If that will work, why not introduce a new Muppet, "Gina, The Green Hairy Monster Who Believes In Waiting For the Right Man At the Right Time," who can sing songs like "Anything he wants, give him slightly less, and he'll still be happy about it, because he's a horny bastard and will probably have an orgasm if you just wink at his package."

I think I dated Gina in high school. Although she waxed back then.

What's the matter? You guys get shot down last night?

I heard about this cookie monster business from a liberal freind of mine. She was equally horrified that someone decided to change the cookie monster for the common good. This could be the final outrage that shakes liberal out of there blissfull ignorance of the evils of the progressive/liberal ideology.

Whenever social conservatives complain that Eminem and The OC are having a negative influence on their children's language and sexual attitudes, the left goes into a full-bore snark seizure. Apparently the idea of media influence would be stupid, if it weren't so deeply offensive. Remember how they went after Tipper Gore for suggesting that maybe kids shouldn't be listening to 2 Live Crew?

But when it comes to things like eating cookies, smoking cigarettes, or showing bad guys who come from the Middle East, the media assume Rovian powers of mind control. The whole thing is pretty amusing.

No, wait. "Infuriating." That's the word I was looking for.

It's the equating of eating cookies with smoking or drugsthat gets me. They're cookies, for chrissakes. Not like the show's got Melvin the Magic Mushroom Monster.

utron, precisely. The media can't seem to keep its story straight on whether or not the "messages" they send have any effect on society.

When they're "good" messages, they can shape opinions and attitudes and move mountains.

When they're "bad" messages, they have no effect, and they're just "holding up a mirror to society."

The truth is in the middle somewhere. I don't think "bad" shows are all that corrupting, but obviously neither are they helpful in promoting, say, sexual chastity or avoiding drug use. And "good" messages can have some slight effect on promoting "good" behavior (tho I may disagree with Hollywood on what "Good" behavior is).

But Hollywood is always playing this double-game. I would say they're taking us for idiots, except that they are, by and large, idiots themselves, and probably don't even understand the illogical inconsistency in their position(s).

On the plus side, when your kid asks, "Daddy, what's 'castration'?", you can say, "What they did to Cookie Monster."

Agreed, Ace. Obviously I think media messages have some impact, or I wouldn't spend so much time bitching and moaning over the way the MSM portray the war in Iraq, Bush, the UN... Well, don't get me started.

I part company with the social conservatives over their eagerness to legislate the issue. The power of a message is partly determined by context, and any message will resonate pretty powerfully in a vacuum. Repairing a social environment so flimsy that Eminem and Britney look good is best done as close to home as possible, not in Washington. (I've got a great quote somewhere from Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed on the folly of seeking legislative remedies to every single problem. I'm sure I'll toss it up here one of these days.)

No, wait. "Infuriating." That's the word I was looking for.

Don't you mean, "gob-smacking"?*

Which leads me to my next point:

HWSNBN is actually quite entertaining and insightful, so long as you mentally translate all of his comments about the Church and homosexuality to "Cookie Monster" and "cookies".

*Note British placement of question mark outside of inverted commas.

Typical. The leftist philosophy is thrust upon the unwilling masses. Look for a trans-gender Muppet named Pat. He/she will use song and poetry to teach our children that gender is a social convention.

bah.

When I 1st heard Cookie Monster had been "disappeared" I thought the Islamoids had taken him. That we would see him surrounded by a bunch of men in black ski masks who would denounce him for eating cookies with lard in them. Lard, the fat of a forbidden filthy animal.

Cookie Monster would denounce the error of his ways and swear he would only eat turkish delight, halava, and other halal desserts, beg for his life....

But still get his head sawed off as the guys in black ski masks jabber their delight and praise of Allah and the Religion of Peace as they butcher Cookie Monster.

Finding out he was just in the hands of liberals reprogramming him to be pushing broccoli and carrots is a relief.

That news is newer than the Star Wars Kid, but just barely. This guy does a pretty good job of lampooning it here.

Cookie Monster will Rise AGAIN!
Let's face it, he's bigger than Gannon! and Gannon! rose again.
Hell CM is bigger than Bob Dole's Cock, and look what he did.
This is the perfect issue for the Repubs to use to defund PBS.
Either Cookie Monster comes back whole, or we wipe you out. This is fuckin' war baby!

In their next nanny move, diet and exercise for Big Bird.

Grover: Big Bird....you are toooooooooo big!

Catch-22 is an absolutely awesome novel. One of my all-time favorite American novels.

God dammit, ever since I first saw this on Townhall I've been hearing songs from Avenue Q playing in my head.

Fuckin' hilarious, but distracting.

This just in, "Fairly Odd Parents" will be discontinued as it might be offensive to those with mythical fairy creatures as replacement parent figures.

Opponents of the move suggest that its important to communicate to children that invisible friends who usurp adult authority are OK, no matter WHAT they might tell you to do to your homeroom teacher with the hedge trimmer.

PBS is also under pressure to ban any future shots of Ernie in the bathtub with rubber duck as something "too homo-er*tically suggestive for younger minds."

(Heh. Your filter wouldn't allow homo-e-r-o-t-i-c. Prude.)

James mentioned "Avenue Q". This is from an article in the NY Times about that show.

Or perhaps it's the similarity between ''Avenue Q'' and an otherwise closely guarded secret about Muppet culture: the skits the ''Sesame'' puppeteers do for one another at the company's annual December wrap party.

''It's where you have characters familiar on the show doing unfamiliar things,'' Mr. Lyon said. About two years ago, one wrap party skit involved Elmo on the precipice of puberty: his falsetto was dipping into bass and he was growing little Muppet pubic hairs.

''The wrap parties get blue,'' Ms. D'Abruzzo said. ''They get bawdy.''

Since Elmo focuses on one topic per episode of ''Elmo's World,'' another wrap skit showed Elmo learning all about underwear. ''He talked to a bra puppet,'' Ms. D'Abruzzo recalled, laughing. ''And he talked to a G-string puppet. That's another reason why I think Sesame Workshop isn't offended by what we're doing. Because we know how to make fun of ourselves.''

"And so it goes"

Do I get bonus points for picking up the Vonnegut referance, with just four (granted, multiply repeated) words?