A 2-year-old skit on 'Sesame Street' that referenced a "trashy" news channel called POX News came under fire this week when conservative bloggers accused the long-running PBS series of a liberal bias. In the clip, Oscar the Grouch is a reporter for the Grouch News Network (GNN), but he bored one female viewer, who responds: "From now on, I'm watching Pox News. Now there's a trashy news show!"Big Hollywood, the celeb blog founded by conservative writer Andrew Breitbart, called out the old skit (re-run this week) as a jab at the mega popular news network. "The message is clear," a blogger named Stage Right noted, "I can't even sit my kids in front of 'Sesame Street' without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority."
Since then, the ombudsman for PBS has weighed in and agrees the parody "should have been resisted" by producers.
Writing on his PBS blog, Michael Getler told his readers:
While PBS' ombudsman may believe the dig at FOX may have been a bit over the line, the show itself doesn't know what all the hubub is about. In comments to Yahoo! News, Sesame Workshop VP of communication Ellen Lewis called the offending skit "just another one of the many parodies that 'Sesame Street' has done over the years." (Our Fave 'Sesame' Spoofs Here)"Everybody who wrote to me heard this as "Fox News," and I can't really blame them. When I went and watched the tape for the first time, I thought I heard "Fox" as well, perhaps because of the association one assumes when you hear "news" right after the word.
I don't know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn't do it through the kids."
