DVD of Early "Sesame Street" Comes With Warning:

[pitbulllady]

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

[some guy you dont know]

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.

[Cassini90125]

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

[Dragonrider1227]

"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

[Cassini90125]

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.

[Invader Bloo]

Cookie Monster ate a "cookie" pipe.
LOL.

[Medikor]

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".

[Bloonan]

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.

[Imaginary Light]

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

[FamoKrishina]

...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

[Nathander]

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”

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.

[Cassini90125]

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.

These idiots need a serious reality check.

[One Radical Dude]

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

Nothing surprises me anymore.

[Subzeroace]

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

[Invader Bloo]

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