Comedian And 'Eighth Grade' Director Bo Burnham Writing Original Songs For The 'Sesame Street' Movie

Before he wrote and directed the indie darling Eighth Grade last year, Bo Burnham was known for his stand-up comedy. More specifically, he was most famous for writing raunchy original songs for his stand-up act, something he became famous for on YouTube. The content was extremely adult in nature, but his songwriting skills can't be denied, and that's why Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM are bringing him in to write some original songs for the Sesame Street movie coming in 2021.

Deadline has word on Bo Burnham writing some of the Sesame Street movie songs that families will be tapping their foot to when the latest big screen adaptation of the long-time PBS (now HBO) children's television program comes to theaters on January 15, 2021.

In the Sesame Street movie, Big Bird is the lead yet again, but this time he and a bunch of his friends from Sesame Street find themselves mysteriously outside of their friendly neighborhood. Instead, the beloved buddies are stuck in Manhattan, and they need someone to tell them how to get to Sesame Street again. Thankfully, they run into Sally Hawthorne (Anne Hathaway), the host of a history program who is on a quest to prove that Sesame Street actually exists. But getting back there won't be easy, because an evil mayor is trying to keep Sesame Street hidden from the world for some reason.

Hathaway earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her musical turn in Les Miserables in 2013, so you know she'll be belting some tunes out with the characters of Sesame Street in the movie. She's also producing the movie along with Shawn Levy and Michael Aguilar, as well as Entertainment 360's Guymon Cassidy. Behind the camera is Portlandia co-creator Jonathan Krisel, working from a script recently rewritten by Barry Schwartz, previously written by Chris Galletta and Mike Rosolio.

Obviously the Sesame Street movie will be geared towards families, but hiring someone like Bo Burnham to write original songs ensures that the movie will be entertaining for adults and kids alike, which isn't always easy to accomplish. But Sesame Street has long crafted plenty of references and moments on their show that are meant for adults without being risque, so we can probably expect the same thing from the movie. We can also expect tons of celebrity cameos, since that's a staple of Sesame Street (and their Muppets cohorts), so that will make for some fun too. Stay tuned for more.