I wonder about Do De Rubber Duck being pulled. It’s a fact that I don’t remember knowing about until this past year. In fact, it was last shown in season 38, the last to have pre-1990 segments, if it was pulled then then it’s an interesting coincidence. Or maybe they got the complaints and decided to stop showing it after they had actually stopped showing old Jim-era segments (and word got around to the writers).
But despite that, Sesame Workshop never pulled it’s official upload of the segment (and I think it actually is among the fairly small amount of classic clips still available at sesame street.org), and it was just recently included on the 50 Years and Counting DVD (I think it’s also shown up in some of Sesame Street’s recent online compilations, I want to say a clip was in that “50 years in 50 seconds” montage).
Though I also wonder if maybe they removed it some time in the past and then brought it back (maybe after the public became more accepting of that lifestyle, even though that’s not the segments intent). I remember really wanting to see that segment again in the late-1990s but not catching a broadcast, it’s been a while since I last checked “what links here” for the segment but I think it did air at some point in season 25 (and clips showed up in both anniversary specials), during season 30 I was able to watch the show on a more daily basis and I did watch every day, in part because I thought I’d eventually catch it if I watched every day (barely being aware at the time that segments might have been pulled for any reason, and not thinking that they might have so many segments that they couldn’t possibly air everything every season -especially not when the last 15 minutes were now dedicated to Elmo’s World). It would make sense if maybe they removed it from circulation then but changed their minds by season 34.