Recently, Sesame Street has come under fire from conservative news sources about a two-year-old joke in which Oscar the Grouch’s girlfriend Grundgetta claims to want to watch “POX News: Now there’s a trashy news show!” As we all know, conservative ears have trouble differentiating the P and F sounds, so the O’Reilly Militia immediately started shouting at the top of their lungs about how Sesame Street‘s liberal agenda has crossed the line by slamming their beloved FOX News network.
Of course, if they had taken the time to hit the rewind button on their VCRs (it’s a well-known fact that Republicans don’t own Tivo), they would have seen that the premise of this episode is that Oscar is a newscaster for GNN, the Grouch News Network, which promotes “All grouchy, all disgusting, all yucky news, all the time.” That sure sounds like FOX News’ mission statement to me. GNN reports on Horatio the Elephant taking a bath in Maria’s bathroom (obviously because of the Republican party’s love for their elephant mascot) and Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty’s game of checkers (because they love lazy heads of state). Ultra-liberals Gordon and Bob both claim to watch GNN to get “both sides of the story,” so they must not be the intended audience. No, the intended audience is Grundgetta.
In the now Internet Famous clip (which is way better than Regular Famous), Grundgetta claims that GNN isn’t trashy enough for her, which is what gains POX News another point in the Female Grouches demographic. But how much trash could one Grouch need? GNN not only employs Oscar the Grouch, but also notable Grouches Dan Rather-not and Walter Cranky. Even Meredith Beware-a and Diane Spoiler are mentioned as grouchy guests on the network.
So what does constitute as “liberal news” on Sesame Street? Elmo sits behind the desk at MNN: The Monster News Network, Charles Blitzen anchors CDN: The Counter Downer Network (which I’m sure gets great ratings around the Christmas season), and Nora Nicks is a VJ over at NTV (they probably have NTV News, right?). There’s also whatever network on which Kermit the Frog broadcasts his Sesame Street News Flashes. We can only assume that the residents of Sesame Street can’t pick up the signals of DNN, DTV, KMUP, or WHHZ. Every one of these networks is bound to be the antithesis of POX News, so Grundgetta should be content with the level of trash on GNN.
But at the end of the day, GNN proves itself to be the yucky news network it set out to be by winning a Phlegmmy Award. And that’s an honor that not even the real FOX News has achieved. So maybe the conservatives should do a little less finger-pointing at Sesame Street and work a little harder at bringing a fair and balanced amount of trash, rudeness, intolerance, and all-around grouchiness to their viewers.
Good night, and good yuck.
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