (co-editor, with Tony Hendra and Peter Elbling), 1979 (ISBN 0-89480-122-8, ISBN 0-89480-119-8 [paperback])
The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (with Victor Navasky), 1984 (ISBN 0-394-71334-6 [paperback], ISBN 0-394-52061-0 [hardcover]), 1990, 1998 (ISBN 0-679-77806-3)
The Pentagon Catalog: Ordinary Products at Extraordinary Prices (with Henry Beard), 1986 (ISBN 0-89480-036-1)
Marlo Thomas & Friends: Free to Be... a Family (co-editor, with Marlo Thomas), 1987
The Book of Sequels (with Henry Beard, Sarah Durkee, and Sean Kelly), 1990
Small Fires: Letters From the Soviet People to Ogonyok Magazine, 1987-1990 (co-editor, with Marina Albee), 1990 (ISBN 0-671-69397-2, ISBN 0-671-72876-8 [paperback])
The Gulf War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (co-editor, with Micah L. Sifry), 1991 (ISBN 0-8129-1947-5)
The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Henry Beard), 1992 (ISBN 0-679-74113-5), 1993
The Official Sexually Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Henry Beard), 1995 (ISBN 0-679-75641-8)
The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (co-editor, with Micah L. Sifry), 2003 (ISBN 0-7432-5347-7)
Marlo Thomas & Friends: Thanks and Giving: All Year Long (co-editor, with Marlo Thomas), 2004 (ISBN 0-689-87732-3)
Blackie: The Horse Who Stood Still (with Paige Peterson), 2006 (ISBN 1-59962-017-0)
Mission Accomplished! (or How We Won the War in Iraq), (with Victor S. Navasky), 2008 (ISBN 1-4165-6993-6)