In this 2012 presidential campaign cycle, no one is safe– not even Big Bird. Everyone’s favorite avian neighbor came under siege today in a campaign stop in Iowa, somehow, from none other than Mitt Romney, who, in explaining at a public event the importance of reducing spending in Washington, cited the need for PBS to generate its own revenue, and used the beloved bird as an example.

Erin Burnett pulls no punches, no matter how adorable her interview subjects are. Tonight may have been a particularly difficult challenge to keeping her guest honest, though, as she sat down with one of the cutest analysts in American politics (apparently?) tonight: Sesame Street’s Elmo. The cheery creature was delighted to discuss his career and propose an innovative solution to political stalemates in Washington: play dates.

Who: Kevin Clash, Constance Marks, and many, many others, interviewed by Ron Simon
What: “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”
Where: Paley Center for Media
When: October 17, 2011
Thumbs: Up

If you were cruising for some old Sesame Street clips the last two days, you probably noticed that the show’s official YouTube page was down. That’s because, earlier on Sunday, the site was hacked, and clips of XXX movies were interspersed with the Muppets. The clips were up, according to The Next Web, for about 22 minutes before Google shut down the page, citing the Community Guidelines policy that prohibits graphic content.

This week, Sesame Street made headlines over its upcoming special on child hunger and the new character that it will feature; Lily, an impoverished girl.

It only makes sense that the story would go viral. After all, “starving Muppet” is the kind of idea that’s easy to write news stories about, like “gay Archie character” or “Sarah Palin.”

However, while many seemed to think it was a good idea, others, like The Five‘s Eric Bolling disagreed. In fact, Bolling seemed absolutely dumbfounded about why anyone would ever want to see something as stupid as a poor Muppet.

A few years ago, the South African version of Sesame Street made headlines when it introduced a new muppet to represent one of the continent’s many children who are HIV positive. This week, America’s version of the show will get a character of its own to represent one of the social problems facing our nation’s children. Lily, the new muppet, is meant to represent one of the many impoverished American children who frequently go to bed hungry.

Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist has becoming something of a figure of intrigue as of late, wielding what appears to be significant influence over Congressional Republicans and yesterday raising the eyebrows of former Senator Alan Simpson, who called for an investigation into his funding. On today’s program, Glenn Beck laughed off the idea that Norquist was the “new evil villain,” and that he could possibly be up to no good. “Who is funding Grover Norquist?” he asked his co-hosts, before answering himself: “Why Sesame Street, of course.”

Ben Shapiro, a conservative author/radio host based in California, has written a new book called Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV. The book is getting a lot of attention for Shapiro’s criticisms of the children’s program Sesame Street.

Whether anyone likes it or not, current Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is running for a second term. Steele, who earlier this week declared “my style is more grass-roots oriented, I’m much more of a street guy,” prompted Jon Stewart to take Steele to the only street where Stewart thinks Steele belongs: Sesame Street. What follows is a hilarious interview with Steele’s puppet explaining why he’s running for the position again, mainly because “that’s how we do it on the street, lunch meat, when a fight comes up, we bibble down!”

In its eleventy-billionth season, Fox’s long-running animated hit The Simpsons seems more intent on retaining its edge than Patty and Selma‘s Lady Schick cartridges. Sunday night’s Christmas anthology was capped off by a pitch-perfect parody of The Muppet Show, but veered into adult humor that would make the Muppet-inspired pottymouths of Avenue Q blush. Following a musical number with Sesame Street exile. Katy Perry, creep’s creep Moe Szyslak goes in to kiss Perry’s belly button…and well, watch the clip.

Well, if it worked for Betty White… The folks over at Sesame Workshop have uploaded an interesting video over on the Sesame Street Tumblr. Amidst the clips from the classic show (typically ones featuring celebrity guests that might appeal to the older viewers who are more likely to have Tumblr accounts) is a new video purporting to be Cookie Monster’s homemade audition tape for Saturday Night Live complete with his own version of Weekend Update and an impression of Lady Gaga!

In the biggest preschool television scandal since Teletubbies was forced to implement a “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, a video of singer Katy Perry cavorting with Elmo in a low cut top has been banned from Sesame Street. The musical segment was supposed to air in an upcoming episode but will now be shelved after it was posted on YouTube and a number of parents complained. The parents felt that Perry was showing off way too much cleavage and were worried that their children would all grow up to be incredibly jealous of Russell Brand.

In the wake of Sesame Street‘s joking jab at Fox News (having Oscar the Grouch get a suggestion to watch “Pox News…a trashy news show”), Bill O’Reilly invited Sherrie Westin, EVP of Sesame Workshop, on for an edited segment to defend Sesame Street.

But someone else stopped by as well for his TV debut – “Spill O’Reilly.”

The fortieth anniversary of Sesame Street makes me wonder if our long-drawn-out debate on health care might have been better served by the likes of Kermit and Big Bird than by the current cast of pundits — maybe then Americans would actally know what was in the bill! To that end, here are three Sesame Street-inspired explanations of the three core concepts that make up the current health care reform bill.

November 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street and Google is celebrating with logo doodles, while the Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog is using the opportunity to ponder the age old pop culture question: Are Bert and Ernie gay? And who started that rumor?

A writer at the conservative entertainment blog Big Hollywood has divined a new threat to Fox News. Rising from the cooling embers of the White House’s “War on Fox” comes a foe the likes of which the world has never seen: Sesame Street. Some are sounding the alarm and others are panic is spreading!