OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!-OLD SCHOOL SESAME STREET DEEMED UNSUITABLE FOR KIDS

I'm of the generation that was there when children's television landmark SESAME STREET first aired, and as a result I have a very warm place for it in my heart. In fact, during my lengthy period of unemployment a few years back, or when I'm off sick from work I would turn on SESAME STREET and revisit the old friends of my formative years, along with the newer characters like Elmo (who's quite a philosopher, so if you don't like him you can kiss my sharries), and I'd feel all the better for having done so and could once more make it through a miserable day (there's more to your favorite Bunche than martial arts badassery, boozing, heavy metal, comic books and eating pussy, you know). Bottom line, I love the show, so you can imagine how disturbed and irate I was after reading the following item in this morning's New York Daily News. Seriously, this is further proof of the ongoing campaign to turn America's youth into a bunch of mindless, gutless pussies/douchebags from the moment they can walk, a dire wave begun in the 1980's with the advent of the dreaded "political correctness." Join me, and weep for the children:

SWEEPING SESAME STREET
The first episodes of "Sesame Street" have been released on DVD with a warning label: "These early 'Sesame Street' episodes are intended for grownups, and may not suit the needs of today's pre-school child."

Hey, what is this? "Snuffleupaguses Gone Wild?" "Bert & Ernie Teach You Four-Letter Words?" Hardly. In these shows from 1969 to 1974, Oscar was permitted to be Grouchy and the Cookie Monster...well, he craved and consumed a great many actual cookies. All of which today is viewed as too dangerous for little minds.

No, we cannot let kids be warped by a charmingly cantankerous, noseless, furry green puppet who lives in a garbage can and loves trash. As executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente told the New York Times, "We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now." Nor can we allow tots to be led to ruin by a blue, googly-eyed creature who goes mad only for cookies rather than also, say, cauliflower. And whose alter-ego Alistair Cookie, host of "Monsterpiece Theater,: smokes (horrors!) a pipe and then eats the pipe. Explained Parente: "That modeled wrong behavior."

How do you spell "dumb," children? D-U-M-B.