I was born in 1969, the same year as Woodstock, the alleged moon landing, and Sesame Street. I’ve always felt a kinship with the show and its beloved characters.
Maybe that’s why, for my miniature club annual show next weekend, I chose a Sesame Street-themed exhibit for the yearly contest, my first build from scratch. In working on the scene, there’s a newspaper stand, and as a detail freak and former newspaper editor, a worlds-colliding moment ensued. I wanted to create a miniature newspaper that would include real headlines from Sesame Street’s past. Exterior crown molding angles and miniature Italian tile aside, I probably spent the most project time on the digital paste-up of old articles from across time, to appear in a (roughly) one-inch square newspaper that no one would be able to read because of the microscopic print size. Experienced newspaper editors would squinch at the eight columns above the fold from the two out-of-scale chopped articles. But I was shocked to learn how many controversial headlines there were from which to choose.
Everyone jokes about Bert and Ernie being gay, but did you know Sesame Street came out with an official statement that they weren’t gay, when in fact the creator of the characters was himself gay and intentionally intended for them to be gay? My favorite character was always Snuffleupagus. I liked how he was mopey and not toxically positive, and especially that only Big Bird could see him, until one day everyone could see him which at the time seemed like bullshit because I thought he represented imagination. Then I find out Sesame Street made that choice on behalf of child abuse victims; and suddenly I see it in a whole different way.
Sesame Street has never shied away from controversy. When Mr. Hooper actor Will Lee died of a heart attack, they wrote his death into the script to teach children how to deal with grief. After creating the first Black muppet Roosevelt Franklin, the show removed him after “criticism by some African-American intellectuals who scrutinized the character for signs that he was too black, or not black enough.” They introduced Kami, a muppet with HIV that Bill Clinton appeared with, and had Cookie Monster start eating more fruit when they were concerned with childhood obesity. The Israeli version of Sesame Street introduced Mahboub, an Arab-Israeli Muppet who spoke Hebrew and Arabic, as a response to the growing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Oscar the Grouch appeared on “Grouch News Network” (GNN) answering a call from a viewer who says, “From now on I am watching Pox News. Now there is a trashy news show.”
Sesame Street is 55 years old like me, so it’s had its share of controversies. There was the time their entire YouTube channel was removed and replaced with porn, the time they pulled a Katy Perry duet with Elmo because they thought her outfit was too revealing, that one time Bert appeared on a Bin laden poster, the time they fired the actual original Kermit the Frog actor, and the time Margaret Hamilton appeared in her Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz costume (complete with Oscar the Grouch declaring his fellow green fandom love) after which they received complaints from parents about terrified children, so they had to ban the episode.
More serious controversies involve the sexual abuse allegations of Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash, and an aggravated assault charge of actor Northern Calloway who played David on the show for nine more seasons afterward at the urging of executive producer Dulcy Singer (she’d also chosen to tell the truth about the death of Lee); Calloway eventually died in a mental institution in New York after struggling with addiction and mental health issues. The entirety of Gen X would’ve been traumatized more by watching the Challenger explode live if Big Bird had been aboard as planned.