Lesser retired in 1998, and was a professor emeritus at Harvard until his death. Lesser's colleagues reported that he had a big impact on his students and colleagues. Even though he worked all over the world, he remained dedicated to his students and "remained an integral presence in the lives of his graduate students". Lesser was one of the first scholars to study the effect of television on young children. He was hired in 1961 by NBC as an educational consultant for the TV show Exploring, which was created in response to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton Minow's charge to the networks to create more quality shows for children. Lesser studied how Exploring helped children learn in order to help the producers improve it, observed children while they watched it, and was able to see how TV shows were produced. Lesser's experiences at NBC led to his involvement with the development of Sesame Street. In 1964, Lesser wrote, with Gordon Fifer and Donald H. Clark, Mental Abilities of Children in Different Social and Cultural Groups. Random House published his 1974 book Children and Television: Lessons From Sesame Street, which was called a "how-to" in creating and producing a children's television show, and was an account of the hard work and dedication required to put Sesame Street on the air. Sesame Street In 1967, Lesser was asked to help develop and lead the research department of the newly formed Children's Television Workshop (CTW, later the Sesame Workshop), the organization responsible for the production of Sesame Street and other educational television programs. He was invited by Carnegie Foundation vice-president and Sesame Street co-creator Lloyd Morrisett, whom he had met while they were both psychology students at Yale. At first, Lesser was skeptical about the new show's potential and its ability to teach children; according to Morrisett, "he took some convincing". As Lesser later reported, he would be involved only if he was able to make a real contribution. When he saw that Morrisett and his co-creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, were serious about developing goals and a curriculum for the new show, and that it would be an "experimental venture in education by television", he became the first chairman of the CTW's advisory board, a position he held from 1967 to 1997. Lesser was skeptical about Cooney's qualifications as CTW's first CEO, although by the time he wrote Children and Television in