Can You Tell Me How They Got to Sesame Street?

Bert the Cop and Ernie the Taxi Driver in It's a Wonderful Life. 

Source: Wiki Commons

A myth has grown out of the story that the characters of Bert and Ernie in It’s a Wonderful Life inspired the names of the characters on the children’s show “Sesame Street.” 

Stephen Cox, author of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book, debunks this claim: “It’s purely coincidence, admits Henson representatives who were there in the late 1960s when Sesame Street first paved its way on television” (87).

(Left to right) Ernie and Bert
Source: http://www.factfixx.com/2011/08/10/urban-legends-bert-and-ernie-are-lovers/

Even the “behind the scenes” book about “Sesame Street,” titled Sesame Street Unpaved, by David Borgenicht, tackles the topic: “Sesame writers insist that it’s just a coincidence” (23).

A quick Google search of the phrase "bert and ernie sesame street it's a wonderful life" will also disprove the myth.

Please help me educate America. Please stop this pop-culture lie.

Sources:

Borgenicht, David. Sesame Street Unpaved. New York: Hyperion, 1998.

Cox, Stephen. It’s a Wonderful Life: A Memory Book. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2003.