Posted on 10/13/2012 11:55:39 AM PDT by Red Steel
On Saturday, Nov. 3, Chris Mecham and Michael Bellavia will likely be holding signs in Washington D.C.'s National Mall that read, respectively, "I am Bert" and "I am Ernie."
They hope you join them.
VIDEO: It's Official: Big Bird Was the Star of the First Presidential Debate
The duo were brought together after Mitt Romney infamously uttered the words "Big Bird" during the first presidential debate. Now they're organizing the Million Muppet March to show solidarity for "keeping full employment for all Muppets" by continuing public broadcasting funding -- which Romney plans to axe if elected.
Bellavia and Mecham described to The Hollywood Reporter their impromptu plans for the assembly, to be held on the National Mall at the nation's capital.
Even "if it's just the two of us with puppets in Washington D.C., I'm happy," said Bellavia, president of Animax Entertainment. Bellavia, based in Los Angeles, and Mecham, a writer and student at Boise State in Idaho, both had the idea of creating a Million Muppet March after Romney's remark.
After finding out that the other person had already created a web presence for the event (Reuters noted that Bellavia bought the domain name for the March while Mecham created a Facebook page) they decided to cooperate to make it a reality.
"Niether of us is a community organizer," Bellavia said. But, if "likes" are any indication, they might be getting some company in the capital: more than 11,000 people have given the thumbs up on the event's official Facebook page, and 440+ people have RSVP'd for the event on the social-networking site so far.
"The route is to be finalized early next week but the aim is to gather on the Mall likely near the Smithsonian and walk with puppets in tow to the western grassy area by the Capitol building," Bellavia noted.
"The ultimate mission is to show support for public media and public broadcasting," he said. Though public broadcasters like PBS, which airs Sesame Street, have been in the crosshairs of budget hawks, Romney's "Big Bird" comment regnited the debate about continued funding.
President Obama's campaign has even aired an ad starring Big Bird that mocked Romney for cracking down on Sesame Street instead of Wall Street.
STORY: Mitt Romney Says 'I Love Big Bird,' But Threatens PBS Funding Cuts in Debate
Mecham, who will be visiting the nation's capital for the first time, hopes that the March will draw "everyone from the young families with kids who understand the value of PBS Kids television programming, to retirees--the generation of citizens that built America's public broadcasting network and who know its value to democracy and to national security."
"We also want puppets there. And people dressed in full mascot outfits," Bellavia added.
Sesame Street is a one percenter!
Sometimes I hate FR! It doesn’t register that I’ve posted and so I hit post again.
It has to e the easiest thing to program “No identical posts.” You know, same exact everything from same sender.
HEY as long as Downtown Abby come back
for January 2013 I be happy LOL!
I want see Maggie Smith smack Shirley McLaine botox face LOL!
Exactly. I've noticed the argument lately has become "we need to keep public funding for these programs because PBS is the channel that EVERYONE can access. They're arguing that poor people need to be able to watch the kinds of shows on PBS that other people have to pay for on cable channels. I guess those folks don't realize that there are not many households in this country that DON'T have cable, even among the so called 'poor'.
But there are folks who will continue to support PBS, and that's fine. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting can fund the network with the sales of DVDs of their programs, and throw a little advertising on the programs as well. Heck, they already do that with Masterpiece Theatre! Viking Tours has a short ad at the beginning and end of the program, and I don't have a problem with that. If they don't want advertisements on their childrens' programming, that's ok. They make plenty of money off the toys and educational items based on those shows even without any advertising, as the figures in your post show very clearly.
PBS could fund itself rather well, if it had to do so.
The $450 million that PBS is vastly understated. There’s huge amounts funneled through National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, special grants, pressure on state governments to contribute, etc.
In addition to extravagant salaries paid to all the bigwigs in public broadcasting, their program providers have become multimillionaires. Garrison Keillor, Steve Smith (Red Green), Ken Burns and many others have won life’s lottery in public broadcasting.
Back in the days of Free Republic activism, there was an effort to take on the media. There was always a hue and cry to end PBS.
We learned that PBS and NPR are defended with multiple layers of barbed wire and sand bag emplcements with machine guns and flame throwers placed to support each other and destroy attackers at a distance.
This planned demonstration is an example of that capability.
The place to destroy the left dominated PBS/NPR stations is at the state level where governors control the institutions that host the TV and Radio broadcast stations.
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