I write to tell you how much I value your bold, principled stand on the scourge of minds and drain on the treasury that is…a puppet. May I encourage you, please, to stand fast on this; it is long past time that brave voices like yours made sure such travesties receive no support from right thinking Americans and their leaders….
…which is to say, dear Balloon-Juicers, that I deeply enjoyed this morning’s pundit roundup at the Great Orange Satan, in which was documented what seems to have been the only truly memorable moment from Wednesday’s debate. The shorter: in a venue in which the forces of darkness planned to unveil the RomneyBot v. 4.0, now with empathy module implemented, the programming turned out to be, well, not quite bug-free.
For all the alpha male stuff, and the energy level, and the spectacular and at least temporarily successful rewriting of the Romney plan and platform, what regular people and a fair subset of the punditocracy seem to recall was that awkward bit where the man who likes to fire people told everyone he was going to kill off a large, cuddly, yellow bird.
Hence, stuff like this from Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon:
[D]espite coming out of the evening looking stronger than he has in weeks — Romney made the error of looking like a man who is not on the side of innocence, whimsy, learning or childhood. Nor did he seem to grasp that Big Bird is an integral part of a show that was created for and remains at its core about community and diversity, one that has for decades been an essential tool in helping low-income children prepare for school. Going after Big Bird is like putting down baseball and rainbows and YouTube videos of otter pups. You just don’t.
Also, these metrics caught my eye:
The phrase “Big Bird” was appearing 17,000 times every minute on Twitter. At midnight, CNN reported that mentions of Big Bird on Facebook were up an astronomical 800,000%. Facebook later said Big Bird was the fourth most-mentioned topic on Facebook during the debate, getting more attention than topics like jobs, taxes, Jim Lehrer and Obamacare.
(Both quotes via the original DKos roundup, btw.)
I remain amazed at the Romney campaign’s ability to spin lead out of gold. Really: he had a good debate, just about as good as it was possible to imagine, given his own strong performance and President Obama’s seemingly tired and distracted one. Leave aside for a moment the medium-to-long game of taking apart all the BS that he spewed, which is already putting in play the issues of trust and character that will IMHO flow to the President’s benefit. The debate itself was clearly the best 90 minutes the Romney folks have had for a very long time.
Yet and yet and yet…Big Bird!
The line had all the sound of a prepared zinger, which, if true, means that someone with access to RomneyBot source code actually thought it was a good idea to personalize their device by cutting the throat of a fictional character beloved by millions. And if it wasn’t rehearsed, that’s in some ways worse. It means Romney revealed just a bit of himself, that gay-bashing bully-mean guy character Ann keeps assuring us doesn’t exist. If offing Big Bird just burbled out of his head and mouth on the spot? Not a pretty window into the notional soul of a man who would be president.
Either way, of course, I’m grateful. Way to douse the glow of your big night, big fella.
Oh…and one more thing. Mitt? Yo! Mr. Romney?
Can I ask a favor. Really, not a big one. OK?
Here goes:
Would you, oh could you, please, please, pleeeeeeze…
…..persist in performing your blanket hornpipe with that oversize fictive fowl?
Image: Peter Jakon Horemans, Still Life with Plucked Chicken, Apples and Beets, 1768.
Cross posted at Inverse Square.
schrodinger's cat
Isn’t cutting funding to PBS or defunding it,one of the shibboleths of the conservative movement? Something that George Will and a tea-partier can agree upon. Romney was just speaking wingnut, that’s all.
JCT
Rafalca may have missed a medal but Romney gets the gold in stepping on one’s dick.
Oh, and Mitt, way to go on shoring up that women’s vote. Bumping off Big Bird is golden.
eric
Big Bird: the new yellow menace.
dedc79
He would’ve done better to go after that Les Miserables anniversary special that seems to air five times a week for the past few years, at least on my local PBS network
geg6
Heh. After being a bit down in the dumps over the debate the other night, I laughed and laughed all last evening and this morning because all the debate coverage on the local news was about how Mitt Romney wants to fire Big Bird. And how people were coming to Big Bird’s defense and weren’t very amused by that little “zinger” of Mittens’.
Culture of Truth
“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything… can’t debate so change numbers”
— Jack Welch (@jack_welch)
So 114,000 is both much too low and so high as to be obviously fraudulent
eric
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, but he could have said: “Yes, i would defund the propoganda wing of PBS as I dont think it speaks for all americans while using money from all americans; but, of course, i wont kill Big Bird. My kids grew up on Ernest and Bartholomew.”
c u n d gulag
The Koch Brothers HATE puppets who aren’t directly on their payroll!
Culture of Truth
Should have gone with Wayne Dyer
schrodinger's cat
@dedc79: What about the BBC dramas, too elitist, or does their Anglosaxonness help?
MikeJ
http://imgur.com/gallery/X4Bz7
http://imgur.com/gallery/OY5R7
http://imgur.com/5syiN
Culture of Truth
@jack_welch
love ya jack but here you’ve lost your mind
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee)
peach flavored shampoo
Yes, but Yahoo news tells me that there were smiles and laughs on Romney’s plane yesterday. So clearly he’s going to win and stuff.
Culture of Truth
Speaking of PBS, Ken Burns is airing a film soon about the kids convicted in NYC notorious “wilding” attack who turned out to be innocent. That should drive the wingnuts crazy.
Tom Levenson
@peach flavored shampoo: Soundtrack for the plane today:
dedc79
@schrodinger’s cat: I think it’d be risky because he has the look of a character on one of those shows.
Culture of Truth
Moderator:
“What about Bert and Ernie?”
Romney:
“I love them. It’s a Wonderful Life is a fabulous movie about a job creator who rescues a crappy town.”
maya
Excellent observation, TL. Just what I was thinking about Mitt’s glee at announcing that he would fire Big Bird (and Leher). Must have brought back pleasing memories of his HS gay hair-cutting days.
SiubhanDuinne
@eric:
“Ernest and Bartholomew.” Heh.
Princess
My hunch is the Big Bird thing is something he sometimes says on the stump to rapturous applause, and he forgot the whole country is not a mirror of his stump speech audiences. He probably has no clue why it has become such a big deal.
amk
The bot, however much programmed into x.o version, can’t hide its inner core of creepiness and hideousness that was cultured and developed in the bain petri dish.
eric
This is whom Romney wants to kill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrZyMptC2eQ
harumph
Jerzy Russian
@schrodinger’s cat:
To be fair to the conservatives, funding for PBS and the NEA is something like 85% of the federal budget, and if we are serious about cutting back, we need to go for the really big programs first.
shoutingattherain
And I know this is from nothing, but doesn’t the majority funding for “Frontline” come from the Koch Foundation?
Cassidy
@JCT:
I’m going to borrow this later. I have friends/family who are Romney supporters. If they only knew that trolling FB has become a hobby of mine.
Cassidy
If romneybot were programmed using iOS instead of that garbage Android, then he’d be in the lead.
Mino
Christ, his first complete sentences were “You’re fired, Jim. And yur yellow bird, too.” And then Lehrer rolled over and show him his tummy. Gads.
That’s his sense of humor.
schrodinger's cat
@Princess: He doesn’t realize that not everyone speaks Wingnut.
Omnes Omnibus
@dedc79: That only gets shown during pledge months – you know the months with and without an r in them.
lamh35
BTW, Romneys reaction to unemployment/job numbers… “this is not what a real recovery looks like”. umm ok Mitt
suzanne
I watched the debate with that ridiculous positive/negative moving graph of Colorado’s undecided voters, and when Romney was getting all pissy about fuckin’ BIG BIRD, his approval from women was dramatically lower than that from men. Can’t help but think that women know what sort of shit will go down in their houses without a few blessed moments of Big Bird placating the children.
If, somehow, Romney stopped Barney reruns, I wouldn’t vote against him. I’d have to have him flogged in the town square.
Wapiti
@maya: Yeah, I thought his demeanor there was way off. He lit up, where his words called for a somber look. Heck, he was telling a Lehrer, in public, that his job needed to go.
Stephanie
Reactions across the web to the Big Bird gaffe:
http://mashable.com/2012/10/03/big-bird-mitt-romney/
Cassidy
@suzanne: Transition to Yo Gabba Gabba. They have much cooler guests.
eric
@Wapiti: after watching the debate, do any of us really disagree that Lehrer should go or perhaps Big Bird should have moderated the debate?
joeyess
Okay, you lost me at the end… are you still talking about Big Bird? Or is that a reference to Ann?
Jerzy Russian
@eric: I had not seen that clip before. That was awesome, and very sad at the same time. Would Mitt also fire the late Fred Rogers, if he were around to be fired?
Joey Maloney
The Salon writer’s name is Mary Elizabeth WILLIAMS, and she deserves a correct citation.
Sarah
Mary Elizabeth *Williams*. She’s a friend of mine.
eric
@Jerzy Russian: i had not seen it either…though after I watched the Graham Chapman memorial from Cleese just to smile a little.
Joey Maloney
@Sarah: Jinx, you owe me a Coke!
Tom Levenson
@joeyess: It’s a reference to this, modified for the subject at hand, and translated into something you can say in front of the kittehs.
Tom Levenson
@Joey Maloney: @Sarah:
Apologies. Fix’t.
Memo-to-self: do not blog before second cup of coffee.
FlipYrWhig
Oh, he totally means it, because his “brand,” and that of Republicans in general, involves saying that the government does too many things that ought to be left to the free market to sink or swim on their own. (Birds, obvs, swim.)
SW
Everyone seemed to be wondering what O was doing Tuesday night. The fact is that he was producing a gold mine of campaign commercials. His job was to avoid the impulse to step on the Romnibot as he was taping the left hand side of the split screen commercials where we have the October Romney who says one thing and the Republican Primary Romney who says EXACTLY the opposite and then the narrator asks the question, “Which Romney is the LIAR or are they both?”
bemused
How does Mitt explain to his grandkids that he wants to kill Big Bird? Do Mormons not let their kids watch Sesame Street?
Todd
I eagerly await the end of what little smart programming there is for free, because cable now has sooooooo much to offer, what with there being endless “Honey Boo Boo” on The Learning Channel, “Ice Road Truckers” and “Axe Men” and “Ancient Aliens” on The History Channel, “Texas Car Wars” and “American Chopper” on Discovery, Adam Richman eating like a pig on The Travel Channel….
Bring on the Brawndo, especially since the only place we’ll get to catch stuff like NOVA or “Downton Abbey” or “Foyles War” or a Ken Burns series will be via Netflix.
Jerzy Russian
@Stephanie:
OK, some of those were really funny.
eric
@SW: You and I agree….notice how there is nothing about what Obama said, but what he did not say, which translates into no commercials. As I said that night, I just think he did not know how to respond because he was thinking too much about how to avoid stepping on Romney’s BS. I tend to share his temperment and that is what happens to me when I am arguing in court and the other side is going down in flames — you just shut up and let them sink, you dont hand them anchors because you never know if the thing you think is an anchor is something the judge thinks hurts you. that is my uninformed sense …
YellowJournalism
I’m just glad he said Big Bird instead of Elmo. The bird has taken a backseat to that little red menace for far too long!
(Of course, this also demonstrates how completely out of touch Romney is. Big Bird hasn’t been popular for years. And lord help Grover!)
geg6
@joeyess:
He wants him to keep on fucking that chicken.
Tom Levenson is obviously a much classier person than I am, so I have no problem calling it what it is as plainly as possible. But, I must say, I’ve been enjoying his elegant re-phrasing over the last few days. Things of beauty, they are.
Bill E Pilgrim
I was saying this that night. Yes Romney looked “confident” and aggressive and Obama seemed sort of oddly subdued (which the right wing has now turned into “arrogant” and “seemed insulted that he was being second-guessed” — huhnh? They just have this little movie in their heads, don’t they) but the only thing I thought would stick at all was the Big Bird crack.
The big “OMG Obama was horrible!” festival surprised me, but all he has to do is act aggressive as well one time, and it will reverse that entirely. Romney isn’t able to reverse the “Mr Monopoly wants to fire Big Bird” meme though, partly because it’s what everyone already thought about him.
MikeJ
Don’t you think that’s why he wants to kill it?
mdblanche
@Princess: I forget at which one, but he said the same thing before at one of the primary debates. Nobody outside Wingnut World noticed then, but this time regular people were paying attention. Too bad for Romney his zingers fell flat and the President was playing it safe so that this was the only memorable thing said at the debate. It’s starting to take some of the luster off of that VICTORY!(TM)
Augie
Holy cow people, we are grasping for straws here…Look, Romney’s “alpha-male” performance on Wednesday night isn’t really going to affect the outcome of this race anymore than a “gaffe” about de-funding Big Bird. The fact that 17,000 true believers were twittering about Big Bird doesn’t tell us anything about how that statement “played” with undecided voters (answer – not at all). It’s a debate people. Get a grip. Romney will experience a momentary bounce (like the convention) and then settle back into his 3-4 point deficit. We don’t have to be casting around for silver linings. Let’s chill out and enjoy the three-day weekend.
japa21
Being 36 hours removed from the debate, I have a better feeling about it. As a few people have said, what matters most is not who wins the debate, but who wins the few days after it. Kerry definitely won the debate with Bush when he mentioned Bush saying he really didn’t think about OBL very much. The was the main topic of discussion in the immediate aftermath.
But when you woke up the next morning all you heard was about how he disrespected the Cheney family by mentioning that they had a lesbian daughter and how that crossed the boundary of decency (even though that was common knowledge).
Well, most of what you heard yesterday was about Big Bird being fired. Romney definitely said more things that can be used as sound bites against him, and they have already started.
Plus the economic news today, with the UE down to 7.8% takes a lot of wind out of Romney’s sails about the economy not recovering.
Romney may have won Wednesday night, but I am pretty confident he lost yesterday, and will lose the next few days at the least.
schrodinger's cat
@bemused: If its angel Moroni, why are they Mormons not Morons?
Gian
doesn’t the show have a happy integrated cast? with ya know minority kids?
maya
One comment on D-Kos yesterday:
“Million Muppet March to the Mall, Nov 4”
brought to you by the letters F-U.
bemused
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hah.
Tom Levenson
@japa21: Dude. We’re just having some fun here. Japing and pointing at Romney follies is recreation, OK?
Shorter: Lighten up, Francis.
ETA: And yup, this should have been a reply to the prior comment. Apologies japa21. See above about the perils of insufficiently caffeinated posting.
nitpicker
And, I know this is small potatoes, but it’s worth pointing out that this smarmy fucker couldn’t even debate without cheating.
MikeJ
@Tom Levenson: I think he was agreeing with you.
eric
@Tom Levenson: thanks sgt hulka
Seanly
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, that’s a tough call. However, since most of the new BBC shows that we get are about working class blokes, I’d guess that Rmoney wouldn’t have any trouble ditching them.
Or they could retool PBS and make it about how us 99% slobs should treat our betters.
amk
@japa21: But, but … I am told that jon stew-rat was having a poutragegasm y’day while at the same time scorning the poutragegasm of tweety.
maya
@Tom Levenson: I think you meant to direct that to: Augie @ 56
And why is this a 3 day weekend? Is there a holiday I’m missing here?
nitpicker
@maya: Columbus Day.
Jerzy Russian
@maya:
Damn, I wish I thought of that. I need to train harder.
blingee
I came on here fully expecting breathless posts about the drop in unemployment rate from Greenwald booger eater Cole and DougJ the wonder boy but alas…nothing from the know nothings? Surely something is amiss. I mean they clearly want to inform just like they do when the news is bad…..rrrright???
Cermet
Romney is dead meat with this fantastic jobs report. Unemployment has fallen to 7.8%, Aug/May jobs has been revised upward and the economy is getting stronger; if fuel prices hold (and they are, after falling some) looks like smooth sailing for President Obama. I’ll take a huge drop in unemployment over a fake debate win ANY day. This is really GREAT NEWS! The Pres has it covered! Talk about a big win when you need it! The economy is gaining strength.
maya
@nitpicker: Oh, sweet Jesus on a petard. How could I forget the arrival of free enterprise to the Americas!
ericblair
@suzanne:
Wait until you’ve seen (or heard) every frigging Barney episode three times over. Then you might rethink this.
@Augie:
With pervasive media now, each “campaign event” makes a hiccup and a fart and things go back to their existing trajectory. I’m wondering what a real game changer would have to look like: projective vomiting and/or a Tourette’s seizure might do it, but even then I’m not convinced.
amk
@blingee: panicky troll ?
mdblanche
@amk: I’m about ready to quit The Daily Show forever. WTF is Jon Stewart doing this weekend? He’s going to have a shouting head match-up with Bill O’Reilly?! The man who took down Tucker Carlson for hurting America with those things? Maybe he has a surprise planned, but since he and O’Reilly are friends in real life (no, really) I doubt it. Stewart stared into the abyss too long. Now it’s stared back and eaten his soul.
Cassidy
@blingee: Damn. Another day. Another day you didn’t get hit by a bus. Oh well, is what it is. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Two months’ worth of rehearsing scripted zingers and the takeaway from the first debate is that Romney wants to fire Big Bird. Rather than fire Big Bird, Romney ought to consider firing the people who prepped him for the debate.
LD50
@Culture of Truth: Funny how Chicago is now the wingnuts’ go-to geographic demon. As a lifelong Californian, I’m kind of glad to pass the mantle on to someone else.
schrodinger's cat
@mdblanche: I stick to Colbert, watch Stewart occasionally. What did Jon Broder Stewart do now?
maya
@blingee: We luvs us the drop in the UE rate, however, we also care about every job that’s needlessly lost through the manipulations of sociopath personalities.
Tom Levenson
@MikeJ: @maya:
You are, of course, both correct. I’ve edited the original comment.
Again — apologies to Japa21. My rudeness was aimed at Augie.
vickijean
The best one on dkos was in a post called Mitt’s Diary where the writer has Mitt saying that bird is the wrong height
Cassidy
Nah. Stewart is a) comfortable and b) has taken on a certain amount of personal responsibility for the employees of TDS. Remeber how he paid som/many of themout of his own pocket during the writer’s strike? Both positions are in direct relation to his ability to maintain the visage of neutrality. My guess is that he used to be more liberal and was simply supplying a bit pragmatic schtick to keep the ratings up. I’m also guessing that he’s been in such close contact with pols and pundits for so long that he can’t help but feel as if both sides really are the same.
Persia
@Stephanie: OMG that official @SesameStreet tweet is hilarious.
kvenlander
@nitpicker:
You mean Indigenous People’s Day. Greetings from Berkeley, CA.
Matt McIrvin
The line that “Big Bird’s not going away, but Big Bird’s going to have commercials” has been a Republican stump line for a long time; I can’t remember where I heard it last, but it was many months ago.
To tell the truth, though, Big Bird already has commercials: those underwriter ads at the beginning and end of Sesame Street have just gotten more and more obtrusive over the years, and most of the funding for the show doesn’t come from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but from some combination of viewer contributions to PBS, merchandise sales and those ads.
Sesame Street’s an unusual case and would almost certainly find a home in the post-CPB world, since it’s so popular with parents and kids. But a lot of other good stuff would be in trouble, for a really marginal savings in the budget.
maya
@kvenlander:
And YOU really mean, the Demise of Indigenous People’s Day.
From Ambrose Bierce, The Devils Dictionary
Aborigines,n, Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
Somehow appropriate to the subject at hand: Mitt Romney’s mind.
Violet
Romney wants to fire Big Bird. That is going to be the only thing people remember about this debate long term. Just like they remember Bush Sr.’s looking at his watch, Gore’s sigh, Nixon’s sweating. The key takeaway from the debate is that Romney is a heartless bastard, just like Obama has been saying all along.
Not good for Romney.
japa21
@Tom Levenson: No apologies needed, although I admit to a quick WTF moment. But I do understand the perils of precaffeination declarations.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cassidy:
I think Stewart’s problem is that he hit ‘both sides do it’ from the other side. He’s a bit of a Mclaren or Spatula. He presented lots of cheap, emotional interpretations of the news (natural for a comedian), and eventually swallowed them. Now he dislikes anything that doesn’t pass his gut reaction check, so to him it looks like both sides suck! Gitmo isn’t closed, ergo Obama is a liar who supports Bush’s policies on indefinite detention. That kind of thing. The facts about congressional interference don’t even get a walk-on role in that kind of thinking.
Matt McIrvin
…As to why Romney even brought it up, this is just yet another example of stuff that works great with conservative audiences being mis-marketed to a general audience, with disastrous consequences. To hardcore movement conservatives, PBS and NPR are government-funded commie propaganda. They’ve hated Sesame Street ever since it came on the air, partly for the reason Gian mentioned. Spend enough time in the echo chamber and you can forget that these aren’t popular positions. Romney at least tried to moderate the tone so that it would function more as a dogwhistle, but he’d have been better off leaving it out entirely.
Todd
@Matt McIrvin:
The new programming would be awesome. Poirot could hunt down sexy vampires during the 46 minutes of programming stretched across 2 hours, the Downton Abbey girls could spend their days lunging around the pool in bikinis while talking about what a horrible bitch the dowager is, and retooling NOVA to do an onrunning series on the travails of used car salesmen will be really gripping.
Sarah
@Joey Maloney: you bet!
KXB
@LD50:
I wish Chicago were as influential as some of its critics make it out to be. I’ve lived here for most of the past 20 years, and while there are many selling points (and plenty to complain about as well), it does not carry as much political clout as it did in the first half of the 20th century.
Cassidy
@Frankensteinbeck: Too apoint, I agree; he’s been strolling in that forest for way too damn long. But I also think he knows on some level that he can’t go back. Having been around pols and pundits for so long also explains his friendship with O’Reilly and other people we consider ratfuckers. I don’t think it’s any kid of “both sides do it” or Broderholm Complex, but an appreciation for people who (he thinks) says what they really mean.
Honestly, The dude has been hanging around C’Thulu way too long. You run out of sanity points eventually.
RSR
@FireMeElmo is probably my favorite outcome of that remark:
KXB
@Todd:
All you have to do is look at what happened to Bravo, The Learning Channel, and A&E to see what “the market” gives you. All those channels started out with high-brow goals, but decided trash was better. Even MTV, which started out as Music Television, decided it was cheaper to no longer have music.
The market has many admirable selling points. After all, you also have an AMC with Mad Men and Breaking Bad. But you have to sort through a lot of commercial crap to get to it. Like you, I hate how a 60 minute program actually has only 42 minutes of story-time.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne:
And here all this time I thought it was Bertram. Isn’t Bartholomew on the Simpsons? Other yellow menace.
maya
Here’s a glimpse into the new, more corporate friendly, Sesame Street.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@mdblanche:
It does seem like Jon is slowly joining the village, doesn’t it?
So how long before someone like DougJ trolls Stewart?
muddy
@schrodinger’s cat:
I guess it was brought to us by the Letter M. This would be the silver lining in losing Sesame Street, they could take that M back.
As an aside, I don’t like that Elmo, he takes valuable screen time from Grover, who is clearly the better character. Grover rules!
Omnes Omnibus
@muddy: I figured the wrong and long name was part of the brilliance of the comment.
Sparrowgal
I’ll bet the Halloween costume stores have a run on Sesame Street characters this year.
gelfling545
A few of my very nonpolitical friends on face book have posted that they’re going with the Big Bird ticket. They certainly would not have watched the debate and this appears to be the only thing they’ve heard about it.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
Oh Tom, you are so naive! Didn’t you know that Big Bird is gay? Like SpongeBob and Patrick, he is a force of evil helping to groom our kids for the liberal agenda.
/obvious snark
Seriously though….Sesame Street was a very big deal to me as a poor, latch key kid. I have a pic of me sleeping in a crib (at 3 –we didn’t have enough beds, there were 7 of us in a three bedroom house) with a large Big Bird doll next me. He’s on his side and my face is turned to face him….his beak and my nose almost touching. :)
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@Augie:
Do you not understand how politics works? As much as we partisans want it to be rhetorical gladiatorial match is wasn’t – it’s a 90 info commercial to the undecideds.
And what did they take away; R wants fix the country by killing a muppet.
burnspbesq
Dan Larison gets why any debate bounce Romney may get is likely to be ephemeral.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/another-reason-not-to-trust-romney/
There are two ways to frame Romney’s essential problem: one is an Elvis Costello album (Trust), and the other is a Who album. (Who Are You).
shortstop
@gelfling545: The Kill Big Bird ticket or the Save Big Bird ticket?
muddy
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree about the brilliance. I just thought Bertram seemed extra 1%ish.
R-Jud
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Bert and Ernie are gay. Big Bird is just part of the larger communist agenda of Sesame Street.
NotMax
Big Bird = Yellow Peril 2.0
And he’s naked, to boot.
muddy
@Sparrowgal: You can combine muppet costume with one of those “ax through the head” hats.
My son’s lovey from childhood was a stuffed Grover. He is no longer plush, his nickname came to be “The old blue rag” amongst the adults. Muddyson didn’t like that. “Don’ hay dot!”
Once he left Grover outside and it snowed, poor Grover did not reappear for months. Muddyson used to stand fogging up the storm door, nose pressed against the glass, knowing he was out there somewhere. One day in the spring I saw a blue hand stickin out of the snow. The prolonged soak (3-4 months) cleaned him up nicely (I used to have to sneak it out of his arms to wash it at night), but it took the black paint off the eyes, so then he looked like Little Orphan Grover. “Don’ hay dot” either. ;-)
RedKitten
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: No kidding. It’s so multigenerational that it truly has become a family tradition for a lot of people. I was born in ’75, which were the prime Sesame Street years (back when it was funkadelic and cool). I remember Mr. Hooper. And it’s so lovely to be able to share my love for those characters with SamKitten, who sleeps with his stuffed Ernie doll every night.
Sesame Street is just so freaking symbolic of childhood innocence. To put it on the free market and have it destroyed with a ton of commercials would be like plastering bumper stickers on a baby.
gelfling545
@shortstop: Oh definitely Save the Bird!
burnspbesq
The @firemeelmo Twitter feed is unbelievable.
Example: “What do you mean Elmo has to sign a non-compete before he gets his last paycheck?”
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@R-Jud: Well Bert and Ernie were so open about it. I think Big Bird, with his limp wristedness and his mildness is just in the closet.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@RedKitten: I was born in 70 and definitely remember the psychedelia! You’re so right about the innocence aspect. I was thinking about that as I was posting on my blog about Big Bird. I lived in a very rough neighborhood, violence and drugs every where. I wandered around quite a lot on my own without parental supervision so I was constantly on my guard. Sesame Street was pretty much the one and only childish and innocent thing I had in my life. I bet there are millions of kids out there now who feel the same way (but probably just can’t express this yet). Romney and all the right-wing PBS haters can just bite me.
catclub
@KXB: The only broadcast show I watch is Big Bang Theory. As far as I can tell, it is about 9 minutes of show per half hour time block.
Maybe the writers are tired.
catclub
@burnspbesq: Example: “What do you mean Elmo has to sign a non-compete before he gets his last paycheck?”
how about “What do mean Elmo sign non-compete before gets last paycheck?”
edited for elmo-ness
Honus
@eric: funny, I’m a litigator too and your courtroom analogy is exactly what thought of Wednesday night. I often tell young attorneys that a lot of times it is the best thing to do is just be quiet and let your opponent do the work for you.
Just One More Canuck
@RedKitten: Shows like Sesame Street and here in Canada, Mr. Dressup and the Friendly Giant were fantastic. In the mid-90’s, the consulting firm I worked for was doing some work for Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs) and when he came into the office for our meeting, there was a lineup to get his autograph. He was a fantastically funny guy, and said he only got into show business to meet women. Also, one of his best friends was Fred Rogers
LanceThruster
I remember growing up being bored and disgusted with TV. PBS opened up a new world for me. The most interesting and educational programming was on the UHF dial (in SoCal there were two local and one from Orange County). I imagine there are many who are still grateful to have access to this.
Making America strong doesn’t always mean buying more death technology, Mitt.
priscianusjr
It wasn’t a mistake. It was a shout-out to the base.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-sesame-street-spreading-left-wing-propaganda-exec-admits-yes/
priscianusjr
There’s tons of this stuff.
http://madmikesamerica.com/2011/05/should-sesame-street-be-renamed-socialist-street/
priscianusjr
Literally tons.
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/06/big-bird-is-a-totalitarian-liberal.html
LanceThruster
@bemused:
I’m sure there’s some awful LDS equivalent of Veggie Tales where all the tads are white and delightsome.
Sesame Street probably looks too much like Tales from the Hood in Salt Lake City.
LanceThruster
I’m single, no kids but in helping raise various ‘godchildren’ could not help but notice how much joy the characters brought to a little girl who loved her Elmo doll (pronounced “Amo”). She would regularly school me on the life lessons she absorbed about niceness, and sharing, and studying hard, and having fun. It made her a joy to be around and her happy chilhood carried into her young adult life.
LanceThruster
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
There’s a story told by the late Fred Rogers where a man came up to him and said his childhood upbringing was very rough including abuse and just how much it meant to him to feel like he had a friend.
I want my tax dollars to go for things like this rather than more write-offs for Mr. & Mrs. Mittens’ horse dancing.
TenguPhule
So Mitt Romney wants to make Baby Jesus Cry by putting out a hit on the Big Bird.
Southern Beale
He’s already flip-flopped on his 47% comments, he’ll be walking back this one in about 24 hours.
What’s hilarious to me is that the Big Bird comment was the only real “zinger” he got in Wednesday night — and obviously not one of the ones he’d been practicing since August. And it blew up in his face.
YellowJournalism
Ha!
“@BlGBlRD: Hi Mitt Romney. Sesame Street is brought to you today by the number 7.8%. #UnemploymentDown #DontCutMyJob #StillHiding”
LanceThruster
@TenguPhule:
Although, to be fair to Mittens, Bert, of Bert and Ernie fame was a known associate of Osama bin Laden.
LanceThruster
@YellowJournalism:
xD
LanceThruster
There needs to be a video of Mitt carrying in a tray of “FORTY-SEVEN COCONUT CREAM PIES!”
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism: Someone just won the Internets right there. :)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I have to wear Cookie Monster tonight in honor of this foolishness.
(C’mon, guys, it’s me. You knew it was going to be twisted.)
LanceThruster
Rmoney has the same features as the Muppet newscaster IIRC. That would make for some great voice mash-ups.
The Lodger
@YellowJournalism: There is no way Romney would ever fire anyone named Grover.
Heirn
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I love that shirt. I just might have to buy one myself.
Maude
Sesame Street is educational, It has to go because Repubs hate education.
Augie
@Tom Levenson: Excellent. I don’t consider my job successfully completed until rudeness is appropriately directed at me.
JS
@Wapiti:
It occurs to me that in a debate where Romney deployed a number of zingers (which all fell flat before an audience pledged to remain silent) – that not only was “Big Bird” part of Romney’s stump speech, I think this was one of the “zingers” Romney had queued up Wednesday night.
If not for Jim Lehrer being right there on the stage, I think it’s entirely likely that Romney would have gone off on another wingnut sweet spot, like the National Endowment for the Arts. But this was an opportunity for a 2-for-1 elbow in the ribs of liberals, and to appear superior.
zinger-smirk-nervous laugh
It’s the nervous laugh that is Romney’s “tell”, and I heard it on the Big Bird line.
LanceThruster
@JS:
At first I thought that Rmoney’s zinger leak was a feint, and then I remembered the entitled to your own house and plane but not facts (that fell flat, also too btw) as if being put on notice that Willard’s mastery of the facts (cough) would make Pres. Obama’s possession of the other two merely temporary.
ZING!
JS
@LanceThruster: Oh yes, there were at least 5 or 6 of them Romney went for, if not more. Not sure about Obama’s “so your big idea turns out to be… never mind?” – but I imagine he was prepared for Romney to dodge attacks.
But Romney approached the debate more like the bloodsport the GOP primary debates were. (Remember how it seemed each one prompted another ugly reaction from the wingnut peanut gallery?) Think back to prior debates, Bentsen is remembered for his zing on Quayle in great part because the audience went wild while Mr. Potatoe Head stood there, taking a deep gulp.
Either Romney miscalculated that his material was so good it would stand on its own (so far, it looks like Big Bird is the big takeaway) or he was mistaken that his lines were so good, the live audience wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from validating Mitt’s wit.
LanceThruster
@JS:
And the not entitled to your own facts is pure Rove/Goebbels tagging the other side with your own tactics.
Why he even leaked that he was worried about the amount of time needed in a debate format keeping Obama truthful
Jim Treacher
Oh no! They’re gonna kill Big Bird!
Good lord. Get ahold of yourselves, you sissies.
LanceThruster
@Jim Treacher:
Said by the guy in the sailor suit jumper