I had a thought...

[D'Snowth]

If parents made such a big deal out of Alistair Cookie having a smoking pipe (even if he didn't actually smoke it), why didn't they think to make it a bubble pipe? Kids love those things, and I'm sure seeing Cookie blow bubbles out of a pipe wouldn't have done much "harm".

 

[Drtooth]

It makes me wonder if the pipe was just a one off joke, having it just so he could eat it that one time. And if him eating that pipe would be either a running gag, or just funny once.

Still, he doesn't smoke it. Popeye never smoked his pipe, and uses it for tooting or as a straw for eating spinach in certain situations... used it as a blowtorch a couple times.

 

[D'Snowth]

He had the pipe more than once, most of those original MONSTERPIECE THEATER segments were retaped without the pipe.

 

[Bridget]

I think it was just a harmless joke.

 

[salemfan]

If parents made such a big deal out of Alistair Cookie having a smoking pipe (even if he didn't actually smoke it), why didn't they think to make it a bubble pipe? Kids love those things, and I'm sure seeing Cookie blow bubbles out of a pipe wouldn't have done much "harm".

It's kind of too close to the real thing and in fact considered mock smoking. I have seen children's media in which they have made characters smoke bubble pipes instead of the real thing, and we kind of know it's supposed to be smoking. In fact, people I have talked to agree that bubble pipes are like candy cigarettes.

In the skit in which Ernie plays Old King Cole they probably used a bubble pipe because they didn't know how to rewrite the rhyme. BUT they could have had Alistair Cookie with a lollipop because those are not mock smoking. In fact, we are taught that "If one wants to suck on something, he/she should suck a lollipop instead of smoking."

 

[YellowYahooey]

The same thing could be said about Mr. Chatterly in the three original "Alphabet Chat" sketches, which were all produced in the 1970s. He was seen holding a pipe as his chair rotates around to reveal the host as the famous opening theme is heard. I don't think he was seen smoking a pipe, but did he have a pipe in his mouth in the beginning of any of those segments?

I don't know if bubble pipes were even a thing back in the 1970s when "Alphabet Chat" and "Monsterpiece Theater" sketches debuted.

 

[salemfan]

I don't know if bubble pipes were even a thing back in the 1970s when "Alphabet Chat" and "Monsterpiece Theater" sketches debuted.

The Wikipedia article on bubble pipes says bubble pipes existed when "Alphabet Chat" and "Monsterpiece Theater" sketches debuted.