Flipping PBS the Big Bird
EJHill ·
October 8, 2012 at 12:36am
As the kerfuffle over Mitt Romney's debate statements continues unabated, these points should be made:
- Since 1969, Sesame Workshop (né, Children's Television Workshop) has produced 4,326 episodes of the show. That's enough for 11 years of non-repetitive shows, it's enough to push each letter of the alphabet 166 times and each single-digit number almost 433 times. Not even James Bond has that tight of a relationship between the letters M and Q.
- Licensing of Sesame Street characters brings in $17M per year. Only half of that goes to back to production. Henson Associates gets the other half.
- Twenty international co-productions bring in $96M per year.
- The Cambodian version, "Sabai Sabai Sesame" ("Happy Happy Sesame") is partly funded by you - the US taxpayer.
- When current NPR CEO Gary Knell was Sesame Workshop President he received $956,513 in compensation. That many cookies certainly would place him in the top 1% on Cookie Monster's or anyone else's street.
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Dec '11
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Please do not confuse the liberals with facts. It's unfair.
Nov '11
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Sorry, facts don't beat emotions nor do they eliminate the Obama campaign's need to counter Romney with anything they can get their hands on.
Jul '11
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
I'm pretty sure if a nationally sponsored show was about family values the libs would have been out for blood decades ago.
Apr '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Ayup on all counts.
Jun '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
My money says that Big Bird himself is a 1%er.
Carroll Spinney gets salary, book royalties, speaking fees...
I wonder what the OWS demo of the PBS demo, outraged about the (R)s wanting to kill Big Bird, would feel about Spinney if it's true.
Jun '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
EJHill
No wonder LOL Elmo is nearly $40, even at Amazon.
Sep '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
My daughter is five. She has Sesame Street DVD's, books, toys, her apple juice has Big Bird on the label, and when my kids were younger, they both wore Elmo diapers. It is safe to say that Sesame Street doesn't need money from the government anymore.
However, since government funding helped them build a licensing empire, I wouldn't just stop funding them, I would ask them to pay back all of the subsidies they received in the past as a show of "economic patriotism."
Jan '11
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
This is almost a Rohrschach test.
The rationale for public broadcasting is that it serves a public purpose, but couldn't survive on its own. It's the classic case of experts arguing that the public should want something, when they don't. It's the Chevy Volt and Solyndra, in another form. Government is telling us that it would be better (for them anyway) if we bought a certain product, and when the public disagrees, government spends money on it anyway.
What's astonishing is that Sesame Street disproves its own case. It could survive on its own. The public does want it, and is willing to pay for it.
That cuts to the heart of the issue. Government isn't supposed to be a business that tells us what we should want. Instead, it's supposed to be an operation that does what we tell it to do. I don't want government telling me to buy Volts or green light bulbs or furry cookie puppets. I have other things I want government to do.
Government doesn't serve me by telling me what to want.
Sep '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Sesame Street sounds like a cankersore on the American taxpayer that only a Navy Seal hiding in Oscar the Grouch's garbage can and will end once and for all.
#dronestrikeonbigbird
Edited on October 8, 2012 at 2:41amMay '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Deja Vu
Jul '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
I don't suppose that is available in a framed 5x5 with metal frame.
Sep '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Apparently the CPB subsidy is about the same as that of Solyndra. Romney should argue that point. We can cancel that loss out.
Jul '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
It's aggressive. It's bullying. And their so nice. As they beat someone nearly to death for vending conservative merchandise while black. Or conduct orchestrated and ruinous harassment campaigns against Americans using convicted terrorists for expressing opinions they disagree with. Soros learned politics and policy implementation under Hitler's Reich, and it shows in everything he does. Andrea Mitchell and her butchered videos of opposition candidates. Raising the martyr Trayvon to posthumous national prominence and attempting to suppress the sickening details of his high school and police records.
With tolerance like this, can concentration camps and gas chambers be far behind?
Apr '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
If folks would like a look at their tax forms for more data collection, here you go.
It says they got $7,968,918 in gov't grants in '09.
Edited on October 8, 2012 at 3:36amCurrent officers, directors, trustees and key employees were paid: $5,295,178. (There are 43, about half of whom work 10 or fewer hours a week, and have zero reportable or estimated additional compensation; the folks who are paid work do 50 or 500 hours a week, it's written "50 0".)
Oct '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Shall we now see Big Bird on street corners asking for spare change like the homeless ? Perhaps at intersections washing windshieds ?
Kinda like the image.
Edited on October 8, 2012 at 4:02amJun '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Great big fat bird - perfect for Thanksgiving this year. Yummy!
Apr '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
wilber forge: Shall we now see Big Bird on street corners asking for spare change like the homeless ? Perhaps at intersections washing windshieds ?
Kinda like the image.
I know! We can use the money saved to buy the homeless people Big Bird costumes!
Apr '12
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
They never are far behind.
Oct '10
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Arahant
They never are far behind. · 35 minutes ago
Will the Re-Education Camps have provisions for a GED ?
Sep '11
Re: Flipping PBS the Big Bird
Not even James Bond has that tight of a relationship between the letters M and Q.
Too good.