Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? Nope. Sorry.

Chorus: Oh what is the letter we love?/ The sound that we're extra fond of?/ It's not any trouble-you/ Know it's a W/ When you hear wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh!

Verse: Without this fine letter/ You couldn't say wash/ Or which, wax, or wiggle/ My gosh./ There wouldn't be wet, warm, or walrus, oh wow!/ There wouldn't be "wood." Would there now?/ Without this fine wuh sound/ Well wink would be ink!/ And week would be eek,/ Don't you see?/ Of course,/ A fine word like waffle/ Would turn out just "affle" (awful)/ Oh W's grand as can be!"/

Repeat chorus

That was a rendition of the "W" song from Sesame Street. The National Association of 'W' Lovers. Bert is awesome.

There is also a real-life National Association of W Lovers started in 2002 by Jerry 'W' Floyd as a Sesame Street fan group. It is based in Alabama and meets every Wednesday. (according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_W_Lovers)


Anyway, did you hear about the Old School Sesame Street DVDs that were coming out? It was old Sesame Street episodes from the 70s and early 80s. The weird thing is that they said these weren't recommended for children. Say WHAT?

I read a blog somewhere about this that the author did some investigating and contacted Sesame Street to ask why children shouldn't watch the same children's show that we grew up watching. Their answer? Becuase in the early days of Sesame, Oscar the Grouch was orange. ORANGE! And, that the person who played Gordon was a different actor. An actor who had a brief role as a waiter or something on the Show Sex in the City. (ummmm... wasn't that like decades later?)

(side note: I told my mother this story and she said that they must have thier facts wrong about this Gordon guy because she heard that he committed suicide back in the day. That THAT's why they put a parental discretion on these Sesame Eps. I donno.)

But according to the Blog I read, Sesame street claims this descretion is based on children getting confused about an orange, not green, Oscar the Grouch, and a different Gordon. I'm sorry, but I don't see this being a huge issue. Kids are learning new things all of the time. If they can tell the difference between orange and green I think that they'd be able to understand that Oscar can be different colors. Parents just have to take a minute to explain it to them. And if they can't well, don't buy the DVDs.

My generation grew up with 2 different colors of Oscar and I think we turned out ok.(whatever Ok means) Did that one thing traumatize us into depths of despair and confusion that lasts through our entire lives? I hope not. And if people are so worried about their kid being scarred by a different Gordon, that you can't explain the concept of "pretend" and the essence of "fictional television" then I think you're out of luck. They're going to be exposed to much worse the older they get. This won't be the worst of your problems when your kindergarten kid comes home saying words like "fuck" because they took the time to sound it out and read it on the wall in their school bathroom (now sound it out.... F----u----k) or get suspended for fighting or something. Now that's real stuff that parents should worry about.