Cookie Monster

A roundup of Wednesday morning's arts and entertainment headlines: Cookie Monster wants to host "Saturday Night Live. " ( YouTube ) Surprise! Bristol Palin doesn't win " Dancing With the Stars," Jennifer Grey does. ( Los Angeles Times ) It's not a happy week for Sarah Palin either -- ratings for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" plummet by 40% in the second week of the show. ( Los Angeles Times ) Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh files for divorce from director Noah Baumbach after five years of marriage.

Jane Nebel Henson knew Kermit before he was the Frog, saw the Cookie Monster before he lost his "fiendish" teeth and was around for the pre-diva days of Miss Piggy. Henson, the wife and longtime artistic collaborator of legendary Muppets creator Jim Henson, died Tuesday at her home in Greenwich, Conn., after a long battle with cancer, the Jim Henson Co. announced. She was 78. As the first partner to the famous Muppeteer, Henson was instrumental in the creation of the earliest characters in the brood of marionette-puppet hybrids.

Cookie Monster is getting his moment in the white-hot center of the Internet Tuesday as his parody video, "Share It Maybe" -- a takeoff on Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" -- is making the rounds. Cookie Monster's music video (which will surely rival his previous hit, "C Is For Cookie") shares a connection with two previous viral sensations: the Muppets, who had a run of great music videos last year, including a cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody," and PBS, which released a trippy Mister Rogers video called "Garden of Your Mind" last month.

It works for underwear: Just ask Spider-Man. And it's “grrrrreat” for cereal, as Tony the Tiger can attest. So why not get Elmo to hawk apples? Turns out it could be good business. Kids took nearly twice as many apples when they had Elmo stickers on them as when they didn't, researchers from Cornell University said in a letter in the August issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. David Just, co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, and Brian Wansink, a Cornell marketing professor, noted that much of the food served in schools is provided by outside contractors who brand their products.

I don't just want to be thin. Thin is passe. No, I wish to be fat-free. I grit my teeth through fat-free creamy ranch dressing. Fat-free jalapeno-cheese bread. And when I feel like living with reckless abandon, fat-free cookies. They exist??? you ask with disbelief. I toy with you not. It seems only the Nabisco people, those whiz-bang bakers of fudge-covered Oreos and Nutter Butter peanut creme patties, understand how to hold the fat and pack a punch.

No offense to my mother, but she did invent the worst cookies of all time. And the thing about it was, she did it on purpose. She invented them the summer she had the nasty sweet tooth, the wicked sweet tooth, the Evil Genie of a sweet tooth that commanded her to drive the Rambler screaming down Cheesty Boulevard to the A&P every night right at closing and then pound on the glass doors the manager was trying to lock. "We are closed!" he mouths through the glass. "I will kill you!"

There is a panic in the land, and it started on "Sesame Street." The rumors, they are rampant. Taken together, in dark tones, and one could fear that the beloved boulevard is rapidly transforming into the Avenue of the Politically Correct Puppetariat. Elmo and Zoe are on an exercise routine. Singing vegetables and talking fruit have invaded the neighborhood. Miles has a new song. It is about broccoli.

In response to the letter (Viewers' Views, Oct. 30) from T. L. Ham of South Gate concerning the "shock" experienced from Cookie Monster's grammar on "Sesame Street": Oh, for crying out loud! A. Wolff, El Toro

I just watched "Sesame Street" with my 2-year-old nephew. I was shocked to hear the character Cookie Monster say "Me want some cookies." This is very annoying when I'm constantly correcting my nephew from saying "Me want" to "I want" in his sentences. I thought "Sesame Street" was supposed to be an educational TV show. T. L. Ham, South Gate

Jane Nebel Henson knew Kermit before he was the Frog, saw the Cookie Monster before he lost his "fiendish" teeth and was around for the pre-diva days of Miss Piggy. Henson, the wife and longtime artistic collaborator of legendary Muppets creator Jim Henson, died Tuesday at her home in Greenwich, Conn., after a long battle with cancer, the Jim Henson Co. announced. She was 78. As the first partner to the famous Muppeteer, Henson was instrumental in the creation of the earliest characters in the brood of marionette-puppet hybrids.

Cookie Monster is getting his moment in the white-hot center of the Internet Tuesday as his parody video, "Share It Maybe" -- a takeoff on Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" -- is making the rounds. Cookie Monster's music video (which will surely rival his previous hit, "C Is For Cookie") shares a connection with two previous viral sensations: the Muppets, who had a run of great music videos last year, including a cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody," and PBS, which released a trippy Mister Rogers video called "Garden of Your Mind" last month.

When a Hollywood studio remakes "The Wizard of Oz," L. Frank Baum doesn't have a chance to send out a press release. But the tricky thing about rebooting a property that's only been gone seven years is that the creator is usually around to say something about it. That's just what Joss Whedon did after Monday's news that a young writer named Whit Anderson, who grew up watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," would now tackle the new movie. It was largely a jokey missive that Whedon sent to E!

A roundup of Wednesday morning's arts and entertainment headlines: Cookie Monster wants to host "Saturday Night Live. " ( YouTube ) Surprise! Bristol Palin doesn't win " Dancing With the Stars," Jennifer Grey does. ( Los Angeles Times ) It's not a happy week for Sarah Palin either -- ratings for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" plummet by 40% in the second week of the show. ( Los Angeles Times ) Actress Jennifer Jason Leigh files for divorce from director Noah Baumbach after five years of marriage.

Booster Shots is noticing much online chatter this morning about recent weight loss by the New York Jets' Kris Jenkins -- weight loss attributed to Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet. Ditto similar weight loss by Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi of "Jersey Shore." Here's Jenkins' explanation of his success, as shared with the Associated Press: Cookie monster: Jets' Jenkins losing weight before training camp with unconventional diet . And here's information on Polizzi's lost poundage from That's Fit on AOL: Jersey Shore: Another Season, Another Fad Diet .  Put them together and what do you have?

I've seen "How to Train Your Dragon" twice. My daughter loves it (the lead dragon reminds us of her cat). And I think it's pretty great too. (Note: Some pretty obvious spoilers heading your way.) Perhaps I'm mellowing in my middle years, but I don't much mind what Entertainment Weekly calls the movie's "layer of age-of-terror allegory about the ignorance bred by jingoism." This refers to the fact that the Vikings in the film have been raised for seven generations to kill dragons: "It's what we do."

Today's episode of "Sesame Street" is brought to you by the number 40. The show that taught innumerable preschoolers that it's not so easy being green (a message that would never pass muster these days) turns middle-aged today, as have the Generation X children for whom it was created. The show's madcap skits busted the myth that children's programming couldn't be educational and entertaining at the same time, let alone occasionally hilarious. And if some of the cleverly sly references -- such as Guy Smiley spoofing "This Is Your Life" for a ratty old sneaker -- went over the target audience's heads, they also drew parents to watch alongside the kids.

When I was a child, the rules of the road were less about driving and more about the banning of certain items and behavior from the car. Flashlights, I remember, were taboo, as were whistles, harmonicas, tape recorders and pinching contests--all of which, according to my father, Distracted the Driver, a capital offense. At the time, I found these rules arbitrary and tyrannical. Now that I have children, I find them logical and beneficial.

Video Bert & Ernie's Word Play. Sony Wonder. 50 minutes. VHS: $10. DVD: $13. Ages 2-6. Move over Elmo. Longtime "Sesame Street" pals Bert and Ernie get top billing as they play hosts of a variety show with a learn-to-read theme in their first direct-to-video special. Naturally, little red superstar Elmo is on hand--pun intended--along with Kermit, Cookie Monster, Grover, Prairie Dawn, Zoe and other familiar and new Muppet pals.

THERE'S a new kind of TV villain on "LazyTown," Nickelodeon's popular kids' show. Robbie Rotten, in all his creeping, hand-wringing, nyah-ha-ha evil, plots to keep the village children indoors, occupied with video games and candy. His nemeses Sportacus and Stephanie back-flip to the rescue, demonstrating the joys of fresh air and fitness.

There is a panic in the land, and it started on "Sesame Street." The rumors, they are rampant. Taken together, in dark tones, and one could fear that the beloved boulevard is rapidly transforming into the Avenue of the Politically Correct Puppetariat. Elmo and Zoe are on an exercise routine. Singing vegetables and talking fruit have invaded the neighborhood. Miles has a new song. It is about broccoli.