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Last week, IMDb.com broke the news that Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch are dangerous role models for kids. This came after Sesame Street executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente justified a parental warning on the DVDs of the first and second seasons.

What the fuck?

Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch were formidable influences on my life. I thought they were the greatest part of Sesame Street, and I looked forward to their antics. Suggest to any child of the 70s if they were harmed by these characters, and you’ll probably get punched in the face.

So what was so terrible that Cookie and Oscar did? Well, in addition to being a shameless glutton, Cookie Monster pretended to smoke a pipe during the Masterpiece Theatre spoof known as Monsterpiece Theatre. And Oscar… well, according to Parente, was just “too grouchy.”

I repeat… What the fuck? This from the show that proudly has a Muppet with AIDS?

Don’t we have better things to worry about than the deleterious effects of smoking Muppets? Next, they’ll be saying that early Sesame Street episodes are inappropriate because of a hallucinating yellow bird, or a grown man who wear saddle shoes and collects paper clips. And let’s not even begin to talk about how most of the Muppets were naked all the time.

And come to think of it… who were all these grown-up who played with kids all day long? Instead of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, we have Bob & Linda & Luis & Maria.