To Those Who Wait

Patience is a virtue.

Self control is the hardest ability to master.  And, as our lives become more advanced, instant gratification is always a button away.  Especially, when it comes to our art and entertainment.  With little effort, we can track down exactly what movie we want to watch, what song we want to hear, or what season of television we want to consume in one sitting.  So, when I say that a trip to an art museum is a test of strength, I'm not being facetious.

Everything about the place is challenging you to break the rules.

Welcome to the First Circle of Hell, Cookie Monster.

At first glance, the plot of the 1983 Sesame Street special Don't Eat the Pictures has little to do with the name.  The title refers to Cookie Monster's feeble attempts to refrain from eating the paintings of food that look good enough to eat.  And, being trapped in the Metropolitan Museum of Art all night long, there is quite a toll being placed on Cookie's character.

But why is he trapped in the museum all night?  Well, at the end of a day trip to the institution, Big Bird realizes that he has yet to see Snuffy who promised he'd meet him there.  This was during the time that Snuffy was thought to be imaginary, so, when Big Bird strays away from the adults to find his friend, the whole gang resolves to track him down.  Why they didn't alert the security guard is anyone's guess, but here we are.  The cast of Sesame Street have the museum to themselves all night.

Each character has a little moment to themselves to reflect on the art inside, which reminds us that the passage of time in a museum is a strange concept.  Try to do some people watching the next time you go, and you'll realize that many people struggle to "take in" the art for an appropriate amount of time.  Not including those who are actually educated on the subject of art history, you'll find that many just don't know what to do with themselves.

How long should you stand in front of a painting or a statue to actually experience it?  How long is too short?  Too long?  The point of a museum is to preserve for an eternity.  And at times, it can certainly feel like it.

Oscar amuses himself by admiring the broken statues, considering them to be "the most beautiful trash" he's ever seen.

Is that distasteful?

Bert and Ernie engage in some witty banter, trying to decipher just what exactly is going on in Washington Crossing the Delaware including a safety lesson on whether or not you should stand on such a small boat?

It counts as appreciating art if you make jokes about it.

And Cookie Monster?  Well, he slowly declines into madness over his moral dilemma.

Hallucinations are a normal part of the museum experience.

But just what does Big Bird get into all night?  Well, he meets the spirit of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian prince who has been trapped in the museum and is unable to become a celestial body until he correctly answers Osiris's  nightly riddle.  He also has a permanent smugness about him that probably comes from being an immortal child.

So what if I can't solve a stupid riddle.  At least I got a cool ghost cat.

Big Bird tries to help him solve the riddle "Where does today meet yesterday?"  And, I bet that even before you finished reading that sentence, you know what the answer is going to be.  SPOILER ALERT: It's "a museum."  Yet, we have to follow this story for an hour before they reach that conclusion.  And thus, we, too, learn what eternity is like.

I waited 4,000 years for a giant bird and shaggy elephant to save me.  Just as the prophecies foretold.

The characters aren't the only ones who get cabin fever.  Even Osiris himself, who instituted this idea in the first place, has grown weary of asking this question for nearly 1.5 million nights in a row.  The fact that an eternal powerful deity can succumb to impatience shows how ill-equipped we lowly beings are for the task.

"I even made it an easy question!  It was funny for the first couple centuries, but now it's just sad."

As we live our lives, we get used to the routine and the speed at which we receive what we want and what we need.  But at any moment, the universe can intervene.  And we find ourselves stuck, trapped, and without access to our usual amenities.  It is in those moments we must master our own patience and self control to reach enlightenment.

Take a breath, look inward, and don't eat the pictures.

All About Elmo

The Top Ten Sesame Street Song Countdown continues with a simple yet significant song.  You may love it, you may hate it, but there's no denying that nothing is quite like...

9. Elmo's Song - Elmo, Big Bird, and Snuffy

The force that is Elmo did not occur overnight.  The character slowly built his presence on the street over a couple of years, edging his way into the spotlight gradually and confidently.  But if we were to pinpoint a pivotal moment in Elmo's career, it would be "Elmo's Song."

Elmo speaks in the third person.  While this was intended to be a sign of his youth and innocence, it also works as a sign of Elmo's solipsism.  The world revolves around Elmo.  He is the most important creature in the universe.  He is the ultimate being.

In this scene, Elmo has written a little jingle that lacks thought-provoking lyrics and only comments on the fact that Elmo has written a song.  But he hasn't just written any song.  He has written "Elmo's Song," the song to replace all other songs.  When his friends are depressed for lacking a song of their own, the great Elmo graciously lends them his song.  But while it may be "Big Bird's Song" or "Snuffy's Song" temporarily, it is always "Elmo's Song."

After all, he wrote the music.  He wrote the words.

This song quickly became Elmo's main theme music and an adapted version of it was used to introduce the "Elmo's World" segments of the 21st Century.  Right, one half of each Sesame Street was devoted to Elmo.  And he didn't just have a street.  He owned the world!

Time to take over the world! Ahahaha!

This song merely hints at the path Sesame Street would take at the dawn of the new millennium.  Elmo is not a monster to be trifled with.  He has laid his claim to all of music and has won over trusted friends, lulling them into a false sense of security.  By participating in his charade, Big Bird has lost the power he once held.  His era is over.  There's a new kid on the block.

Forget it, Big Bird.  It's Elmo's Town.

Follow That Bird, Part 3: Down on the Farm

The kindly hitchhiker takes Big Bird as far as he can before dropping him off in the middle of nowhere, because that's what you do with a 6-year-old runaway.  Big Bird heads down a dirt road and before long, he comes across a farm filled with chickens.  Not Muppet chickens, just regular chickens, which usually wouldn't be an issue, except with this whole set up of "birds as a race of people," it's kind of weird to encounter the actual creatures.

Oh, and the farm is apparently run by children.

"Get offa my property, pwease!"

Okay, I know that these kids have parents, but we never see them.  The children, Ruthie and Floyd, recognize Big Bird from the TV and they decide to hide him in the barn.  The barn is off-limits to parents, I guess.

That night, Big Bird stares out at "One Little Star" from his hayloft and wonders how his friends are doing at that moment.  And, of course, they are looking at that same star, singing the same song.  It's sweet, but it's kind of weird that Big Bird only thinks about the two people who happen to be singing about him.

I miss Olivia and Snuffy and...the rest.

While everyone else is singing, the cool car decides to stop for dinner at the Grouch-run restaurant "Don't Drop Inn," because Oscar put up with Friendly's for lunch.  That's a good joke.

This was eventually renamed "Denny's."

This is basically a comic relief sketch thrown into the middle of the film where Maria has to suffer from the terrible service, horrible food, and obnoxious atmosphere one comes to expect from a Grouch dining establishment.  This is one of the few times we see human Grouches in the series.

Would you like some attitude with that?

Maria's theoretically safe order of a tossed salad ends with the inevitable food fight.  But at least the lettuce looks edible.

Back on the farm, Big Bird begins helping the children with their chores and becomes used to the country life of apple-pickin', cow-milkin', apple-milkin', cow-tippin', milk-pickin', apple-cowin', and goin' through barn doors.

Where are your parents, you children of the corn?!

And let's not forget the ADR'd song, even though we just had a song one scene ago.

But all good things must come to an end.  While Big Bird feels content in this new home, Miss Finch picks up his scent and soon, Big Bird must hightail it out of there.  As he's hiding, he narrowly avoids being caught by the Sleaze brothers, so that plot point will have to come later.

Instead, we find Big Bird stranded in a cornfield.  After having an imaginary talk with Snuffy, he gets spotted by Bert and Ernie flying their plane.  And that can only mean one thing: a North by Northwest parody!

"We're supposed to take him dead or alive, right?"

Ernie only succeeds in scaring Big Bird because he gets mistaken for Miss Finch (and also he flew straight at Big Bird with a plane!) and decides now is the time for some plane stunts and another song called "Upside Down World."

But we just had two songs!

Ernie sings of the joys of flying upside down as Bert loses his bottle cap collection.  The two then switch positions and Bert begins singing and flying while Ernie becomes the clearheaded one, telling them that they've misplaced Big Bird during all their tomfoolery.  Oh, Ernie, you scamp!  The duo flies on with out Big Bird, because we've still got two-fifths of the movie to go.

Tomorrow, Big Bird finds himself trapped and feeling blue.  Get out your tissues now!

Follow That Bird, Part 1: Bye Bye Birdie

Before we get started, would you please rise for the Grouch Anthem?

If you politely agreed to that request, then you missed the entire point of the Grouch Anthem.

The existence of a Sesame Street movie creates an odd sensation.  It is common for television shows to be adapted into films, but rarely do we see this with long-running daytime shows that produce over 100 episodes a year.  Just to give you an idea as to how rare this phenomenon is, let me remind you that 2012's Dark Shadows was the first movie ever based on a pre-existing soap opera.

The fact that it is a show for preschoolers makes the leap to screen even weirder.  Try to imagine a property like Mister Roger's Neighborhood getting a theatrical release.  It wouldn't happen because preschoolers are not the target audience for movie producers, but their parents are.  Why would a parent take a harrowing trip to the movie theater to see a show that their kids watch everyday anyway.  It's not like little kids are thinking, "Oh, a movie adaptation of Teletubbies will allow the writers to tackle deeper, harder-hitting issues that the television format doesn't enable them to cover."

So, who is a Sesame Street movie for?  Well, given that Follow That Bird premiered in 1985, 15 years worth of kids would make a nice large audience, and they probably wouldn't mind a trip back to Sesame Street.  But, the tone of the movie would be a little different.  Gone are the blatant educational sketches or whimsical animated inserts.  Instead, we are focusing only on Big Bird as a character who just happens to have been the star of the biggest children's show of all time.  And it was time to teach kids a different kind of lesson.  A lesson about life.

The movie starts with the assumption that you know all about Sesame Street and it's inhabitants, so instead of introducing the existing characters, we meet a group of avian social workers discussing their next case.

Because that's what kids love: meetings!

The head of the Featherd Friends adoption agency informs the board of a troubling situation in which a 6-year-old bird has been discovered living by himself in the middle of an urban city without any other birds to care for him.  It almost seems like a self-parody that the movie's premise is based on an issue that the show never bothers to address because...it's just a magical kids show.

Nope, this movie is going to get heavy.

I've proposed my theory about the history of Big Bird's family and this movie jumps on that assumption and runs with it.  Despite Big Bird's evident contentment for where he is, the board believes birds must be surrounded by their own kind in order to thrive.  In order to save Big Bird from his life of abandonment, the case worker Miss Finch agrees to track him down and place him with a nice family of birds in Illinois so that he can live a better life.

Miss Finch: Worse than Doc Hopper, Nicky Holiday, Jareth, the Skeksis, and the city of New York combined.

This brings us to the movie proper as we see Sesame Street, remade for the big screen!

There are actually buildings across the street now?!

Sesame Street has never looked busier or more realistic as all your favorite Muppet and non-Muppet characters walk around and going about their daily business.  Big Bird enters on roller skates and interacts with a chirping bird, showing that he is just fine exactly where he is.  But shortly after he takes a tumble into Oscar's garbage pile, Miss Finch discovers him, and finds that her assumptions are true: Big Bird is living in filth and needs someone to take care of him.

Enter "Imperial March Theme" here.

She discusses with him the opportunity to live a life with birds, far from Sesame Street, where he can finally have a real family.  Big Bird is unsure at first, but he starts to imagine the perks of having his own mother and father taking care of him.  His fantasy shows that his lack of parents and siblings has bothered him for quite sometime, and finally, his dreams are about to come true!

Big Bird's idyllic family.  In Technicolor.

Big Bird agrees to leave, much to the dismay of all his friends and neighbors.  Despite their suggestion that they are his family already, Miss Finch reminds them that they are not birds and are, therefore, unfit to raise Big Bird.  Big Bird makes his rounds, saying goodbye to all.  He leaves Snuffy in charge of his nest, and promises to write every day.  The simple-minded and loyal Snuffy promises to visit him at his new home, and everybody cries for a bit.

This was when I thought, "What would someone who had never seen Sesame Street before think of this scene?"

After Big Bird promises to write and count and read and breathe and eat, he bids farewell, as Miss Finch coldly tells him to not look back at his old friends.

Why...why would someone say that to a child?

Big Bird flies (by plane) to Oceanview, IL where he meets his new family at the airport, the Dodos.  And much like their name, they are complete imbeciles.  After it takes them a while to accpet that this giant yellow bird is the one they were supposed to meet, they welcome Big Bird to the family, calling him "Big Dodo."

This is not going to end well.

They drive Big Bird to their home out in the suburbs where it's quite easy to tell which house on the block is theirs.

It's the one that says, "Dodos" on the mailbox.

Big Bird writes a letter to his friends back on Sesame Street, explaining all the weird things his new family does.  None of them are actually too weird (except for their daily worm hunt that never results in any worms) but they are too different for Big Bird to handle all at once.

This is ridiculous.

The final and most crucial difference that are shown is Big Bird's adoptive parents finding themselves unable to kiss him good night.  This hits Big Bird the hardest.

He closes his letter, "I should be happy here.  What's wrong with me?"

That's the kind of movie we are getting ourselves into.  Tomorrow, Big Bird decides enough is enough and starts his long journey home.  Adventures will unfold, but there will be a lot of strife along the way.  Get ready to follow that bird.

Love in the Fix-It Shop, Part 1: Holding Hands

Every generation has their own canonical version of the events on Sesame Street.  Big Bird has been 6 years old for over 40 years, so clearly continuity is not an issue for the series.  He re-learns the alphabet repeatedly without ever getting tired of it.  The inserts placed between "street scenes" are also continuously repeated, so at least sketches from the early days can outlive their era.  But the "street scene" stories are products of their time, and almost never repeated.  Although the puppets can remain the same age, the human co-stars must grow up around them.  It would confuse the child audience if the human's ages changed radically from episode to episode.  So we end up with a situation like kids who don't know who Mr. Hooper is, even though Hooper's Store remains.

Because little children accept everything in their world as fact, they don't stop to consider the history behind what they see everyday.  To them, the internet always existed, music was always downloadable, and Luis and Maria were always a happily, married couple on Sesame Street.  But the story of Maria and Luis's initial romance spanned a couple of seasons and, since they'll never be repeated on television, I felt it was worth looking at the origin of one of the most stable, loving families on television.

Despite both joining the cast in 1971, a romance between the two wasn't even considered as a possibility until 1987, 16 years later.  The idea came from Sonia Manzano (Maria) who became pregnant with her first child and realized that she wanted her character on the show to undergo the same life development, since it would be a great way to explain new babies and pregnancy to kids.  Pregnancy had been dealt with as a topic before, but never with a major character like this.  Gordon and Susan had adopted their child the year before, so there weren't any pregnancy related storylines.  Maria's new baby would be the next major development.  However, the show wasn't prepared for Maria to just become a mother out of wedlock.  The show broke boundaries, but they weren't that bold.

Maria would have to be married.  During the '70s, Maria dated the character David (Northern Calloway). But when it came time to discuss a possible father for Maria's child, Calloway's offstage behavior and mental illness eliminated his character as an option.  His character eventually left the following year, and Calloway died in 1990 (which is a tragic story for another day).  Luis, however, was single.  The two had already established a bond by working in the Fix-It Shop together, and the writers felt it would be great to have a well-represented Latino family on their show to serve as a role model.

The next two seasons were devoted to getting that baby.  And of course, before we get to marriage and a baby carriage, we must start with love.

Episode 2404: El amor está en el aire.

The episode starts off with an innocent game of "Cowboys," as Big Bird and Snuffy chase each other around, shouting "Yee-haw!" And, like all cowboys, they get into an argument about how many times one is supposed to say "Yee-haw!"  Big Bird says two, Snuffy says three, but it doesn't matter because we are going to hear it a million times anyway.

There is more to being a cowboy than just being annoying, you know.

This conflict serves to introduce us to the idea that people can still love one another, even if they don't share the same views or do the same things.  As Big Bird relates his problem to Gordon and Susan, they tell him that it's fine for Snuffy to say it three times, even if it is obnoxious.  Also, little Miles refuses to repeat his one line of dialogue when it gets interrupted, insisting that he already said it, making this a unbearably awkward/great moment.

This represents how love can be unbearably awkward/great at times.

Bird and Snuff resume their "Yee-haws" and they encounter Luis and Maria crossing the street holding hands.  Since Big Bird knows that only kids are required to hold hands with a grown up when crossing the street, something unusual is happening between Luis and Maria.

"That's the weirdest thing I've seen all day!" said the giant bird to the droopy mammoth.

Before they can explain themselves, Luis and Maria get all giggly and tongue-tied when making lunch plans.  This would make sense if they were in middle school, but they are middle-aged adults who have known each other for 16 years.  Do people this age still get twitterpated?

Awwwwwww!  They might be suffering from simultaneous head trauma!

Without dropping character, Big Bird decides that like the good cowboy detective he is, he should solve this hand-holding mystery before the bandits get a hold of his livestock or something.  He and Snuffy split up, to try the old "detectives split up" approach, made famous in that detective movie, Detectives Split Up.

With BB and AS on the case, no hand will have to fear being held ever again!

Big Bird and Snuffy lay down their Spanish Inquisition and grill Maria and Luis about the rules of hand holding, until they both realize that it must be true, they are in love with each other.  And whoever made the screencaps of their "moments of realization" have perfectly captured the awkwardness that is admitting you are in love with someone.

Haha, I could look at those all day.  Anyway, both Fix-Iters rush into each others arms to tell the other what they have been waiting 45 minutes to say.  They allow themselves some privacy in the Fix-It Shop, which sets off Sesame Street's Silent Alarm of Romance, apparently. 

You were right, Bob.  This alarm really pays for itself.

And, after they admit their everlasting love to one another, the two share the steamiest kiss ever seen in daytime children's programming, officially cementing the fact that Sesame Street is the world's best soap opera.

Mister Rogers, eat your heart out!

To celebrate the new love, jazzy Hoots the Owl and the Oinker Sisters treat us to the song "The Like Changed Into Love," which is exactly as amazing as that sentence entails.

That night, as Luis and Maria put Big Bird to bed, he asks them if they'll get married.  While they obviously haven't thought that far ahead yet, Big Bird bets that they will.  I think that's a pretty safe bet.

Cowboy-Detective Big Bird is the master of intuition.

And thus ends the first chapter of the Street's greatest love story.  In the following days, this couple's relationship will become everybody's business.  A romance will unfold with a Sesame Street twist, ensuring that intrusive birds and uncaring grouches will be there every step of the way.  The relationship will have its ups and downs, and it will all be out in the open for the whole neighborhood to see.  Because when you fall in love on Sesame Street, you know it's going to be unforgettable.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?"

The Fascinating Species of Sesame Street: Snuffleupaguses

Scientific Classification:

Animalia Chordata Mammalia Proboscidea Elephantidae Mammuthus Snuffleupagus

Anatomy and Physiology:

Built like a tuskless, earless woolly mammoth, the Snuffleupagus is covered in a thick coat of long, brown fur, with long eyelashes.  The girth of the beast is so immense that its stomach barely touches the ground when it stands on all fours.  Years of evolution have causes its legs to become stubby, shortened by the amount of weight it carries.

A young healthy male Snuffleupagus

Due to its large mass, the Snuffleupagus lacks agility.  It relies on its trunk (called a "snuffle") to hande quick movements and picking up objects.  Like any member of the elephant family, it can store fluids and gases in its snuffle.

The first appearance of a Snuffleupagus, during it's prepubescent "wild, yellow-eyed" stage.

Because the snuffle receives the most action on a daily basis, special exercises are required to keep their snuffle in fit shape.  This is known as the "Snuffle Shuffle."

Discovery:

Snuffleupaguses were once thought to be mythical creatures. For many years, no one had ever seen a Snuffleupagus in the flesh.  The only record of the existence of a Snuffleupagus was based on ancient Hawaiian legends about Mount Ihu Papa'a Lo'ihi Nui, a.k.a. Mt. Snuffleupagus due to its shape resembling that of the sleeping beast.  The original tale can be heard here.

The resemblance is uncanny.

It was not until the 1970s when a young bird first discovered one of these creatures living on Sesame Street.  For many years, no one believed his stories, but eventually everyone was made aware of the presence of this species that was once thought to have been extinct.

Habitat:

Big Bird's discovery led to the revealing of an entire colony of Snuffleupaguses that lived in caves, which were a six day hike from Sesame Street.  It is unclear how this current population of Snuffleupaguses managed to get from the islands of Hawaii to New York, but cartographers have noticed an intricate system of tunnels connecting all Snuffleupagus caves, which could explain the reappearance of the species halfway across the world.

A mother and her child inside a cave.

Behavior:

The Snuffleupagus speaks very slowly, which is often misattributed to depression and a negative attitude.  Snuffleupaguses can be very paricular and must make sure they are completely ready behore making major or minor life changes.  This can result in missed opportunities and other setbacks when complied with the slow nature of the Snuffleupagus's body.

Also, they require a large amount of sleep, which adds to their perpetual grogginess.

Other than their animal appearance and cavernous habitats, Snuffleupaguses behave just like humans.  The behavior of infant Snuffleupaguses is not far removed from human toddlers.

Baby Alice learns the alphabet from her older brother Aloysius (Snuffy).

Their life cycle is so similar to ours that one may infer that these creatures followed a similar evolutionary path as humans, due to living in close quarters with them.  The reason for their mysterious disappearance for centuries can be ascribed to the long migratory journey they took through the Earth.  As their mammoth cousins died out, the Snuffleupaguses stayed warm underground, awaiting the day they felt it was safe to surface.

Although it seems impossible, these creatures do exist and have a deep history waiting to be told.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Happy birthday?  Why bother?

In Episode 117 of Fraggle Rock "Marooned," bubbly, fearless and optimistic Red Fraggle is assigned the duties of distracting the negative, melancholy Boober Fraggle on his birthday so that his friends can throw him a surprise party.  She is upset that she has to spend time with the pessimistic Fraggle, working hard so as not to spoil the surprise for a person who would not appreciate it anyway.  She takes the nervous worrywart to the Spiral Caverns and soon they both find themselves trapped in a cave-in.

Surprisingly, while faced with the sudden realization that this could be their last moments in Fraggle Roack, Boober becomes calm and level-headed while Red panics.  No one places any blame on the other, and no animosity is shared.  The two friends are in this together.  When all hope seems lost and they can no longer hear their companions trying to free them, they comfort themselves with "The Friendship Song."

Try a little longer for your friends.  Try a little stronger for your friends.

After the song, the air starts getting noticeably thinner. This prompts Red to ask the hardest question she has ever faced.  "What do you think it's like...to die?"  Boober does not have the answer, but instead he describes a beautiful soap bubble he once saw.  Perfectly round and full of amazing colors.  And in an instant, it was gone.

Fraggle Philosopy 101: Mortality

Life is harsh and mysterious because it is so fragile.  We can not fully understand it, but with a friend by our side, we can cope and make it meaningful. We can discuss and exchange our thoughts.  We can learn from each other, about each other, and in a way, improve each other.

The bonds of friendship remain a constant theme in Henson's universe.  The connections we make with other creatures were, to him, the purpose of life.  The strength of friendship is so great that it even brought one mythical animal into existence!

In the early years of Sesame Street, Big Bird met a bizarre looking beast known as Mr. Snuffleupagus.  This wooly-mammoth-esque thing would only appear to Big Bird, and whenever Big Bird attempted to tell the adults on Sesame Street about him, he would conveniently disappear, making Big Bird look like a liar and a fool.  They cited Big Bird's large imagination to the creation of such an animal.  For fourteen years, this stunt lasted.  Bird and Snuffy grew closer and closer.  No one else had a chance to interact with Snuffy, and many assumed he did not exist.

Eventually, the writers of the show realized that 1) they could no longer come up with scenarios to keep Snuffy comically hidden from the adults and 2) this was not a safe concept to be teaching children.  From a child's perspective, they were learning not to inform adults about strange occurrences and people in their life for it would only annoy them and they would not believe you.  It was decided that it was time to introduce Snuffy to the world.

With Elmo's help, Big Bird succeeds in getting the Snuffleupagus to stay put.  The adults finally meet him and most importantly, they apologize for doubting Big Bird.  This friend was an important aspect of his life and no one was willing to acknowledge that.  This frustration caused a lot of tension for the young bird.  But, nothing was more nerve-racking than when he finally revealed his best friend to his Sesame Street family.

As you can see in the clip, he goes back and forth on deciding whether this is what he really wants.  Yes, he wants to be respected, but part of him enjoyed being the only one who got to experience Snuffy.  It made their relationship all the more special.  Only he and Snuffy shared secrets and adventures that no one else was allowed to be a part of.  In his mind, Snuffy was the greatest friend he had ever met.  What if no one else sees him that way?  What if no one else understands him?  What if no one else gets along with him?  Or worse...what if they do?

What if he likes someone else more than Big Bird?  What if he realizes he has more in common with Bob?  Or Linda?  Or Susan?  Or Gordon?  What if, by letting him free, Snuffy decides he is better off not being friends with Big Bird?

No.  Big Bird made the right decision.  It would be selfish to keep such a great person all to himself.

Although no one would blame him for trying.

Back under Fraggle Rock, Boober and Red have also discovered that friends can appear right when you least expected it, in the bleakest of situations.  When the weight of the world is looming down on you and you've lost all hope, that's when you must rely on your friends.  You may have given up, but they have not.  They see the greatest potential in you.  They will continue to encourage you when no one else will.  They ask for nothing but the assurance that you trust them.  They will love you, no matter what happens.

On a Fraggle's birthday, they are instructed to learn a great wisdom to reflect their new maturity.  Boober learned a valuable lesson while trapped under the boulder.

Believe in your friends.  Whether they are far away or right by your side, they are always there for you.

Happy Birthday!