DVD of Early "Sesame Street" Comes With Warning:
 

NOT FOR CHILDREN! No, I'm not making that up-it's real. Apparently, it was decided by some powers-that-be that the older "Sesame Stree" episodes, from 1969(the year it debuted on PBS)through the seventies, modeled "inappropriate behavior" for young children, like Cookie Monster's cookie addiction, Oscar the Grouch's, well, grouchiness and sarcasm, as well as Bert's, a little girl named Sally going home with an old man named Gordon for "milk and cookies", Big Bird "hallucinating" his Imaginary Friend, Mr. Snuffalupagus, and the New York inner city ghetto being depicted as a clean, safe wonderland full of happy people and monsters, instead of drug dealers and gang members. One of the scenes, in which Cookie Monster parodies PBS's "Masterpiece Theater", smoking a pipe and later eating it, was dropped because it promoted smoking and pipe-eating. Didn't make THAT up, either.

You can read the full article-a sad commentary on today if ever there was one- here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/ma...in&oref=slogin .

pitbulllady

i find it funny how everyone is trying to keep chlidren from being shown anything that might, by any one slight possible chance, send a bad message. well, funny isnt the word. more like depressing.

Oh my stars, that is a thousand miles beyond ridiculous; it's absolutely insane. Frankly, it makes me sick to my stomach. :frankiemad:

"The following has been rated too creative and entertaining for our children" ::)
I suppose next we're going to ban Mr. Rogers for making children thinking they don't have to follow rules because "they're special." Yes. I've HEARD this argument x_x

This is really starting to burn me up. Where the hell do people come up with this crap?? Children are not that fragile, period. There's nothing on Sesame Street that's going to warp their minds or turn them into drug-addled criminals; there never has been. The show that I remember was about learning, about friendship and sharing. What next? Shall we shield our kids from watching Foster's because Bloo and Blake Superior encourage belching? Maybe we shouldn't even let them go outside, hm? Why don't we try shielding them from things that encourage them to be intolerant bigots for a change? We've never tried that before. Who knows? It just might work!

It's things like this that explain why the U. S. is so reviled by much of the rest of the world, and I don't blame them. It makes me ashamed to be an American. :(

Cookie Monster ate a "cookie" pipe.
LOL.

I wonder what Jim Henson would have say about this if he were still with us. At this rate people will be slapped a fine for saying politically incorrect things like "pink is a girls colour" or "blue is a boys colour".::)

Man, this is friggin' crazy! Sesame Street, not for children? This is downright insane. Saying Sesame Street is not for children is like saying Family Guy is the ideal show for PBS kids, or that cigarettes are best for those under 18. Well, maybe not that last one, but this is mega farfetched, and it's way too early for an early April Fool's joke.

And this is what our world's coming to. What a shame.

...o_O

If Sesame Street isn't for kids, than just what is?! oo; Our society today makes me sad. :( These nuts might as well just lock their children inside and tie them to their beds, because oh my God, if they walk they could trip and fall! The horror! 9_9

Some one please tell me I'm not the only person who finds the idea of them dropping this scene because of it giving the bad idea of PIPE EATING as being inherently hilarious. That is one heck of a stretch of the imagination to find fault with its supposed "politically incorrectness".

As for the current, dumb-downed iteration of Sesame Street, I honestly feel bad for today's kids, because they don't know what they're missing. But there are a lot of reasons I feel bad for today's kids, mainly due to the fact that they're given only a few shreds of quality entertainment.

I don't know of any child who would actually eat a pipe. Firstly, it would be physically very diffucult, if not impossible. Secondly, if it's been used, the taste of the tobacco will turn him off immediately. And thirdly, if the kid does manage to somehow eat the pipe, he's got problems that aren't related to what he's watching on TV. :P

These idiots need a serious reality check. >:(

*sighs* Even on Sesame Street, the PC police invades there.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

Excuse my language but seriously... That is BS!

Henson was smoking some serious crack back in the day. 0.o

If something sounds too ridiculous to be true, then the odds are that it probably is.

I don't know much about this Virginia Heffernan lady myself, or what type of reporting she's generally renowned for, but in my opinion that whole article smacks of a satire.

It might be the case that the "Sesame Street: Old School" DVDs come with a disclaimer at the start, which may in itself constitute something of an overreaction, but I suspect that it has nothing to do with "cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones", or "two brothers risk[ing] concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows". At least I sure hope not.

People need to really try to realize how to separate reality and from fiction. They need to see it is a show, that is all it is. People are idiots sometimes.

What a bunch of crap. Well at least we can say (if any-one watches this stuff)

"We're not watching kid's stuff" ::) This was SARCASM, by the way.


Bunch of wimps,,,,, people these days.......

The only thing I saw wrong was the going home with the old man part.

the pipe eating thing kills me 8D

I wholeheartedly agree, Subzeroace. This is, to quote Col. Potter from M*A*S*H, 100% grade-A bull cookies. I grew up on Sesame Street and am genuinely convinced that if I could, I'd watch it today for a shot in the arm of nostalgia (sp?), and I'm 17!

How can SESAME STREET-- probably one of the few shows I would want my 3-5 year old (if I had any, mind you) to watch-- be BAD for them? OK, so the show doesn't touch on the bad parts of NYC, but it's a kids' TV show-- the whole point is to entertain and educate little kids for a half hour or hour (can't recall which...), to say that learning and life can be fun, not, "The world is a big scary mean evil place."

Kids are growing up too fast it seems like; Sesame Street doesn't need to shove the big scary world-- and I mean that seriously. The world is a big scary place and I'm actually a little terrfied of going off to college next fall, despite my teen-hood-- down the throats of little kids, who are supposed to be happy and innocent.

pipe-eating? no. stash it and run, it works better...and im sure its more healthy. (jk)

hehe

anyone else seen "Super Troopers"?

"Eat it. Eat the whole bag."

8D