C is for Cookie... Sometimes

From this day forth, each episode of Sesame Street will begin with health tips regarding healthy eating and physical activity and appropriately so... one in every three American children is overweight and well on the way to adulthood obesity. How admirable of Sesame Street, preaching to youngins that have little to no control over their snacking ways. To show its dedication to children worldwide, Sesame Street opted to broaden the "eating habits" of your favorite fiend and mine, Cookie Monster. "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me, yeah!" isn't gonna cut it any longer... Cookies are now a "sometimes" food and Cookie Monster even has a song about it. I weep.

"We are not putting him on a diet, and we would never take the position of no sugar," said Dr Rosemarie T Truglio, the show's vice president of research and education. "We're teaching him moderation." BBC News

Moderation. For Cookie Monster. Is nothing sacred? Is this what we've become as a society? Cookie Monster has been reduced from a junkie to a supporter.. a fan. Christ, he can't even be an enthusiast! He'll just have to go back to being plain old Sid - you see, that was his name before he took his first bite of cookie. The only thing Cookie Monster is really allowed to do nowadays is give cookies a thumbs up... sometimes. What's next? Will Oscar the Grouch enroll in anger management and take up life in a halfway house? That whole pissed off gig in the trash can has got to stop. What about that stoned out, depressed wooly mammoth, Snuffleupagus? His borderline suicidal attitude is making a real mess of things. I simply don't understand this. Cookie Monster with less cookies is like The Count with less things to count. "ONE! AH AH AH.... and that is all." In one episode, The Count's sheep went on strike because he wouldn't stop counting them. In another, he spent the night at Bert and Ernie's but counted all night, preventing Ernie (I'm suprised he and Bert haven't come out yet) from getting his snoozes. Bastard!

How did we survive childhood and how are we making our way through life with such crappy role models? Cookie Monster treats cookies like crack-cocaine. Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry are too violent. Popeye ate all that spinach just so he could defend the honor of an ugly ho that made him babysit a child that wasn't even his. Surely my life has been adversely affected by watching such things... You'd think the PC Police could find a way to wake up and engage in a legitimate fight against the obesity epidemic. A fight where they go after the true criminals in this fiasco - the parents... parents who believe that parenting is a sometimes job; parents that allow their children to eat and eat while they plant their chunky rear ends in front of the telly all bloody afternoon.

I grew up with Cookie Monster just the like the rest of you and while I know nothing about moderation (you all know how I eat), I know everything about being forced to go out to play, about not being permitted to snarf down Cheetos and Easy Mac all afternoon, about not being babysat by the Power Rangers and idiot l33t speakers on the internet. How many fat kids do you remember when you were little? There were always a couple, right? The "husky" section kids that sometimes thinned out over time. I had to read a story and give a little talk to a class of 3rd graders a couple weeks ago and I'd say 40-50% of them were husky - at the very least. I asked the kids what they were gonna do after school (it was a nice day). 16 of them (out of 30) were planning to play video games or take in the wide array of shitty excuses for anime. Only 4 children planned to play outside. I remember coming home from school and my mother forcing me out the door, prohibiting me from going inside until the sky was pink.. that meant it was time for dinner. And in the summer it was even worse. Between breakfast and dinner, the only break you took was to come inside to get lunch and sometimes water because it was just too damn hot outside. If you weren't riding your bike, you were engaged in epic battles of baseball, basketball, and kickball. There was Marco Polo in the pool and Capture the Flag at night.

But that's all gone now. The kids are sedentary and fat and the dietetically flawed Cookie Monster is part of the blame. I appreciate Sesame Street's efforts to help curb this epidemic but it's not their responsibility. Cookie Monster is not the cause nor has he ever been a worthy contributor in either direction. He's a puppet on a channel most kids don't even watch anymore that gets about 3 minutes of face time when Sesame Street needs to pimp the Letter C.

Leave him alone.