Sesame Street’s 46th season premiered on HBO today, with back-to-back half-hour episodes (the shortened run time, down from hourlong shows, is “is viewed as a more manageable amount of time for children to focus,” according to a recent New York Times piece). With the new episodes’ controversial move from PBS to a…
For more than four decades, the television show Sesame Street has existed to teach children lessons. Today’s lesson is that people without disposable household income are in an inferior position and should be happy to receive secondhand goods.
The documentary I Am Big Bird—following the life of veteran muppeteer Caroll Spinney—doesn’t premiere until next week, but many of the film’s most interesting details are out today thanks to the New York Post. Among them: Spinney is related to Barack Obama, has used the suit to hide his tears and was a planned…
Christoph Waltz, best known as "the Jew Hunter" in Inglourious Basterds, is perhaps not the first person who comes to mind when you think of grown-ups who love Sesame Street. There's quite some dissonance between the serious Austrian actor and sunny days and/or everything being A-OK. So you'd be surprised how chipper…
In a dry spell without Last Week Tonight, we're still getting plenty of John Oliver. He spoofed Sesame Street in a segment about prisons last month, and now he's teamed up with Cookie Monster to anchor a news show about vocabulary words. It's sort of like Last Week Tonight, but with less cursing and more monsters.
Another chapter is closed in the long, strange tale of the Elmo sex scandal. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer and voice behind Sesame Street's beloved red monster, has been cleared of three charges of improper sexual relations with teenage boys.
Now that the third season of Sherlock has aired, Benedict Cumberbatch has some free time. So he did what anyone in his position would do: He stopped by Sesame Street to help "solve" a math problem.
Sesame Street is starting its 44th year of raising children to be compassionate, compromising, and comprehensive adults with a permanent inner child brimming with wonder and imagination.
It's been a rough year for people who make their living masquerading as beloved children's characters in New York City. Last summer, there was the sad case of Central Park's Jew-hating Elmo (who, by the way, is named Adam Sandler). Two months ago, a man dressed as Spider-Man in Times Square claimed to be the victim…
It's Friday afternoon. You've just about finished pretending to do actual work, and you want to go home. Now.
Poor Elmo: Earlier today, a third man announced a lawsuit against Kevin Clash, accusing the Elmo voice actor of instigating a relationship with the man in 2000, when the alleged victim was just 16. The accuser, who is going by "John Doe" for now, says he met Clash on a gay chat line, where the two talked for several…
At a press conference this afternoon, Cecil Singleton, the second person to accuse Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash of underage sex in as many weeks, sought to clarify exactly what his relationship with Clash entailed.
Sheldon Stephens, the "struggling model" behind the underage sex scandal involving Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash who recanted his accusations last week after reportedly receiving an out-of-court settlement of $125,000 has changed his mind yet again, and is now looking to undo the settlement and retract his recantation.
As the Elmo Sex Scandal — one of the top two current Sex Scandals in the United States — draws to an anticlimactic close, parents across the country have been left wondering: how can I explain to my children that Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who provides Elmo with life has been accused of having sex with a 16-year-old,…
If we learn one thing from the November scandals, it will probably be that no one should ever communicate with another person if they desire sex with them. Especially via email.
Allegations of sex with a 16-year-old boy have temporarily forced out the man responsible for voicing one of the most beloved Sesame Street characters of all time.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stopped by Sesame Street last week to offer young girls and boys some dream shattering-career advice, which basically boils down to: you'll never, ever be a princess, so start studying for law school now. The clip is actually adorable, and shows Sotomayor defining, in very kid…
Yesterday, Gawker writer Neetzan Zimmerman brought our attention to the dark world of "needlessly sexy" Halloween costumes. Today ABC News has a special report on one particular iteration — the "sassy Big Bird."
It's been nearly a week since the first presidential debate, but the Obama campaign hopes Mitt Romney's Big Bird gaffe is still strong enough in the minds of voters that an ad lampooning the GOP nominee's vow to "crack down on Sesame Street" will slow down the post-debate momentum evident in the latest Pew Research…
