Do you remember these Sesame Street Friends from when you were a child? I do! (From friend’s houses! My mom never got us toys like this! We were so jealous of all of the other kids who had plastic toys!)
Click on their names to see how much lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury each of these vintage (c. 1970s) Sesame Street Friends has!
Grover • Big Bird • The Count • Susan (?) • Bert • Ernie
Here’s the link to this post on Facebook
(so you can share it with your friends!)
Do you want to see more XRF test results for things like this? Please consider supporting my independent consumer goods testing and lead poisoning prevention advocacy work so I can keep doing what I do! Here’s a link with ALL THE WAYS you can help! 🙂
Thank you for reading! As always, please let me know if you have any questions!
Here’s a link to a modern version (likely lead-free!) of Sesame Street figurines on Amazon*!
Tamara Elise Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
*Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking on one of my affiliate links I may receive a small percentage of what you spend at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting my advocacy work in this way!
Hi Tamara, I can’t get the links to work for the Sesame Street characters. I’m very concerned about kids using these at the grandparents’ house. Thanks
Hi Tami,
I will check and see if I can fix the links! Thanks for the heads up!
Tamara
Do you know Lead content of any other vintage Sesame Street Little people in those sets like Snuffleupagus, Sherlock hemlock, Cookie Monster, mr. Gordon, prairie dawn, Roosevelt?
I am 78 years old, raised 4 daughters who are healthy and very successful, raised 6 grandchildren, also healthy and currently in various stages of colleges and universities and they were all raised in a F-P little people play environment with everything from the barn to Sesame Street. We did not have a child ever hospitalized and now I wonder if we have missed signs of poisoning. Some have seasonal allergies from Father’s side of family but what symptoms of any chemical poisoning should be be showing? I myself have washed these toys many times in my lifetime and sorted them probably monthly to get them back in their proper houses. Why am I still here after handling all this poison? I do not recall any of my peers being poisoned either. Why is there this paradox with all the facts you have presented? Is this an insidious poisoning that affects us all later? I have handled these toys for 54 years now.
Hi Tammy – I think it would be best for you to watch my film to better understand the issue. It is also important that the impacts of most toxicant exposure are long term: increased risk of early cognitive decline, increased risk of infertility and birth complications for women, increased risk of arthritis, heart disease and kidney and lung issues and digestive system issues. This is well documented in science and it has been solidly proven that there is no safe level of lead exposure because the impacts of lead exposure are cumulative. Here’s a link to my film:
https://tamararubin.com/2023/01/a-link-to-my-film/
Here’s the link to an article you might find useful for context:
https://tamararubin.com/2021/06/but-is-this-dish-or-toy-or-lamp-or-vitamin-or-piece-of-jewelry-or-tibetan-brass-singing-bowl-actually-going-to-poison-me-and-how-would-that-happen-exactly/
Here’s another one:
https://tamararubin.com/2015/02/fine/
Do you know lead content of actual Vintage Sesame Street Little people “building” set?
hi Julie – just the ones shown here on the blog. Here’s how to participate in the testing that I report here on the blog:
https://tamararubin.com/2019/08/tamara-can-i-send-you-one-of-my-dishes-to-test-for-lead/
T
Hi Tamra,
Thanks for all the helpful information. I am considering purchasing for my daughter a vintage Sesame Street Clubhouse set with the same characters you are testing here. Besides paying attention to the Sesame Street characters, which I could remove from the set and replace them with something similar but new, do I also need to worry about the Clubhouse itself?
Thanks!
Lilly