What are the requirements for being a guest host on Sesame Street?

You have to be kid friendly, nominally famous and willing to work for peanuts.

“This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.”

Because the decision is in private hands, I would be willing to guess that there’s no such thing as a set of requirements that, if you met them, would qualify you to be a guest host so that you could then claim the privilege. Rather, I would expect that the first requirement would be that they’d have to want you.

Chances are that there are some disqualifiers (for example, a criminal history—again, just guessing), but people who are unlikely to pass the background check probably won’t be nominated in the first place.

You got it Jeruba, that is what I was thinking. But my question should have been “what are the disqualifiers?”

I don’t have an answer to your question, but I’ll do some digging to see what I can find out. For the time being though, I can provide a list of the guest hosts they have had. They do come from a wide range. Entertainers who are more recognizable by adults (such as Richard Pryor and Robert de Niro) have been on the show. When it comes to booking hosts, it seems as though they look for someone recognizable and someone who can work with children (because it’s not just a show for kids – there are kids on set for each episode.) I’m sure they run a background check, as any other studio. A criminal record or scandal, as @Jeruba suggested, is not likely to be swept aside.

@muppetish thank you for the link. I wish there were a lot more well known hosts but not necessarily in entertainment industry. I don’t see why entertainers whose material is known to be too adult (I don’t mean porn) were on Sesame Steeet anyway. There are so many fields out there that children should be introduced to and know more about. They already know about the entertainers from just being alive (TV etc.)

Here is something:
http://www.tmz.com/2010/09/22/katy-perry-sesame-street-apperance-banned-hot-n-cold-elmo-breasts/#comments-anchor