Sesame Seeds (Episode 3): Bert and Ernie
But this time, we’re actually looking at two characters. Two characters who may go down as the greatest TV duo of all time.
… And Phineas and Ferb.
… And SpongeBob and Patrick.
… And Stewie and Brian.
… Okay look, it’s Bert and Ernie, alright?! And for the record, they came before all those other duos I just listed, so technically, that makes them the greatest.
Two very different sides of the same coin, Ernie and Bert have shown us the many ups and many downs of friendship and roommate-hood, but just how did they get the ability to do this? Let’s go down into the basement and find out.
Sesame Street was still under construction, and Jim Henson had made designs for two new muppets. Then, Don Sahlin translated these sketches into a short, orange, oval-headed muppet, with a purple and orange horizontal striped sweater, and a tall, yellow, pointy headed muppet with a unibrow and a vertical striped sweater.
Once completed, Henson, and his puppeteer pal, Frank Oz, took the two creations and started testing out voices for them. Jim did the yellow one and Oz did the orange one. But after a few minutes, the two decided to make one of the best decisions of their lives: Swap characters.
For the test pilots, Jim and Frank would do the characters again with Jim doing the orange one and Frank doing the yellow one, and they were able to get in the groove much easier. Mainly due to the fact that the puppets' relationship mirrored their relationship, the goofy, wise-cracking, orange muppet mirrored Jim Henson, and the realistic, rigid, yellow muppet mirrored Frank Oz.
Along the way, the two characters gained the names Bert and Ernie. And no, they weren’t named after the cop and taxi driver from It’s A Wonderful Life, specifically. It was just a coincidence.
Then in 1969, Ernie and Bert would appear in the promotion special This Way To Sesame Street, where they gave audiences a preview of what the show would be like.
And finally, in the pilot, they established themselves as roommates who lived in the basement of the main apartment building, and that’s what they’d be for the next 51 years.
For the most part, the two stayed in their apartment, but they would make occasional appearances on the actual street. Their purpose was to show logic (Bert) vs illogic (Ernie).
And eventually Ernie acquired his trademark red and blue striped sweater, while the stripes on Bert’s sweater were brightened up, so people could see what colors they were. They would also develop very distinct forms of laughter. Ernie laughed like someone shushing someone, and Bert laughed like a goat.
Jim Henson had a knack for performing Ernie, and during the first few seasons, he would develop something he’s most well known for: His affinity for bath time, and a certain bath toy.
Frank Oz, on the other hand, wasn’t having a great time performing Bert, because he thought Bert was too boring, but then, he realized that boring can be fun and funny, if done right. So from then on, Bert was an eccentric fellow, who was proud of the boring stuff he loved, which includes, paper clips, bottle caps, oatmeal, flat soda water, the news, and pigeons.
From then on, Ernie and Bert would make their marks on the show, whether they were in their apartment rhyming, putting bananas in their ears or staying up all night, or out in the world exploring pyramids, fishing, or watching a movie, or just hanging out on the street interacting with their neighbors and friends, this duo would always find some way to make people laugh.
But they weren’t just funny characters, they were genuine best friends. No matter how many squabbles they got into, and no matter how many times Ernie drove Bert up the wall with their crazy shenanigans, the two would always stick together, and care about each other, because that’s what best friends do. And that’s part of what they were created to teach: That people can still care about each other and be friends with one another, even if they’re different as can be.
Jim and Frank had great fun doing Bert and Ernie, but it wouldn’t last for long, because after performing one last Ernie song in 1989, Henson passed away a year later. It was a devastating blow for everyone, but alas, a new puppeteer needed to be found.
They wouldn’t find him right away though, and Ernie went through a non-speaking cameo phase for a few years. But at that point, things were about to get messy.
Sesame Street established multiple times that Bert and Ernie are best friends. The keyword in that last sentence being “friends”, which is what they were and still are, but that all began to change in 1994, when Reverend Joseph Chambers said this on a radio show:
“Bert and Ernie are two grown men sharing a house and a bedroom. They share clothes, eat and cook together and have blatantly effeminate characteristics. In one show Bert teaches Ernie how to sew. In another they tend plants together. If this isn't meant to represent a homosexual union, I can't imagine what it's supposed to represent.”
…Okay. Putting aside the fact that the two have never, so far been seen cooking together, AND they sleep in SEPARATE. BEDS. Really? Gay couple is all you can picture this being? Not, maybe two people, deciding to share an apartment because of rent, or maybe two brothers living on their own, or, heaven forbid, two best friends deciding to live together? Cause, I guarantee, there are more options than the one you came up with.
But, anyway, when stuff like that is broadcasted to the public, people believe it, and latch onto it. For years afterwards, tons of people started to believe that Bert and Ernie were Sesame Street’s secret lovers or something, and they kinda became unofficial LGBT icons.
Things got so out of hand, the folks of the Children’s Television Workshop had to release several official statements debunking these rumors. A few of which you can read below:
“Bert and Ernie, who've been on Sesame Street for 25 years, do not portray a gay couple, and there are no plans for them to do so in the future. They are puppets, not humans. Like all the Muppets created for Sesame Street, they were designed to help educate preschoolers. Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends.”
“There is nothing going on with Bert and Ernie, but there's this whole culture out there that thinks they are gay. It's clearly something that adults are projecting onto these characters. What they are is friends. In fact, if you think about the fact they are Muppets, they don't even have an existence below the waist.”
Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics... they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.
And before anyone asks, no, I am not against same sex relationships, it’s just that Bert and Ernie are not one of those same sex relationships. And if SW/CTW DID intend for these two to be representations of the LGBT community, I would have no problems with it. But they didn’t, so... yeah.
Anyway, in 1993, Ernie eventually did find a new performer in Steve Whitmire, which started with the New Year’s Eve special Sesame Street Stays Up Late. And while not perfectly encapsulating Jim’s original voice, still gave Ernie a lively, bubbly performance that captured his spirit.
From there, Ernie and Bert were used somewhat regularly in the 90s. They had new segments and were part of some street scenes, they played tinkers in CinderElmo, and even served as guides for the movie The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland.
But there was a catch. You see, Ernie now had a new performer, who was just starting out. Bert, on the other hand, was still being performed by Frank Oz, who at this point, was doing 15 sketches per 4 days per year. So while Ernie was getting more attention, Bert was getting less. And that couldn’t be more accurately portrayed when Ernie would not only get his own segment in season 30 called Ernie’s Show and Tell, but would also appear in four street scenes in season 31, by himself.
But luckily, in 1997, Bert acquired a new puppeteer who could puppeteer him, when Frank wasn’t around. And that puppeteer was Eric Jacobson.
Now that both characters had new puppeteers, starting with season 33, they started appearing more frequently, and not in just street scenes and apartment sketches.
And both of them would become half of the hosts of a new Sesame Street spin-off, Play With Me Sesame, along with Prairie Dawn and Grover.
Then later on, in season 39, the two would get another segment all to themselves, called Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures, where they would do different jobs, as claymation figures.
All three of these productions made Bert and Ernie more popular then they were before. Probably, because Steve and Eric really seemed to nail the chemistry that made the duo appeal to so many people.
Then, in 2014, as Whitmire got less involved with the show, Ernie was taken over by Billy Barkhurst, who had previously voiced Ernie for several live stage shows. Eric Jacobson, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere, and instead, a greater focus on his eccentric interests, like pigeon watching and sign painting.
When the series moved to HBO and the set got redesigned, Ernie and Bert would keep their basement apartment, but the outside windows would be blocked by Oscar’s dumpster. And they would still appear on the show, but only in a few episodes.
Then 2018 came along, and Ernie got a new puppeteer named Peter Linz, who went on to do Ernie in the newest special, at the time, When You Wish Upon A Pickle, of which, he and Bert have a significant role.
This would also be the time, where Mark Saltzman, a writer on the show, would be interviewed and asked about writing bits for Ernie and Bert, and he said this:
I remember one time that a column from The San Francisco Chronicle, a preschooler in the city turned to mom and asked “are Bert & Ernie lovers?” And that, coming from a preschooler was fun. And that got passed around, and everyone had their chuckle and went back to it. And I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert & Ernie, they were. I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them. The other thing was, more than one person referred to Arnie & I as “Bert & Ernie.” I was Ernie. I look more Bert-ish. And Arnie as a film editor—if you thought of Bert with a job in the world, wouldn’t that be perfect? Bert with his paper clips and organization? And I was the jokester. So it was the Bert & Ernie relationship, and I was already with Arnie when I came to Sesame Street. So I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple. I wrote sketches…Arnie’s OCD would create friction with how chaotic I was. And that’s the Bert & Ernie dynamic.
I don’t know if anyone got this, but he wasn’t saying that Bert and Ernie themselves, on the show, were gay, he was saying that he was using his experiences as a gay man in a relationship similar to theirs (That being the serious, up-tight one and the joking, chaotic one) to write dialogue for them.
But as you might imagine, most people misinterpreted that, and thought it was even more proof that E & B were an item.
Nowadays, no significant changes have been made to either Bert or Ernie. They’re still not as frequent as other characters, but they still appear and lots of people still love and remember them.
Now as we end this episode, I’d like to assess Ernie and Bert separately and then them together.
Ernie, I feel, is the more versatile one, seeing as how he's had one on one interactions with many of the other characters, most of them are good, a few of them are not so good. Sometimes he’s a friend we can play along with, sometimes he’s the voice of reason, but I feel Ernie is at his best, when he’s unintentionally annoying someone and we get to watch their reactions to him. Annoying people is a pretty big part of his character, as well as his relatability. Cause, let’s face it. We all know someone like Ernie in our lives. Heck, some of US might even be the Ernie in our own lives. That happy go lucky, goofy, jokester, who gets on our nerves most of the time, but never maliciously, and we still love anyway.
As for Bert, he hasn’t had nearly as many interactions as his best friend, and many of the ones he DOES have, are with Ernie, as well as the characters. Not counting the humans, the only characters I can recall Bert interacting one on one with are Elmo, Abby and Big Bird. So, not a lot of selection there. I mean, I’d love to have Bert have a sketch by himself, with Grover, Oscar, Cookie Monster, The Count, Telly, and everyone else. Can you imagine how funny the results might be? Anyway, when I was little, I didn’t really care that much about Bert, and I definitely preferred Ernie, but I realized, that was because I didn’t get Bert, or what he was supposed to represent. Bert likes a lot of things that most people think are boring and uninteresting, but he still loves them anyway, because they mean something to him, he finds interest in them. And the thing is, we’ve all had that one thing that we love, that most people don’t get. For me, it was shows like, Sesame Street and Thomas and Friends, that most of my classmates and even teachers thought were just for babies. For some people, it might be action figures, for some people it might be cars, for some people, it might even be toilets. Bottom line is, we’re all like Bert, whether we’d like to admit or not.
And that’s what makes Bert and Ernie so timeless: They’re essentially two halves of one person. Yeah, they can do well by themselves. But their biggest strength is being together and bouncing off of each other. Bert keeps Ernie grounded and helps him out when he’s confused, and Ernie not only helps Bert lighten up and have fun, but also encourages him to do the things he wants to do. They get each other, and make each other better.
And I know at least someone out there is screaming-
, while reading this, but what I just described is how best friendships work with each other, not just same sex ones. Think of your best friend in the whole world. Now ask yourselves, are they messy, goofy, and always play jokes, or neurotic, up tight, and prone to getting angry, or at the very least different than how you are? If so, then you’re already more like Bert and Ernie than you thought, but despite this, I bet you still love them and care about them. That’s what friendship is, and that’s what these two represent.
For 51 years and counting Ernie and Bert have given us one of the most realistic representations of friendship, and that’s why I think they are the best television duo of all time.
Well, that’s another episode down. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put a banana in my ear to keep the alligators away from my house. Learned from the best!
Comments
Post a Comment