Issuepedia:Wacky Award/2007-11-28

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 * 2007-11-28

The Award

 * 2007-11-18 Sweeping the Clouds Away: &ldquo;According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, Sesame Street: Old School is adults-only: "These early â€˜Sesame Streetâ€™ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of todayâ€™s preschool child."&rdquo;

This edition of the Wacky Award goes to what is ostensibly the liberal left, though they are sounding less and less liberal and more and more like Queen Victoria or Mary Whitehouse.

In recent years, the children's television show Sesame Street has committed a number of travesties:
 * Separating Muppet characters Bert and Ernie because of the idea that their cohabitation meant they must be gay
 * ''the whole Ernie and Bert are gay thing is particularly heinous, and would deserve its own Wacky Award if it were happening today
 * Killing the hilarious "Alistair Cookie, Monsterpiece Theater" sketch series -- first by removing the fake pipe which Cookie Monster was using in order to seem more Alistair Cooke-ish (and which he very appropriately ate at the end of the sketch) and later by discontinuing the series altogether.
 * Eviscerating Cookie Monster himself by having him expand his diet and renounce his cookie fixation (in 2005)
 * De-emphasizing the misanthropic but honest Oscar the Grouch in favor of the abysmally chirpy and substance-free Elmo

Sesame Street executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente has finally broken the camel's back and won the Wacky Award for not only defending these actions but also for labeling the original, un-gutted version of the show as "not intended for children". We aren't sure which parallel universe she comes from, but in this universe, Sesame Street was indeed created specifically for children by an organization called the Children's Television Workshop. Those earlier episodes were in fact beloved by many children, who grew up and wanted to show those episodes to their children, so the current generation wouldn't grow up thinking that Sesame Street The Elmo Show had always been just another Barney.