Sesame Street urge Obama campaign to remove Big Bird ad

The Sesame Street has urged the Obama campaign to remove the anti-Romney television advertisement featuring the footage of Big Bird.

“We have approved no campaign ads and as is our general practice, have requested that both campaigns remove Sesame Street characters and trademarks from their campaign materials,” Sesame Street said in a statement.

“Sesame Workshop is a non-partisan, non-profit organisation and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns,” it said.

The Obama Campaign said it would review the request.

“We have received that request. We’re reviewing it. I will say it doesn’t change the fact that there’s only one candidate in this race who is going to continue to fight for Big Bird and Elmo, and he is riding on this plane,” Jen Psaki, Obama Campaign spokeswoman, told reporters travelling with US President Barack Obama on Air Force One.

“The point that we’re making here is that when Mitt Romney was given the opportunity to lay out how he would address the deficit when he said, I will take a serious approach to it, his first offering was to cut funding for Big Bird. And that is absurd and hard to take seriously his specific plan,” she said.

It was during the first of the three-presidential debates last week that Big Bird was first brought to the election campaign by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate.

“I like PBS. I love Big Bird. Actually, I like you, too,” Romney said to debate moderator Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS’s “News Hour”. But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for,” he said.

Following this Obama has mocked Romney and has criticised him for his remarks on Big Bird.

“For all you moms and kids out there, don’t worry, somebody is finally cracking down on Big Bird — cracking down on him. Elmo has made a run for the border. Governor Romney plans to let Wall Street run wild again, but he’s bringing the hammer down on Sesame Street,” Obama said in one of his campaign speeches in Los Angeles on Monday.

Yesterday, the Obama Campaign launched an advertisement: “Bernie Madoff. Ken Lay. Dennis Kozlowski: Criminals. Gluttons of greed. And the evil genius who towered over them?” a voice-over says as a silhouette of Big Bird moves on screen.

“Big, yellow, a menace to our economy. Mitt Romney knows it’s not Wall Street you have to worry about, it’s Sesame Street.”

The advertisement was criticised by Romney. “These are tough times, with real serious issues. So you have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about Big Bird. I actually think we have to have a president who talks about saving the American people,” Romney said at a campaign event.

COMMENT NOW