THE REALITY of the economic meltdown has invaded the world of make-believe. The Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational group behind “Sesame Street,” is cutting 20 percent of its workforce.
Comedy writers will have a field day with jokes: Oscar the Grouch loses his limo; Elmo has to give up his apple juice and Perrier; and a downsized Big Bird has to take a job at KFC. As Kermit might say, it’s not easy being green and unemployed.
But this is serious business.
The Financial Times report of the announcement noted that much of the support for Sesame Workshop has come from big Wall Street companies, including Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch. That money paid for programs intended to help children in the United States and around the world.
As some of the workshop’s biggest donors were crashing, the resulting stock market tumble was eating away the money the workshop already had. The group’s investments lost more than $9.25 million in value in the past fiscal year.
The Sesame Workshop is not the only organization that does good works that has been crippled by the fall of Wall Street. Charities large and small are having to redraw plans and pare programs.
“Sesame Street” is not likely to go off the air and no Muppets will be harmed in this painful transition. But the programs that have relied on the generosity of Wall Street and the health of the stock market will at least be scaled back. Some programs may have to be ended.
And some children who have benefited from those programs will find themselves with one less friend in the world.
We expected the problems of Wall Street to affect Main Street. What we did not expect was that those problems would spread havoc all the way to the warm, fuzzy world of “Sesame Street.”