Do What Ernie Says

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

So Caroline is watching “Play With Me Sesame” at 8 AM on Noggin as she usually does. And it starts off with the following: Ernie looking into camera and saying, “We’re going to go swimming today…but you’re not going to need a bathing suit!”

Which made me go, “Hmmmm. Ernie’s into child pørņ.”

And then Ernie said, “In fact, you’re not even going to need water!”

Which made me go, “Hmmmm. Ernie’s into heavy drug use.”

At which point he said, “All you have to do is what Ernie says!”

Which made me go, “Hmmmm. Ernie’s a control freak.”

And then I had a mental picture of toddlers trudging forward, glassy-eyed, arms oustretched, intoning, “We must do what Ernie says…”

I think I need to get more sleep.

PAD

50 comments on “Do What Ernie Says”

  1. That’s why we have Bert… to keep him on his chain 🙂

    Incedentally, if warped Sesame Street humour appeals (and it does… c’mon!) then check out Issue 1 of ‘Squee’ the comic by Jhonen Vasquez and his short piece, ‘Tickle Me Hellmo’. You will never look at fluffy red puppets in the same way again…

  3. Clearly, when Ben Edlund wrote the “Smile Time” episode of Angel, he knew where the true evil is.

  4. Or, for truly weird Sesame Street humour, you could try finding a back issue of the TO BE ANNOUNCED comic which had the SESAME STREET BLUES bit featuring our favourite Hill St. officers bored out of their trees in a crime-free neighbourhood (so much so one of them applies for a transfer to Mr. Roger’s neighbourhood.)

  5. I thought what Ernie was really into, was Bert. Factor *that* into the whole gay marriage debate!

  6. And let’s not even get into the whole bëšŧìálìŧÿ debate with Snuffleupagus…

    TWL
    who still remembers seeing Susan Sarandon doing a sketch with the Count and realizing that Sesame Street was doing a Rocky Horror riff

  7. On the wonderful National Lampoon’s White Album (which I really wish they’d release on cd), there’s a wonderful sketch parody of Sesame Street called Christopher Street (“brought to you by the letters K-Y”). This had Ernie and Bert as a whiny gay couple in the Village, with a visit from the CaCa monster. My favorite:

    Bert: “What the hëll is all this? One leather slave bracelet…”
    Voice-over: “One”
    Bert: “Two leather slave bracelets…”
    Voice-over: “Two”
    Bert: “Three leather slave bracelets…”
    Voice-over: “Three”

    Juvenile, but fun.

  8. I thought this thread was starting to read like that slippery slope Soupy Sales slid his career down with.

    ‘slippery slope Soupy Sales slid’, huh. Try saying that fast.

  9. Great, now that flipping “Journey To Ernie” song is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I’m sure my niece is at home right now watching a videotape of it as we speak.

    Bert and Ernie were always my favorites growing up. I liked Ernie more, but I thought I looked more like Bert. Being tall stinks sometimes.

  10. Have you seen ‘Avenue Q’ yet? It’s a pretty cute musical using Sesame Street style stuff to talk about adult themes and ideas. Most of it’s pretty funny and charming and they certainly capture the flair of the Sesame Street stuff.

  12. I remember an old Mad issue that played through 3 or four variations of spoofs of the show. For some reason, one versions theme song has stuck with me over these 25 years.

    Pimps and thugs,
    filling some creep with slugs,
    whørëš and drugs
    and hideouts where bosses meet.
    These are things you’ll find right here,
    on Mafia Street.

  16. Somebody: Can you fix it so that the “Comments” link doesn’t open as a pop-up?

    Click on the link that’s part of the displayed time that Peter posted the message. It doesn’t open up as a pop-up window when I do that.

  17. Seriously! Man I’ve been wondering about him for years… of course then there’s that whole Tickle Me Elmo doll…creepy…

    Ra!

  18. After reading your post I am reminded of the Smile Time episode of Angel where the demon puppet tells the children to touch the TV. I guess I need to get out more.

    Regards:
    Warren S. Jones III

  19. Originally quoted by Peter David at 09:05 AM:
    And then I had a mental picture of toddlers trudging forward, glassy-eyed, arms oustretched, intoning, “We must do what Ernie says…”

    Heh. I remember a similar story arc in Young Justice, except it was the Teletubbies. One of my favorite adventures in that series, it was….

  20. Hmmm, we don’t even get Noggin anymore. In fact all channels owned by Viacom(CS, MTV, etc) are off our satalite. Seems they want too much money. I guess The Daily Show’s graphics are getting a little too pricey.

  22. Mafia Street! Ðámņ, that takes me back.

    bertisevil.tv is still up? I thought the guy running that site took it down years ago.

  23. Mafia Street! Ðámņ, that takes me back.

    bertisevil.tv is still up? I thought the guy running that site took it down years ago.

    ————————————-
    Mirror sites. The original is down and here is one of the reason’s why:

    http://www.snopes.com/rumors/bert.htm

  24. It still amazes me that Sesame Street is still in production after all these years. I was flipping through the CBC one morning a couple of years back and found that the powers that be in Ottawa decided to scrap the Sesame Street portion of the show for a fully produced Canadian show called Sesame Park. Apparently, Canadian children don’t have any exposure to inner city life. Let’s see, Canada has a population of 32 million, with 4 mill in the Toronto area, 3 mill in the Montreal area, 2.5 mill in the Vancouver area, and a half dozen cities approaching 1 mill.

    I love it when politicians and beauricrats determine what growing minds need to be exposed to on tv, but ignore the important issues of the quality of education in school, school over crowding, lunch programs, etc.

    It makes me long for the days when Bugs Bunny was uncensored.

    God, I feel old.

  26. Does no one else remember the early Defenders story where Xemnu the Titan (having changed his name from his original pre-FF monster story appearance as the Hulk) did a kiddie show riff resulting in his commanding the various tykes watching the show?

    Also used in the prequel to John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy, where the tripods do a children’s show complete with mind control broadcasts.

    Waiting for someone to turn this on its ear and mind control old folk via Matlock and Golden Girls reruns (and yes, I know about the Kim Possible episode where Dr. Drakken mind controls the senior citizen community by broadcasting on what turns out to be the hearing aid frequency).

  27. Has anyone else out there become convinced that the folks behind Dora The Explorer are either pure evil or acid junkies? Would REALLY explain all the repetition and those musical bugs. Now I understand what I put my folks through. But as for Ernie and Bert, they and Kermit should form a blues, er, greens band somewhere.

  28. ‘Fraid I don’t remember the Xemnu incident, Tom, but the use in the Tripods trilogy definitely sticks out. Brr — even though I thought that prequel wasn’t quite as strong as the original trilogy, it’s a solid piece of work.

    TWL

  29. Isn’t Ernie doing exactly what Barney started doing? It’s simply a matter of cultural style within PBS Kids. Don’t tell me that Ernie isn’t entitled to the same control of children’s souls and spending habits as our favorite purple dinosaur!

    After all, the Sesame Street creations were a strict matter of commercial control as well, since they were created by Jim Henson but are fully owned by Children’s Television Workshop, Inc. (does “work made for hire” ring a familiar bell?) who keeps all the profits from Sesame Street toys and ancillary products. And out of which profits PBS receives…a warm handshake, from what I’ve heard.

  30. I had an evil thought the other day. My sister has twin boys only a few days younger than Caroline. I was visiting the other day, and they were watching Seasame Street, and a Bert and Ernie segment comes on. I start laughing. My sister looks over at my and asks why.
    “Remember a couple of years ago, when the big thing was ‘Are Bert and Ernie gay?'” She nods.
    “I just thought of a new segment: ‘Queer Eye for the Muppet Guy.'”

  32. Peter:
    Do you remember the Robin Williams routine with Teddy Ruxpin telling all the little kids at night “You must kill mommy and daddy?” You are having that kind of moment.

  33. You know, childrens programming just freaks me out. I simply cannot stand all of the fluffy, warm and fuzzy inside nonsense they pump through the airwaves. Make no mistake, I have no problem with trying to teach children respect for people in general. In fact I’m all for it. I would prefer, however, that they weren’t ‘preachy’ about it. I get the impression that those who are responsible for giving the green light to childrens shows have the unfortunate trait of thinking that kids are stupid. They’re not. They learn with astonishing spead. For proof, just watch how fast they find your stash of cookies and devise a means for aquiring them.

    What would be cool would be to see a childrens show that demonstrates mutual respect AND critical thinking in varying degrees. I’m willing to bet that would have a strong positive effect on future generations.

    Ok, off to watch the seasom premier of “The Shield” now.

    Salutations,

    Mitch

  34. Waiting for someone to turn this on its ear and mind control old folk via Matlock and Golden Girls reruns (and yes, I know about the Kim Possible episode where Dr. Drakken mind controls the senior citizen community by broadcasting on what turns out to be the hearing aid frequency).

    Which wouldn’t work. Even if you’re talking basic analog hearing aids, the microphones are tailor made. No two people’s hearing loss is exactly the same so, theoretically no two people’s hearing aids internal mics are either. Granted, analog mics only have so many various pickup, ranges and amplitude but then you have to factor in earmold shape and amount of sweat or wax buildup (all of which change the frequency consistency of the received sound) making any sort of hearing aid direct mind control impossible. In my case, even my two ears are different. They way around this is call the hearing impaired person on the phone. The ‘T-Switch’ (or telephone switch) is a backup mic set up the filter out the hum of the phone. Not great sound quality for everyone but it is (overall) a standard.

    Now,if they were using the low frequency AM reception mics that is a horse of a different color. Those have a very limited number of frequencies they use. That has its own drawback. At least when a friend of my mine used them in a lecture class a few years ago, she said hers had only about a 100 ft in ideal weather. So you have that problem there. On a mass scale it wouldn’t work.

    Now, many of my hearing impaired friends and I have the same problem… if we’re in a room with a dying florscent light we can see and hear it. It is sort of an intolerable throbbing sound that makes you feel like you drunken a few rounds of Pangalactic Gargelblasters. Using dying florscent bubbles, and the same techniques used by the Cardassians on Picard…

  35. Do What Ernie Says

    Peter David sees hidden motives in Sesame Street’s Ernie. So Caroline is watching “Play With Me Sesame” at 8 AM on Noggin as she usually does. And it starts off with the following: Ernie looking into camera and saying, “We’re going to go swimming today…

  36. Ha! That’s pretty funny. Ernie is into child pørņ? Great, now all those Ernie Pørņ fantatics will be dropping in on your site.

    This is how you get so many hits each day, isn’t Mr. David?!

  37. LOL.

    This is probably how Ernie gets his jollies. I mean, the guy spends most of his time being bossed around by Bert. If Ernie can’t stand up to him, well, all that pent-up need for payback has got to go somewhere.

  38. I just thought of this, but doesn’t this seem reministent of the Puppet episode on Angel? Ernie trying to absorb your kid’s soul, at all?

  39. this is completely OT, but I didn’t know where else to put it … PAD’s Fallen Angel TP is now listed at Amazon.com, ISBN 140120225X. Hooray! I plan to snap this up ASAP to fulfill my “wait for trade” promise.

  40. Hey Rat.

    You want to talk acid trip programming? Did you ever watch H.R. Puffenstuff or Hatsville? Witchie-Pooh and those talking mushrooms and hats still haunt my nightmares.

  43. Mr. David, I’m half-convinced you wouldn’t have had that idea if it weren’t for the twisted mind of Edlund and its product, “Smile Time”.

  45. I laughed and laughed when I read this…to contrast it with some Bert-related humour I’d suggest checking out “Bert is Evil”. The real site was taken down a few years ago after 9/11 but mirrors of it are still up and running and easily found through Google.

  46. re: Bert & AIDS

    No, Bert did not have AIDS on Sesame. Ernie didn’t die of anything either. The characters are still going strong on the various incarnations of Sesame with the extremely talented (and super nice!) Steve Whitmire doing Ernie, though I think John Tartaglia (from Broadway’s Avenue Q) did the segment Peter mentioned. A few years ago Eric Jacobson began doing Bert when Frank Oz was not available because of his film commitments.

    The rumours about Bert or Ernie dying seem to have started because of speculation in some of the articles that followed Jim Henson’s death and were fuelled in part by a comment Frank Oz made about being not “able to imagine doing Bert and Ernie again” after Jim’s death.

    Incidently I recently put up a short Bert & Ernie parody I did in college at http://www.bear-town.com/backstage_pages/video_berniechess.htm – it’s not terribly well done, but the underlying concept is kinda cute.

  48. PAD wrote:

    And then I had a mental picture of toddlers trudging forward, glassy-eyed, arms oustretched, intoning, “We must do what Ernie says…”

    I think I need to get more sleep.

    Nah — you were just channeling the “Angel”writers.

  49. I would like more info about Hatsville,ive just located the name of the show i watched as a kid i remembered the witch singing a song about oranges and nothing rymthed with them[No ihaven’t been drinking and i’m not on drugs]When i talked about the show to friends they just think i’m mad PlEASE HELP if you can.

  50. I too watched Hatsville as a kid I was trying to find out some info on it when I came upon your site. Its a very fuzzy memory but it bugs the heck out of me that nobody remembers that show.

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