Ponder
August 11, 2011
The facebooks and Twitts are all aflundered about Sesame Street’s statement that Bert & Ernie are just friends*, not gay** and can’t have sexual orientation***.
One of the more hilarious things said by the humorless minority is along the lines of “Stop ruining my childhood memories!!”
Seriously?
Realizing that your take on the world as a child was narrow, naive and sheltered is some big disturbance to you?
—
*right
**uh-huh, sure.
***cough*MissPiggy*cough*Kermit*cough*cough*
DrugMonkey 
August 12, 2011 at 4:31 am
Well, then there’s Toot and Puddle:
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August 12, 2011 at 4:50 am
And these dodgy gents, too, Namnezia
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August 12, 2011 at 4:54 am
Bert and Ernie are NOT GAY.
… they are, however, in a pansexual polyamorous 24/7 M/S relationship with each other and the pigeons. But they are GIRL pigeons.
Geeze. Everybody knows that.
/disturbed childhood
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August 12, 2011 at 6:54 am
I haven’t been following this at all, but any issues of confusion regarding Bert & Ernie land squarely at the feet of Jim Henson. The ambiguity has existed since the beginning & Henson even had fun with it once in a while. My favorite example is from the Muppet Show pilot:
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August 12, 2011 at 9:13 am
Holy shit, what’s next King Friday from Mr. Rogers is a tranny??? Who cares, I fucking love Evil Bert and Ernie
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August 12, 2011 at 9:51 am
One time I was at this massive party out on Fire Island in The Pines, and holey fuckeoley! Ernie and Bert were fucken PLASTERED, and Bert was giving Ernie a reacharound while Ernie had like five massive cockes in his mouth simultaneously. IT WAS FUCKEN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
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August 12, 2011 at 10:20 am
Imagine when kiddos who were raised on Thomas the Train videos narrated by Carlin run across his comedy routines….”oh, my tender youthful memories are in shambles!”
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August 12, 2011 at 11:10 am
Thanks for simultaneously reminding me of a reason why I love Avenue Q and about Thomas the Train Engine with George Carlin. Why would Sesame Street worry about Bert and Ernie now? Think that pigeon flew the coop a long time ago…
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August 12, 2011 at 1:15 pm
The reason this is coming up now is because some joker started a petition
http://www.change.org/petitions/let-bert-ernie-get-married-on-sesame-street#signatures
Sesame Street Response was on their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/SesameStreet
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August 12, 2011 at 8:10 pm
I do not think it’s a joke, DM. I mean, my response (which is aimed at mocking those that are askance at the idea) is. But I don’t think the reasoning behind the petition is factious.
There is a long history of progressive groups (Latinos and feminists) pushing for Sesame to get more enlightened. This is just the next step.
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August 14, 2011 at 2:59 pm
As long as we’re gonna get all serious about this, are there male-female pairs of characters on Sesame Street who are portrayed as married, but no same-sex pairs?
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August 14, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Yes, there are male-female pairs of human adult married characters (e.g. Gordon and Susan, they have an adopted son http://www.sesamestreet.org/onair/cast/roscoe_orman). I just watched a DVD collection of sesame street. Gordon and Susan sang about being best friends as well as ‘an old married couple’, it was very sweet. Big bird and snuffy sang about being best friends too (although not married, obviously. for the record, big bird is supposed to be perpetually six years old. Most of the muppet characters are conceived as children, which may partially explain why it’s creepy to talk about them having sex lives).
As far as it goes, GLBT human characters (not muppets) who got married would likely satisfy the serious side of the bert & ernie petitioners.
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August 15, 2011 at 8:02 am
Well, DM, but Frog and Toad don’t really live together. And Toad is embarrassed to be seen by Frog in his bathing suit.
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August 16, 2011 at 9:45 am
This, plus the new biracial Spiderman, is destroying the fabric of Amurica.
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