‘Sesame Street’ writer says Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, but the show quickly denies it

Yahoo News

P is for partners.

Sesame Street viewers have long speculated that Bert and Ernie were more than just roommates. Now, Mark Saltzman, a former writer for the show, confirms that they’re gay in an interview with the LGBTQ lifestyle and news website Queerty.

“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?’” Saltzman recalled. “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.’” 

Muppets Bert, left, and Ernie, from the children’s program Sesame Street, pictured in 2011. (Photo: AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser, file)

The Arnie that Saltzman was referring to is Arnold Glassman, a film editor and Saltzman’s life partner until he passed away in 2003. Talking about their relationship, he continued, “Yeah, 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.”

Bert and Ernie were originally performed by Muppets creator Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Oz told Today in March that the puppets were often reflections of their puppeteers’ personalities. “We’d pick parts of ourselves and put them into the puppets,” Oz said.

While fans of the long-running TV show quickly took to Twitter to laud the development — this has been a long time in the making for the LGBTQ community icons, whose relationship status was featured in a 2013 New Yorker cover and the subject of an online marriage petition — it didn’t last long.

After Saltzman’s interview went viral, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the show, issued a statement saying that Bert and Ernie “do not have a sexual orientation.” It was retweeted soon after that under the show’s Twitter handle.

https://twitter.com/SesameWorkshop/status/1042117602678587395

Oz also weighed in on Bert and Ernie’s relationship on Twitter, saying, “There’s much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sesame-street-writer-says-bert-ernie-gay-couple-show-quickly-denies-194918716.html

5 thoughts on “‘Sesame Street’ writer says Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, but the show quickly denies it

  1. This article reveals the subtlety employed in promoting homosexuality in our society. Even a preschooler can see that the puppets are behaving in ways that are abnormal for two heterosexual males, but most adults will dismiss it because it’s not overt, and they’re only puppets.

    And as more homosexuals are employed by the media companies, this subtle suggestion process will always increase, and always influence the public, until being a homosexual, or at least behaving like one, is considered the norm.

    1. Filthy Jews try to ruin everything good and pure. And they wonder why everyone throughout history wants them eradicated like vermin.

  2. saltzman and glassman, of course, are the degenerates insisting the characters are faggots.

    But owen shroyer would probably conveniently miss that “coincidence”.

  3. Look at the brightside.

    It really could be worse.

    You could find out that Elmo was a gay black pedophile.

    Lord have mercy.

  4. Dude , youd have to be blind not to see it , they both wear rainbow shirts EVERYDAY , dont even get me started on the Peanuts cartoon or even Scooby doo

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