Awww. Sad. According to this witty article by Virginia Heffernan in the Sunday New York Times magazine, Volumes 1 and 2 of the Sesame Street: Old School DVDs carry a parental warning.

To wit, according to the story: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Seriously? Have we lost enough of our sense of humor that Cookie Monster smoking a pretend pipe (and then eating it) during the "Monsterpiece Theater" sketch is considered enough to make Sesame Street adults-only? I've seen spoofs of these characters on YouTube that would make Howard Stern say "too far, dudes" so a pipe? Really?

Sesame Street, people. The epitome of innocent childhood times for, well, everybody my age and younger, I'd guess. I grew up with Sesame Street. I was born seven months after they aired their first episode (yes, I am old as hell, it's amazing I have even figured out this blogging thing) and watched it constantly as a kid. One of the biggest payoffs of this kid thing is hanging out with my daughter, giggling our fool heads off over Cookie Monster and Oscar – on a fast track to diabetes and clearly clinically depressed, respectively, according to Heffernan's article.
Admittedly, it's lost some of its subversive edge since becoming the kid's show to which all others are compared, instead of the new, fresh idea. But I'll take the Sesame Crew, even Elmo, over one minute's worth of that simpleton Dora any day.