Happy Birthday Cookie Monster: C is Still For Cookie Thirty-Nine Years Later

JeanneSager — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

He's not exactly svelte, but Cookie Monster celebrates his birthday today without a crag in the face or wrinkle in the fur. It's got to be the cookies.

Everyone's favorite junk food junkie has been at it since 1969, voiced for the first three decades by Frank Oz, the same muppeteer who gave life to those bosom buddies, Bert and Ernie. He's undergone some major changes over the years - they yanked his pipe in the late '80s to steer clear of any "smoking as muppet habit" controversy. More recently, with childhood obesity the hot topic in pediatrics, his chocolate chip munching has received less and less air time. If you hadn't noticed, Cookie Monster's gone a little fruity.

He told Stephen Colbert in an appearance on Comedy Central earlier this year, "Me not abandon cookies, me love cookies, but one cannot live on cookies alone . . . Cookie is sometimes food," he told Colbert.

"Right," the Colbert Report host answered, "because sometimes you have to pause to open the next sleeve of Oreos." We knew that guy was someone we could hang out with. Although we'd have to share our cookies . . . which you don't actually have to do with cookie monster. The monster mumbles a big game (in somewhat broken English), but have you seen him eat a cookie lately? When Oz was still the man behind the muppet, Cookie Monster chewed and swallowed - you even saw a bump in the throat as the cookie went down (classic example, his first meeting with the Count back in 1972, when that totaling Transylvanian tried his best to count the cookies before they were gone). Not anymore. Muppeteer David Rudman chucks 'em over his shoulder while our kids aren't looking or shreds them with his cookie "fist" and just keeps making the classic "awwww, numm, nummm, numm, numm, num" noises for the fake out.

But my second-favorite blue monster (Hello everybodeeee, who doesn't love cute, lovable Grover the best? He's the cute, furry little monster and super to boot!) is still holding strong as the host of the Letter of the Day, and still keeping prissy Prairie Dawn on her toes. So he might be staring 40 in the face, so cookies don't go down the way they used to. He's still got his googly eyes fixed on years of eating and cracking up our kids.

Celebrate Cookie Monster's birthday with a host of videos, some classic and some brand new, over at the new Sesame Street site. It share his birthday (today), his likes, and, of course, his favorite food. Any guesses?

Image: Muppet Wiki

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Five Nonsense Kids Character Names Explained

JeanneSager — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:27:00 GMT

Sometimes the names they give to our kids’ favorite characters sound like they had a kid in on production. I mean, Pikachu? I say Gesundheit.

But listening to Mike Myers explain the Yiddish origins of everyone’s favorite ogre on NPR’s Fresh Air last week made me wonder – are all characters like onions? Do they all have layers? Thanks to my anal retentive side and too much time to spend in front of my computer, I offer up the first edition of children’s character names explained.

Shrek: According to his creator, his name came not from the swamp but the Yiddish word for “scary.” We’ll trust the former Linda Richman on that one – after all, if we ask too much she might get a little ferklempt.

Pikachu: I always thought the yellow Pokemon had a rodent-look to him, and no wonder. Pikachu loosely translates to “Electric Sparkling Mouse” in Japanese. Known for storing electric in his puffy cheeks and a tail that looks more like a bolt of lighting shooting out of his rodent rear, we could boogie woogie woogie with that description.

Lightning McQueen: Since we’re on the subject, lightning is an obvious name for a fast car. But the source of Cars’ sexy red racer’s surname is often mistaken. He was dubbed “McQueen” not for bad boy actor Steve who spent many a movie shifting gears but for Pixar animator Glenn McQueen, who died in 2002 from skin cancer.

Nemo: The movie that proved even a scaredy clownfish can take on the big bad ocean, Finding Nemo is technically named for “no one.” At least that’s the Latin translation of “Nemo.” We’ll take it from the seagulls – he might be no one, but our kids wish he was “mine, mine, mine.”

Winnie the Pooh: A secondhand name is just fine for a bear of very little brain. Winnie is short for Winnipeg, the hometown of a Canadian soldier who gave his black bear of the same name to the London Zoo. That’s where author A.A. Milne and son Christopher Robin (natch) met the friendly female who Milne later immortalized in print. Pooh, by the way, is also secondhand – it was the moniker of the real Christopher Robin’s pet swan.

More to come . . .

Image: Dan-Dare

Strollerderby : children's characters

Happy Birthday Cookie Monster: C is Still For Cookie Thirty-Nine Years Later

Five Nonsense Kids Character Names Explained