The Big Bang Theory

One of my generation's childhood staples is out on DVD now. One of the greatest developmental shows, with some of the catchiest tunes. And it bears this warning on Volumes 1 and 2 of "Sesame Street: Old School"; “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” Yes that's right, one of my childhood favorites is rated Adults Only. No, it's not implicit mentions of puppets with hands up their butts, or some slick editing that confirms the wild speculation of message boards that Bert and Ernie really are lovers. It's that today's PC society and pansy, but lawsuit happy people, deem it inappropriate for their kids. I turned out ok, didn't I? Ok, don't answer that.

But come on people. What about that show is inappropriate???!?!?!?!?!!!! If anything, I find today's changes to Sesame Street inappropriate. Since Jim Henson passed away, Sesame Street has been finding itself pandering to the PBS donor crowd, much more than it ever did. Back in the day, people learned to deal with differences, attack racism, and even become good friends with people who can't afford anything but trash. Today, Sesame Street is a bilingually focused show that is Elmo's soap box for the latest liberal agenda talking points. Hey, there's nothing wrong with the bilingual focus, in fact, I encourage it. I speak English well, sometimes, and have passable enough Spanish to be able to communicate in the pharmacy with those who speak only Spanish. That show was based on diversity. Gordon helped my generation overcome racism. Mr. Hooper helped us deal with the loss of the older people in our lives that we cared about. And who can forget Grover, and his "Near.............Far." Now, we've got some crappy, annoyingly voiced, manic, red puppet, who has a larger merchandise market than Major League Baseball. And what in the HELL has happened to my Cookie Monster?



That's the Cookie Monster we know and love. But now, he's been reduced to singing that Cookies are a Sometime Food. This is a travesty I tell you, a sheer travesty.


So why is this DVD set labeled as AO? Well, when pressed about it, an executive producer indicated that "Monsterpiece Theater" was one of the offensive skits. You know the scene, Cookie Monster spoofing Masterpiece Theater. Smoking a pipe. Then eating it. The executive producer then stated "that modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether." They dropped it from the DVD because they couldn't handle it, and today's parents couldn't talk about that with their kids???!?!!?!!!!! What??!!! That's crap. Plain and simple crap. Yeah, Oscar is the same. They couldn't edit him out of history. But they did say they'd never be able to create a character like him today. Sure, Snuffleupagus was visible to Big Bird only. That prompted accusations of hallucinations, seeing things that aren't there. While to us kids, it was clear that it was just because Snuffleupagus left before the others got there. Yeah, a kid might ask his parent about why they don't believe him, think he's seeing things. But ok, aren't parents supposed to take an ACTIVE role in their kids development? Are we trying to avoid that? Observing what I have in society, I'd say yes. And that has me scared, and it should scare you.