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Cookie Monster is a popular Muppet character on the children's television show Sesame Street. He is covered with blue fur and has "googly eyes", but he is most known for his voracious appetite. He can (and often does) eat anything and everything, but his favorite choice of food above everything else is cookies.
Cookie Monster was a take off of a Muppet who appeared on an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. A short sketch depicted a monster that greatly resembled Cookie Monster (albeit with frightening eyes and fangs) who devoured a complex machine. After being informed that the machine was a bomb, the monster promptly exploded.
In his early appearances on the show, Cookie Monster seemed somewhat scary to younger viewers, as he personified the childhood fear of "being eaten by a monster." However, this fearsome image did not last long, and Cookie Monster quickly become one of the most popular and beloved characters on the show. Cookie Monster's theme song, "C is for Cookie", is one of the most famous songs from Sesame Street.
Cookie Monster has a deep, growly voice, and speaks in a primitive diction (e.g. "Me want cookie!"). He is at his most gentrified when presenting Monsterpiece Theater, as "Alistair Cookie". Cookie Monster has been performed from his earliest appearances by Frank Oz, and in Oz's absence by David Rudman.
Since Sesame Street's major reformat in 2002 - 2003, Cookie Monster has hosted a regular segment called "Letter of the Day". In each episode, he comes up with a hare-brained scheme to not eat the cookie with the letter of the day written on it in icing. Despite his best intentions, he always succumbs to temptation.
Also, to counter concerns that the character encourages bad eating habits, there are a number of shorts in which Cookie encourages viewers to have a balanced diet, although cookies obviously will always have a place for him.
Books
Tv_sesame_street_cookie_monster_interested.jpg
Cookie Monster interested in a baking sheet of cookies
Numerous children's books featuring Cookie Monster have been published over the years:
- Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster
- Cookie Monster's Kitchen
- Cookie Monster's Christmas
- Biggest Cookie in the World
- Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree
- Cookie Monster's Good Time to Eat
- Cookie Monster's Blue Book
- Cookie Monster, Where are You?
- Cookie Monster!
- Cookie Monster's Activity Book
- Cookie Monster Mammoth Color
- Cookie Monster's Book of Cookie Shapes
- Monster and the Surprise Cookie
See also
External link
Other uses
Jargon File
The Jargon File 2.4.2 has this entry for "Cookie Monster" (used with permission):
[from the children's TV program "Sesame Street"] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on TOPS-10, ITS, Multics, and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a time-sharing machine) or the console (on a batch mainframe), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see FOAF) has described these programs as urban legends (implying they probably never existed) but they existed, all right, in several different versions. See also wabbit. Interestingly, the term 'cookie monster' appears to be a retcon; the original term was cookie bear.
Oreopithecus bambolii
Cookie Monster is a nickname among paleontologists for an extinct species of hominid, Oreopithecus bambolii. Since an Oreo is a kind of cookie, the name was somewhat inevitable. The true etymology, however, is rather more mundane: it comes from the Greek oros and pithekos meaning "hill-ape".
Book by Vernor Vinge
There is a book by Vernor Vinge called The Cookie Monster, it won a 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
Baseball Player
David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox is nicknamed Cookie Monster, due to a slight physical resemblance, and a shared jovial demeanour, as well as his "monstrous" hitting prowess.
Crookie Monster
Underground Hip-Hop artist 8-Off Agallah developed a "thugged-out" parody devoted to the furry cookie-devouring Sesame Street character, titled "Crookie Monster". Co-produced by rising star Alchemist. You can listen to it here (http://www.gamecrib.com/audio/crookie.ram). (You need RealOne Player (http://www.real.com/) to listen.)
Warning: Does contain adult language.
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