Ah, Sesame Street. My earliest Muppet memories are of watching you while I sit in my diapers, eating Cheerios by hand, visions of sugarplums in my head. And with the new Old School DVD sets, I can revert back to my child-like ways, if only through the magic of television.
Through Old School, we get to see all of our favorite characters.Like Bert and Ernie. And Mr. Snuffleupagus. And Herry Monster, and Grover Monster, and Oscar-who-is-not-a-Monster. Even Headline Howie is in there somewhere. And let’s not forget everyone’s most favorite character, the folder icon.
Wait, what?
Well, faith and begorah, there’s a folder icon on this DVD set! This must be some sort of terrible, terrible mistake made by some designer in the bowels of the Sesame Workshop design department. But when, I ask, when has Sesame Workshop ever made a mistake before? Identifying it as a mistake must have been some sort of terrible, terrible mistake.
There must be an explanation for this!
Perhaps the fine folks at Sesame Workshop have caught wind of the critically acclaimed Niche Muppet project here at ToughPigs.com and decided to create a brand new character to cater toward kids who love Apple computers. Yes, that must be it. That’s Mac, the Apple Folder, who beguiles kids by Photoshopping their faces onto different shapes, and criticizes Bert for being a PC user.
But why would a new character be on a vintage DVD set? No, this explanation is no good. Maybe the folder is the letter of the day! Yes of course, the letter of the day! Maybe PBS has upped the order of annual Sesame Street episodes to 27, and to fill the extra slot, the letter of the day is replaced by a folder. A folder that can contain any letter imaginable. For example, the letter O for “Oops”. Or the letter M for “My bad”. Or the letter W for “Why is this folder here??”
OK, so maybe the letter-of-the-day concept is too complex for a two-year-old. Hey, it looks like the folder might be attached to that mailbox. Perhaps that’s the new icon for the United States Postal Service. Or maybe Sherlock Hemlock lives in that little mailbox and he put it up there so people know that the world’s greatest detective lives inside.
Maybe Rodeo Rosie is behind that icon, and the Sesame Workshop executives want us to forget she ever existed, so they blocked her with a folder.
Or maybe you can see a puppeteer’s arm under there, and when someone asked the designer to Photoshop over it, he misunderstood and entered the Photoshop folder into the image.
Or maybe that’s where they’re storing Old School: Volume 3, safely hidden away in a 2-dimensional image.
Or maybe that’s one of Cookie Monster’s hiding places for his cookies. You know he’s got to have them stored all over Sesame Street, just in case the urge hits.
Or maybe the folder is Mr. Snuffleupagus’ imaginary friend. Notice how Snuffy is staring at it while nobody else can see it?
Or maybe it’s just a mistake. And Sesame Street has taught us, everyone makes them.
Click here to overanalyze tiny flubs on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
