Sesame Street, Elmo, and Kevin Clash

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Over the past few weeks, a mini-drama has been growing over Kevin Clash, who voices Elmo, the little red Sesame Street monster.

 

 

First there was a man who claimed that Clash had relations with him while he was under 18; then he recanted his claim. Since then, however, two other men have come forward with the same story.

 

 

Oh dear.

 

 

I love Sesame Street, and the Muppets. During this past Presidential election, Mitt Romney said he was ready to end funding of PBS and CTW, the homeland of Sesame Street, and there was a backlash: people claimed (very fairly) that Mitt Romney wanted to kill Big Bird, inspiring images like this:

 

 

Well, Obama won the election.

 

 

And now it turns out that the voice of Elmo is a child molester.

 

 

Awful? Of course. But oddly timed. I can’t help wondering if this is Republican reprisal for the election, to weaken PBS as a whole. I wonder if they’ve been digging for dirt on PBS, and finally found some.

 

 

Clash, if guilty, should be punished. But PBS should not be punished.

 

 

The mission of PBS is to make America a little smarter. It made me smarter, back in the 1970s. As for expense: they (together with NPR) receive one one-hundredth of one percent of the Federal budget, for God’s sake!

 

 

If we have to jettison Kevin Clash, fine.

 

 

But let’s not jettison PBS.

 

 

Let your representatives and senators know how you feel about this.

 

 

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PBS

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Public television, when I was a kid in the 1960s, was a weak and watery thing.  It was the fifth and feeblest of the stations broadcasting where I lived (the others were the three major networks and a local independent station that mostly showed old movies and reruns).  PBS (in Portland: KOAP / Channel 10) was always full of static, and often faded in and out.  My mother didn’t like it when I watched it; she was afraid that the static actually harmed the TV set.  (People – especially my mother – believed lots of crazy things in those days.)

 

 

I was a nerdy child, and I was fascinated by the bizarre variety of shows on Channel 10: cooking shows, language shows (I remember “Beginning Finnish”), college lectures. (Frankly, I got some part of my education, and my intellectual curiousity, from Channel 10, and god bless them for it.)

 

 

Something happened in the late 1960s.  “Sesame Street.”  “Masterpiece Theatre.”  All of a sudden, people were watching public TV, and talking about it.

 

 

It’s a pillar of the temple nowadays: news programs, science, commentary, foreign programming, odd programming.  Who else would have broadcast an entire series of Peter Brook’s “Mahabharata”?  Who else would show an animated version of the “Popol Vuh”?

 

 

Cable has taken away some of PBS's uniqueness, but PBS is still free, still broadcasting away.

 

 

And the Republicans have always hated it, and want to take away its federal funding.

 

 

Kids: tell the Republicans to go to hell. Vote Democrat, and give to PBS.

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For Sunday: “I’m a Hard-workin’ Dog,” from Sesame Street

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This video is from Sesame Street’s very earliest days.  I used to watch the show (though I was much too old for it) because I was fascinated by the creativity of the puppetry and animation and videos, and I was (at least dimly) aware that there was often a more mature humorous subtext.

 

 

This video is without subtext: it is what it is.  I’ve never forgotten it, or the song in it.  I can still sing it in my sleep, and I probably do.

 

 

“All I know how to do is teach a hundred cows some manners.”

 

 

Enjoy.

 

 

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