Jim Henson Fans

Congress is going to vote soon on if the federal government should cut ALL federal funding to PBS and NPR, which would have devastating affects free public broadcasting in America-especially on smaller local stations. And let me tell you, without Big Bird and The Splendid Table, the world would be a lesser place. There's a couple petitions and sites where you can contact your representative that I'll link to here if you're interested.

If you can think of another good venue for this, please feel free to crosspost at will.

Petitions:
170MillionAmericans

Moveon

Donate Directly to NPR or PBS:

NPR

PBS

Now for something a little more silly.
People want The Muppets Odyssey! Like, really, really want it! maybe it will happen. Maybe.

Braille.
Braille can mean many things. Invented by Louis Braille in the19th century, it has taken off as a system of raised dots for the blind community of which I am a part. Thanks to Louis Braille and his caring heart, those who are blind can now read and write with their hands and communicate in so many ways. Braille equals equality. Braille writing and reading narrows the bridge for blind people between their sited peers and, to some degree, takes away the prejudices that blind people cannot do things or succeed. I have many things to say about braille but will be brief for the purposes of this blog.
While people can be doctors and airplane pilates, eat their food, get dresed in the morning, and do many other things, and while this is difficult at times, they may still do these things differently, but they can be done.
Blind people can also be good writers, actors, artists, media producers, and other advocators for television and similar media. Virtually, and not without cost, there is no limit to what they can do.
So why am i posting this on a community about Sesame Street and the Muppets?
Well, as much as I don't agree with all of the naysayers who believe that Sesame street is only a way to get children more power and more greed and filters bad things into their minds, I do see one problem with the show.
If the show and any of its affiliates are primarily for children to be educated and older audiences to be entertained and also shown that everyone can get along, then it isn't too hard to realize the glitch, not that it is a terrible one, but it's still there. How many episodes show letters, numbers, the alphabet, and practical skills for preschoolers? I think many do. In fact that seems to be one of the running themes in the series. Kids are also taught about issues close to the heart, such as illness, childbirth and marriage and raising a new family member, and, i am learning, what to do in trying economic times. However, when was the last time someone created an episode showcasing or mentioning blindness?
Unless I am missing something, I have found only one small segment on the internet and it didn't even have puppets. It showed a woman walking with a guide dog for about three minutes. it was great! But it wasn't enough. Many times children, particularly around late preschool and early kindergarten, have come up to me and others and couldn't stop asking, "Why is she blind? Why are her eyes broken? How does he know where every thing is? How can he walk around and what is that stick thing (white cane) that he carries? Can i try?" And then there are the intrigues of braille. they want to type out a sentence and have it read back to them even though it is just scribbled. These are not big school kids who know everything. They are right at the age where they can learn to read, and suddenly they see a new way of reading and living life, many new ways, and they either don't understand or they are so eager to learn.
Wouldn't it be practical to either have a blind muppet on Sesame Street, or to have a segment where an adult talks to a muppet about blindness? I don't just ask this because i know about blindness, but more and more children have special needs and learning difficulties. It would be so good to introduce the Sesame Street gang not only to Linda and Cami, but also to blindness, mental disability, and other things. It doesn't have to be all the time, but like the Ernie and Bert sketches, it can pop up once in a while, such as when Elmo passes the blind character going to the store. Or maybe a puppet could be a student in school who will always lack fingers on his hand. I know someone like that who only has two thumbs. How will this character adapt to life on a street where we all get along and everyone can stick together and be equal and show love?
Moreover, it would be a great way to take a popular childrens' program and spread the awareness of courage in spite of disability or struggle. You hardly see Linda anymore anyway. And wouldn't it be a delight for someone like Elmo to see and learn to read braille for the first time?
I wanted to write an entry today and this is all i could think of for this community, for this is what is on my heart. If the idea is strange, completely nuts, uncertain, or the best thing ever, please write in to comment and let me know what you think. I want to hear from you!
And to all who commented in the past, your comments were very helpful. I hope you continue to enjoy reading and posting entries on this site.
Until soon,
Meggy

Here is the truth. i only have a little time so i'll get right to it.
I am shy and timid about asking this, but does anyone at all know where I could get more information on the Sesame Street or muppet characters in such a way as to find a venue and possibly meet the cast or take it further and audition for the show? I am putting it out here not as some kind of die hard fan, but also because I see potential in the direction this show might take, and feel that I might have what it takes to audition for the show. But this is a tough decision to make because you must understand, I know how hard auditions are. But I am blind and I think that Sesame Street has potential for a blind character. They already have one with HIV and one who is deaf, if Linda is still on the show. After completing various forms of research on the show and falling in love with the characters, I think that meeting, auditioning for, or even just seeing live, these characters and this show would be a once in a lifetime experience. If it doesn't happen, okay. But if it does, that would be cool.
I'm hoping to contact Sesame workshop to see if they have any more relevant information. I am also looking for events, dates or venues coming up after April of 2010 which is when I plan to graduate from college. If any of you, people, forums, or threads to other communities, know anything please comment! I'd love to hear from you! I fully expect this to be everything and nothing all at once and am ready for whatever the future may hold, but we've got to start somewhere and you never know until you try. So now that you've read it please comment as you see appropriate on this site, but if you have anything to say that is meant to be negative, condemning, etc., I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourselves. I would do the same for you.
signing off for now,
M

I was inspired to write this entry because of the slogan I read at the top of this web page. I don't know if it was intended for a single person as a username, or for the entire community. Anyway, i had to rewrite this entry because the first time i think it deleted itself. so i'll try again.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be Kermit? Having to spend each day the color of every leaf? I have. i wonder what Kermit thinks about. Yes, I know he's a fictional character, but I used to wonder as a child, what kermit and other characters thought about behind the scenes. I mean, what is sesame Street really like at night? Are there any bars?
But i digress.


What i am writing about is a risky thing to share with the public, since anyone could read it, anyone whom i know or who knows me, or has heard of me, or just anyone in general. I'd post to my friends page for less risk, but eventually it will come out in my other entries. i don't have a problem with it, but if anyone should put the two together and know who I really am, well, we could have problems because we're online. I don't think I need to say anymore about that. Perhaps I worry too much.

It really isn't that easy being green. Some of you will know that those who worked with Jim Henson and knew him well realized that he was color blind. That is one reason why this song touches them so much and is so real to them. it's not easy being, or seeing, green.

I am visually impaired. I know how hard it is to be green.

It's not that easy being blind,
Having to spend each day with a white cane to help you walk around,
When I think it would be nicer,
Being sighted, able to run, or jump, or make appropriate and correctly formed gestures, or something much more interesting and colorful, like that.

It's not that easy being blind.
It seems you just bump into so many strange things,
And people sometimes tend to go behind your back and even baby you, Cause you're not talking like they do, saying, "Look over there", "Did you see that great play?" or you don't wear their style of clothes, your hair is weird, and you have to carry a huge Braille writing machine around with you all day and many, many other things that make you different than all your sighted comrades.

But being blind, you get to smell the smells of spring, hear the geese more clearly.

And being blind, you do have friends who relate to you so well. Plus you get to read in the dark.

You can still learn to sing well,
Like a bird,

or eat good foodwell,
like spinach, while appreciating it,

Or you can say, "See you later', to your blind friends, and they understand what you mean and won't laugh at you.
And there is so much to teach others about the heart.

When 'blind" is all there is to be, or see,
It can make you wonder, why.
But why wonder.
Why wonder?
Yes, I am blind.
It's okay.
It'll be fine.
I'm thankful.
For now, this is what I think I want to be.""

(Lyrics adapted last-minute yet deliberately to fit my current circumstance, from Jim Henson's "It's Not Easy Being Green" as sung by Kermit the Frog, CA 1969-1979?)

I am blind. Kermit is green. And sometimes it really is hard for the both of us. i can't imagine what Kermit has to go through with that pig too!

I'd write more but it is late and I don't remember what else I want to say, except, both, equally. I have overcome. I am not in a wheelchair. I am blind, but I love life! Yet sometimes I have days that are good and okay, and sometimes I have my blind days and sometimes I have my really blind days where it's not just, "Oops, blew that one", it's more like, "You blind thing you, look at you, you might never live up". That's when I need to pick myself up, dust off, pray hard, put my two feet on the floor, and find the strength to move on. It is not easy. it isn't the most terrible thing in the world. But it isn't easy. i want people to know both that i've been able to learn to live with it, and that we need to look out for and encourage one another in struggles. It is not like poor spelling. It isn't a little bug I can flick off once in a while that keeps coming back again. It is a poisonous snake that will kil me if i let it. But I won't let it. If any of you know someone who is deaf, blind, or otherwise and bounces back, don't ever think they are rock solid robots who never get depressed and find it a breeze. if you want to spell "illusion" correctly, or make the right facial expressions, or cook right, all it takes is to take a spelling, theatre, or cooking class. If your problem is learning how to live with blindness all you have to do is live in a blind person's shoes and learn to adapt. If you are blind and your problem is you can't see, you need to learn how to see again. You need to not only open your eyes, look at an apple, and see its roundness and know by your eyes that it's an apple, but you need to train your brain again to do something it's never done. This means watching Sesame Street all over again for the very first time, except this time it's not your ears, it's your eyes adapting to the difference between a red apple, a red ball, and Elmo's head. it means saying that though there is Cookie monster's eyes, a ping pong ball, and an apple on the table, one of these things, because it looks different and doesn't sound different,and you can eat it, doesn't exactly belong. our world is full of visual gestures, movements, signs. Let alone learning the "stop" and "go" signs and how to view them physically, there is so much more. Being blind is not a weakness like poor spelling. It is a disability. I am disabled. Yet, by the grace of God, I have learned how to see with my heart. "You only see well with the heart". --Helen Keller

Till sometime within the futuristic domain,

Meggy

So do any of you Sesame street lovers out there remember the episode, segment, or sketch, where Ernie invents this machine where you say a word starting with the letter R, and the bell rings?
Ernie's always up to his neat, clever tricks, especially when it comes to inventing things.
And on Sesame street, a honker, dinger, squeaker, or other contraption is bound to pop up somewhere, besides Ernie's rubber ducky!


Last night, for reasons I cannot even begin to name, i had a dream that Ernie was inventing this new contraption with a honker, dinger, squeaker and about seven other different gagets that went off when you squeezed them or handled them in some other way. Bert said, "Hey Ernie, I have a great idea." Or maybe it was Ernie talking to Bert. i think it was, but it's all fogging up now. So Ernie's like, 'I don't know, what is it now Bert?" Well Bert or Ernie decides to hook it all up to a wall so that whenever someone makes a sound, as if they even had motion or sound sensors in those days, the whole thing goes off all at once, honking, dinging, and squeaking in all its contraptionness. A good security alarm, but not for Bert. Bert just wants to do something boring like always. So Bert and Ernie argue back and forth for a while but finally Ernie wins and the thing is invented. It all goes up, it's all hooked up. only, who would have thought back in the seventies or early eighties when the sketches that were actually funny were in existence, that the thing would be sound activated? and suddenly Ernie realizes, uh-oh, I don't have any way to make it sound activated! Bert says, "See, I knew you did something wrong!" Then either it crashes or somehow works on air and no electricity and once again Bert is stumped by Ernie winning his case, or nothing else happens. i think that's where I woke up. It was a very strange dream and one of the first Sesame Street ones I've had. I am learning a lot from the show. In my opinion, Sesame Street is definitely not just for kids. There is way too much big kid and adult humour in it for just little toddlers!
Anyway, this is a Jim Henson community and I just thought I'd share. Happy reading!
By the way, just to throw it out to any of you, does anyone at all know where I could get more information on actor/performer Kevin Clash, AKA Hoots the Owl and Elmo? Anyone?
Thank you!

Hi! I'm new to this comm.... It was suggested to me that I should show off the newest cloth diaper I got my son here. Hope its ok! 
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Hi, everyone. I am a HUGE Jim Henson fan and decided to dedicate an entire show to his wonderful imagination & creations. I run an internet based radio show called Glass of Win ~ people who can catch it live can call in and geek out with me or chat in the live chat room. Please check out my promo for more info:

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So, my niece does gymnastic and various kinds of dance and wants to do a routine to the Muppet Show theme, but she needs the instrumental version- no words. So I was wondering if anyone had a copy?

Thanks in advance.

(Crossposted.)

Check it out, my friend just sent me this link. The costumes make me think of Zoobilie-Zoo.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/124423.html

SESAME STREET AT 40,
A NIGHT OF CELEBRATION WITH THE LEGENDARY CAST
January 30, 2009 • 7:00 p.m.

“Sesame Street at 40” will be a night of celebration and discovery about a children’s TV show that reshaped the world. This once-in-a-lifetime event, crafted for an adult audience, features Frank Oz (Bert, Grover, and Cookie Monster), Kevin Clash (Elmo), Caroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar), Sonia Manzano (Maria), Bob McGrath (Bob), Marty Robinson (Telly Monster, Snuffy), Fran Brill (Zoe and Prairie Dawn), David Rudman (Baby Bear), and composer/writer Tony Geiss. The group will assemble as a memorial tribute to New Jersey’s own Richard Hunt, the irrepressible and life-affirming wit behind a score of characters from “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show.” Michael Davis, author of the soon-to-be-published Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, will be the evening’s moderator. This matchless event will illustrate how an incredible cast of artists has been welcoming kids of all ages to the Sesame Street neighborhood for forty years.

http://ww2.wpunj.edu/culture/dls/index.cfm#

Left column - click Order Now - tickets are $45 each. A rare event like this is well worth it IMO.