Like anyone who feels entitled, if you want to hear some squealing from Big Bird, all you have to do is hint that, after decades of being on the government dole, maybe it’s time to get off the taxpayer teat and take care of yourself. Heaven forbid.
After all, it’s hard out there for a bird who takes in a cool $50 million a year — off of merchandising alone, according to financial statements.
Yep, that one-percenter Big Bird makes about four times what Mitt Romney makes annually. Yet, Barack Obama wants you and I to still carry his weight, and that of the publicly funded Corporation of Public Broadcasting. It all makes one’s head spin.
Mitt Romney’s shout out against taxpayer-supported broadcasting, a favorite bogeyman of the right wing for years, came during the pivotal first debate.
Romney said, “I like PBS. I love Big Bird, but I’m not going to keep on spending money on things, and borrow money from China to pay for it.”
Since then, an entire debate has surrounded the big yellow bird. In a stunning turn of events, the Obama campaign has chosen to run on Romney’s comment. Romney wants to hunt, pluck his feathers out and baked his naked body for dinner. Ok, maybe I’m going overboard. Romney wouldn’t sell the carcass on eBay. Selling it on Wall Street would be more profitable.
Now, President Obama wants to run TV ads starring Big Bird to attack Romney. So much for focusing on issues that matter to voters, like the economy and health care. It’s all crazy. The truth is that Big Bird is a billion dollar entity under something called the Sesame Workshop, which now disputes the usage of its character in a political advertisement.
Our favorite yellow bird rakes in millions of dollars in investment income. According to the 990 tax form that all nonprofits are required to file, in 2008, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received nearly a million dollars in compensation. And, from 2003 to 2006, “Sesame Street” made more than $400 million from toy and consumer product sales. The marketing license alone is estimated to be worth $2 billion. That is a lot of moolah for a bird to support himself on.
Moreover, other entertaining characters for children have not only survived, but prospered. Mickey Mouse is still head of a multi-billionaire dollar empire, 85 years after his creation. The purple dinosaur Barney continues to command an estimated $200 million a year, long after the Barney & Friends franchise stopped airing shows, and “it girl” Dora The Explorer pulls in billions that would make even Oprah jealous.
If they can do it, so can Big Bird. It is time for Big Bird to leave the nest and fly on his own. There is zero need for him to remain a ward of the state, or in this case, every state. As much as President Obama pretends that everything is “for the children,” children today have many options.
In 2008, then-candidate Obama said in his acceptance speech to the Democratic Convention, “If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”
It’s too bad that President Obama has forgotten this.
