Thrillingly, the early episodes of Sesame Street have just been released on DVD, but be warned – those shows are dangerous! Slapped across the front of the case is the message, “These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” And looking at the wobbly sets and be-stringed puppets, they probably are better suited to sentimental adults than kids raised on Pixar. But this sticker is an expression of concern.
It’s not the psychedelic nature of the programme in its 70s incarnation that worries, but the behaviour it might encourage. Children dancing in the street! Grown men reading storybooks to kids – for no apparent reason!
Cookie Monster is the number one problem, not because he is a monster, but because he eats cookies (encourages obesity), and when his addiction takes a special stranglehold, the plate (might hurt). His alter ego, Alistair Cookie, used to smoke a pipe before eating it, which, Sesame Street producer Carol-Lynn Parente explained to the New York Times, “modelled the wrong behaviour”, and so Alistair was, tragically, dropped, and he now probably munches down on pipes in bitterness in illegal pipe dens.
The clearly depressed Oscar the Grouch is another problem: “We might not be able to create a character like Oscar today,” said Parente, which is possibly one of the most depressing sentences I have read in my life.