This should quiet down anyone claiming that Big Bird needs Federal Assistance...
Big Bird doesn't get Federal Assistance. Sesame Workshop creates a show. Actually it creates several shows; Sesame Street is only one of them. It sells those shows to public television stations, who are the ones who get Federal Assistance. If Congress pulled funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting tomorrow then Sesame Workshop would sell their shows to Nickelodeon or ABC Family or some other network. And it would continue to market the characters that it trademarked. And it'll continue to make a boatload of money doing so. And why should they be criticized for that?
I'd love to see them pull the funding for PBS and Voice of America and Radio Marti and all the other broadcasing systems the government runs. Doing that would save over a billion a year.