April 8, 2005

Vegans like Cookies, too.



From CNN:

Truglio said "Sesame Street" also will introduce new characters, such as talking eggplants and carrots, and offer parodies, such as "American Fruit Stand."

For a while now I have felt Sesame Street's singular dominance of children's educational programming to stem more from its clever appeal to the parents of young children (i.e. the controllers of remote controls), than from any specific genius engagement, through the content of the show, of the children themselves. For Sesame Street, though lacking any unique brilliance in content (as opposed to, say, Teletubbies, which deliberately structured its format entirely around an understanding of the developing child mind), has never lacked popularity in American homes. Do kids have the cultural context for REM, or "American Fruit Stand" (presumably a parody of American Band Stand)? No, and I really doubt they give a shit. Yet Sesame Street continually places an emphasis on these sort of nostalgic cameos in its format; it seems like everytime I turn on the fucking show I get bombarded by baby-boomer irony, and that generation's unique brand of totally unfun sensibility.

Case in point for today: this article. I am sorry- but even though I liked cookies as a child, and even though I liked cookie monster as a child, I don't remember ever conspiring to eat cookies all day, speak in a retarded voice, or turn blue. Well, whatever. Chalk another one up for the folks over at Sesame Street, and the rest of the god damned baby boomer generation that has enabled their rise to power: They've created a playground where my parents can once again find their youth, by paving wholly over those little eccentricities that made my own childhood worthwhile.

To the children of today I can only say: hang in there. You parents may be playing with your toys, throwing out the cookies to reduce their own middle-aged paunches, and leaving you daily in the hands of a cold corporate empire hellbent on retreading a pitiful fascimile of mom and dad's faded ideologies and cultural heroes back to you... (whew) but I'm pretty sure they'll all be gone soon.

Because they're old. And old people are pretty good at dying.

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