Can Sesame Street go to Congress?

[CensoredAlso]

Thirdly, Oh yeah, Jim Henson's creations are being used as pawns... no more than PBS and NPR's evil "liberalness" is being used as a pawn against the fakey budget busting the Tea Party Poopers want so they greedily don't have to pay taxes.

I already said I didn't mind the guy from NPR getting in trouble. But yes, of course it was entrapment and it's completely unfair for PBS to get in the middle of this. It's basically guilt by association.

As for being "pawns," I mean there are certainly times I wouldn't want to see the Muppets in politics, but in this case I think it's important for them to take a stand.

 

[Drtooth]

I already said I didn't mind the guy from NPR getting in trouble. But yes, of course it was entrapment and it's completely unfair for PBS to get in the middle of this. It's basically guilt by association.

As for being "pawns," I mean there are certainly times I wouldn't want to see the Muppets in politics, but in this case I think it's important for them to take a stand.

Well put. I'm sorry, but PBS detractors don't have a real leg to stand on. If we wanna talk about pawns, how about the pawns the other side uses to get rid of PBS? Like the whole "Postcards for Buster" shoving tolerance towards gays and Muslims down kid's throats (a lot less aggressively than they're shoving hatred of gays and Muslims down their voter's throats?), same thing with the "we Are Family" video... and my personal favorite, a 3 year old joke (during the you know who era) about Fox News means that SS is an evil liberal brainwashing organization. Yeah... pot... kettle... black we get it.

Face it, these guys want PBS off the map for multiple reasons, and the excuses they give to the public are pathetic! They get a small amount of money, but that small amount will be missed. And PBS is so much more than SS... SS would get picked up by someone else... but A) Massive changes that would make the block format look humble by comparison B) actual commercial content (I don't want the show to be interrupted by senior bladder control mail-a-way companies instead of the letters B and the number 12) and C) it would have to move to cable, rendering it inaccessible. PBS and SS need each other. SS needs it to remain commercial free (relatively) and accessible to people who don't want to shell out 50 bucks a month. That's what trash like Dora is for.

I have to settle for broadcast digital. We got 5 extra channels, and I'm missing several that I actually watched. And guess what? 3 of those are PBS stations... a special network for travel shows, cooking shows, and painting shows combined... and a kid's channel (which I really disagree with their programming). Nothing else added anything for children (This: TV does have a week long morning cartoon line up... that's it... and it's quality 1980's-90's Dic stuff).

There are only a handful of children's networks on cable... Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network (which I object to being considered a kid's channel), and splinter groups of those that you have to pay extra for (Boomerang, XD, and Nicktoons). Maybe a couple others on super premium.

Think of it this way. Fraggle Rock was only bought up by HBO, the most premium of premiums of the day. It lasted 5 years, some meddling from HBO ended it, and it isn't all that well remembered. Other than a few VHS's, the only way to watch it was to hope you could find someone with HBO to tape it for you (I didn't). Us poor kids had to settle for the cartoon version and appearances through specials. Sesame Street? 42 years, everyone in the world knows what Sesame Street is... if you say "Red Fraggle" half of everyone will give you a "Huh?" If you mention Cookie Monster, EVERYONE speaks up about him, even passers by! Accessibility!

I'm sorry, no matter WHAT political poo anyone can fling, Jim Henson was a staunch supporter of PBS. PBS, syndication, and to an extent HBO have been inordinately kind to him and his creations. Lest we forget NBC treated JHH with disdain, ABC refused to pick up the Muppets for anything more than a special, and let's not forget how big of a flop MT was on said network. These little independent stations (syndication is long since dead) are the best places for things to flourish.