Sunny day, sweepin' the clouds away. On my way to where the air is sweet. Can you tell me how to get to... King's Landing?

"you know nothing jon elmo" pic.twitter.com/EcMoCkK7UV
— darth™ (@darth) August 13, 2015

The beloved and groundbreaking children's program Sesame Street is going to where it's not TV: HBO. The NY Times reports, "Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit group behind the children’s television program, has struck a deal with HBO, the premium cable network, that will bring the next five seasons of “Sesame Street” to HBO and its streaming outlets starting this fall."

The partnership will allow Sesame Workshop to significantly increase its production of “Sesame Street” episodes and other new programming. The group will produce 35 new “Sesame Street” episodes a year, up from the 18 it produces now. Sesame Workshop also will create a spinoff series based on the “Sesame Street” Muppets and another new educational series for children.

After nine months of programming exclusively on HBO, the shows also will be available free on PBS, its home for the last 45 years. “Sesame Street” will also continue its run on PBS this fall, with the season featuring a selection of episodes from the last several seasons edited in new ways.

Man, can you imagine how Sesame Street will look when David Simon gets his hands on it? Or Lena Dunham??

But maybe this was in the stars all along, given the many Sesame Street parodies of HBO shows:

The Times adds that financial terms were not disclosed, "Sesame’s partnership with HBO comes at a critical time for the children’s television group. Historically, less than 10 percent of the funding for “Sesame Street” episodes came from PBS, with the rest financed through licensing revenue, such as DVD sales. Sesame’s business has struggled in recent years because of the rapid rise of streaming and on-demand viewing and the sharp decline in licensing income. About two-thirds of children now watch 'Sesame Street' on demand and do not tune in to PBS to watch the show."

I think everyone can agree that securing Sesame Street's future is extremely important—and I am all for Jonad doing a segment on how democracy works on Sesame Street.

This news comes as PBS has announced it'll be airing a 30-minute version of Sesame Street starting this fall. According to Current, "The new schedule, which takes effect Nov. 16, will feature the 30-minute version at 10 a.m." Both PBS and Sesame Workshop decided to move to the half-hour format, "in response to the positive station and viewer feedback to the shorter version introduced last fall." The hour-long Sesame Street aired in the mornings, while the 30-minute Sesame Street appeared in the afternoon.

The Daily News says the news comes as "as attention spans in the new generation shorten," but if anyone has ever watched Sesame Street knows, the show is made up of a number of short segments—like the mesmerizing Pinball counting, Martians finding a fan, the letter Y, Grover as the worst waiter in the world or Kermit and Joey saying the alphabet—with the longest parts being the live-action on Sesame Street at the beginning, Abby's Flying Magic Fairy School cartoon and the end Elmo segment.

Sesame Street was founded in 1969, to give preschool children an education television outlet. Of course, nowadays, there are many more educational shows that provide excellent learning opportunities as well as, like Peg + Cat and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, both on PBS.

While streaming Sesame Street is on the rise, there will be a wrinkle. From the Times:

Children’s programming is a popular category for streaming services, with the outlets recognizing that they can entice parents to subscribe if they capture their children’s attention. The Sesame-PBS deal comes as Amazon, Netflix and other online outlets are pouring resources into acquiring and developing their own original children’s series. The “Sesame Street” episodes now available on Amazon and Netflix will no longer be on those outlets because of the HBO deal.

Anyway, can we cut the True Detective, Season 3, jokes, PLEASE?

Guys, this can now happen #TrueDetectiveSeason3 pic.twitter.com/Trh679yUdD
— Tim Baysinger (@tim_bays) August 13, 2015

#truedetectiveseason3 http://t.co/oqYw4h6s8R pic.twitter.com/w9H8TanKFH
— Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) August 13, 2015

#truedetectiveseason3 pic.twitter.com/AsKd0RAHf3
— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) August 13, 2015

Okay, this one is good:

The Yellow King pic.twitter.com/aSEducDwi2
— Glen Weldon (@ghweldon) August 13, 2015

Grover, Meet Daenerys Targaryen: Sesame Street Is Moving To HBO