As I said in my Twitter feed yesterday, I am only one year older than Sesame Street, and I only realized the other day how much that show, and by way of it, Jim Henson, influenced both the way I write and the way I think. I think a great deal of my sense of humor can be traced back to the Muppet segments of Sesame Street. I learned how to count to 12 in Spanish (why they stopped at 12 back then is unknown to me), I learned that having an imaginary friend isn’t a bad thing at all, and that Mr. Hooper loved everyone on the street. I was a freshman in high school when the actor who played Mr. Hooper, Will Lee, passed away and I remember being affected by it. It was like a beloved distant relative had died. I have always loved the fact that his store on the show is known to this day as Hooper’s.
Anyway, I think I graduated from Sesame Street to The Muppet Show, which in my opinion has yet to be equaled. It proved that you could be funny without being vulgar or crude. Mind you, I’m not always successful at that myself (the body lube joke, for example), but I’m trying, which I think is the important thing.
Wow, that got deep, didn’t it? Okie dokies, that’ll do it for me. More severed head humor on Friday.
Take care,
~Rob