AT&T this week unearthed some of Jim Henson's earliest films, made for the company for a business seminar in Chicago in 1963. more ›

Today, though, we're taking a look back to the 1970's, at some of the animated shorts Philip Glass scored for Sesame Street. more ›

Is it possible we appreciate Sesame Street more as adults than we did as children? more ›

Tonight on PBS stations across the nation Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop present a primetime special, Growing Hope Against Hunger. The special tackles the problems of food insecurity and childhood hunger in America. Sesame Street will put their own stamp on the fight by introducing a new Muppet character named Lily, a child who goes to school hungry whose family deals with food insecurity. more ›

What do you get when the shining star of Sesame Street crosses paths with the black hole that is Glee? Pop culture entropy, people. more ›

Anthony clued us to this from Jezebel. We could sit and watch this all day. Who knew that Bert was into depressed Russian novelists? more ›

We've all lost something at the disco - car keys, wallets, innocence, lovers. But a cookie? more ›

Since this is Pi Day and all, it makes sense to us to make today's diversion pie-themed. Thankfully, there's Sesame Street to provide. more ›

More fun with Sesame Street today, with a little bit of drum 'n' bass thrown in, for good measure. Turn the speakers down and grab your pacifiers. this is gonna get noisy. more ›

We're Muppet-crazy here in the Chicagoist offices today. This amazing weather has also got us crying out for spring already. So we thought combining the two would work for today's diversion, more ›

Anyone who didn't watch Top Chef last night should watch this video immediately. Anyone who did? Relive the memories. The Top Chef gang was joined by some of the Muppets from Sesame Street, who judged a cookie making challenge. Cookie Monster (who spent much of his time trying to eat the tablecloth) Elmo and Telly joked, snarked and eventually judged. The contestants look like they can't decide whether to be thrilled to meet childhood heroes or appalled that their cuisine is being judged by hand puppets. As one of our tweeps remarked, after about ten seconds, we might've put Elmo under the salamander. We kid! more ›

One of the best late night tv bits is Jimmy Kimmel's "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship." It appeals to our more juvenile impulses. We especially love it wwhen the censorship is applied to "Sesame Street" clips, such as this one featuring the Count. more ›

If anyone else besides the Muppets were to make an Old Spice Guy commercial just as that meme was about to fade into obscurity, we'd probably snark about striking while the iron is hot. But this parody featuring Grover is pretty damn cute. more ›

Truth be told, we much prefer this Sesame Street/Lady Gaga mash-up to the official "Telephone" video. [via] more ›

If you're familiar with the work of the Numero Group, you know that they're very good a documenting the interesting and obscure artistic works that make up the backdrop of the cultural touchstones that mark Americana. Their latest creation, Celestial Navigations: The Short Films Of Al Jarnow. is no different. If you grew up in the 70's and 80's, you know the work of Jarnow, or at least his aesthetic. That's because Jarnow, among myriad other animators, mostly unknown, produced animated shorts as part of the Children's Television Workshop's innovative programming. more ›

As we all know by now, today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. From the thousands of clips we could possibly choose, including a recent appearance by First Lady Michelle Obama, the side-splitting conversation between Elmo and Ricky Gervais, or even the heart-wrenching scene when Big Bird learns Mr. Hooper isn't coming back, we all know what you really want: Stevie F'n Wonder rocking out "Superstition" with the kids of Sesame Street (especially the kid at 4:12). more ›

• The Sun-Times uncovered Blair Hull's bid to be appointed to President Obama's vacant senate seat.
• The Trib takes a look at Naperville's red light cameras.
• It wasn't just Chicago dealing with a cool July; for the entire state, it was the coolest July in 85 years.

• The number of city jobs to be cut if the unions don't come to an agreement with Mayor Daley: 431 according to the Mayor.
• Authorities arrested Elgin Nathan James for running "a street gang that allegedly exerts control over the hardcore punk rock music [scene] through the use of violence."
• A strange story from the South Side where a man's two prosthetic legs were stolen. The legs were later recovered unharmed.

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about this video aside from its kitsch value. Yet we found ourselves watching and re-watching it for some reason. After the 15th viewing, it struck us why it's so engaging: Cookie Monster is obviously coked out of his mind. more ›

In the spirit of yesterday's diversion, we decided to make it a coupling. Enjoy this bizarre, dated clip of Grover manically disco dancing. We never received confirmation if he danced so crazy because he was just that excited about the alphabet or if he was just totally coked more ›

Don't ask us why this was being hummed in the halls of the Chicagoist office this week. It got stuck in our brains and wouldn't get out. The Pointer Sisters bring the funk to help us count. more ›

Photo by Detroit Chris