Bert from sesame street series#

onscreen, Taye Diggs holds the Sesame Street news microphone to Christine FerraroĬhristine Ferraro: 'Training wheels can break easily when they're attached and someone falls off of his or her bike.' Taye Diggs: (offscreen) 'One of his training wheels broke off of his bike.'Ī video shows Ernie seeing in shock and Luis helping Bert up. Onscreen, we show Ernie and Bert going for a bike ride when Bert falls and breaks one of his training wheels he removed his helmet while waiting for Luis to emerge. Taye Diggs: (offscreen) 'By this morning, Bert fell off of his bike while he and Ernie were getting ready for a duo pedal. Onscreen, we show Bert taking off his helmet while waiting for Luis to emerge Janelle Monáe: (offscreen) 'We have Taye Diggs covering the episode about what happened when Bert broke one of his training wheels. Then, it goes to Janelle Monáe and Taye Diggs he is driven crazy and is sad that he can't ride his bike.' today, Bert takes off his helmet after he decided to wait for Luis. Ernie and Bert were going for a bike ride, but a fall from Bert's bike caused one of his training wheels to break off of his bike. so far, at least he wasn't injured when he hit the ground. Janelle Monáe: 'Bert is now waiting for Luis to emerge after he falls off of his bike and breaks one of his training wheels. Goldstein traced the 'Ernie is dead' rumor to a concrete source: a letter to the editor by New Hampshire college student Michael Tabor in 1991 protesting the removal of Ernie from 'Sesame Street' after the death of Henson, the voice of Ernie.Onscreen, we show Janelle Monáe and a video from Episode 4502 on Sesame Street news She thinks what began as a joke in the gay community escaped into the general population and 'came to express our fears about AIDS and illness and sexuality.' 'The fears about what happened to Jim Henson began to be mirrored in his Muppets.' People don't usually die of pneumonia, and the disease has come to be associated with AIDS and HIV,' Goldstein says. Henson was the creator of the Muppets, who died of pneumonia in 1990.

'That seems to be tied to the death of Jim Henson,' Goldstein theorizes. They share clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics,' Chambers said on his radio show, according to research done by the International Society for Contemporary Legends.įrom there, the 'Bert and Ernie are gay' rumor took off until it was whispered that they were getting married on a future episode or that they would marry during the tour of 'Sesame Street Live.' From there, Goldstein says, it was a short jump to one of them developing AIDS and dying. 'Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom. Joseph Chambers attempted to get the puppets banned from North Carolina television under an anti-gay law. Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends,' Children's Television Workshop said in a 1993 statement. 'Bert and Ernie do not portray a gay couple and there are no plans for them to do so in the future. A grandmother wrote to complain that Bert and Ernie were gay and her grandchildren would not be allowed to watch 'Sesame Street.' It became so overblown that Children's Television Workshop was forced to issue a denial.

Bert from sesame street series#

In 1993, the story exploded in a series of letters to the editor published in TV Guide. That is eventually what happens with urban legends.' Then it drifted out of the gay community and was taken seriously by others. 'What I think happened,' says Goldstein, 'is that it became a joke in the gay community. They do their jobs well and live a splendidly settled life together in an impeccably decorated cabinet,' Andersen wrote. 'Bert and Ernie conduct themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do. In discussing recurring rumors of homosexuality among the rich and famous, Andersen made an oblique reference to Bert and Ernie: She says that rumor can be traced to a book, 'The Real Thing,' published in 1980 by Kurt Andersen and purported to be a guide to fact and fiction in American popular culture. She has followed the 'Bert is dead' rumor back to where she believes it began: with another rumor that Bert and Ernie are gay. Diane Goldstein, head of the folklore department at Memorial University of Newfoundland, studies such urban legends.