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Bert the Cop and Ernie the Taxi Driver in It's a Wonderful Life.
Source: Wiki Commons
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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).
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| (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.
