Special Guest Star

In the early days, Cookie Monster and Ernie used to hang out a great deal. Cookie Monster often came over to the apartment to eat cookies. Or pillows. Or whatever might be around. The Ernie-Cookie relationship made Ernie a much more rounded character than the fun-loving, annoying guy we first encountered. Ernie was often a mentor to Cookie; he taught him many things about non-monster society and tried to guide him in social mores as best he could. Indeed, Ernie acted as a sort of Bert to Cookie Monster, and with Cookie's playing the role of Ernie to Ernie's Bert, I think Ernie gained a little more perspective on and compassion for his old buddy. It must have been wonderful for Frank Oz to pester Jim Henson the way Henson got to pester him in almost all of their scenes together.

Sadly, Ernie and Cookie don't have much screen time together anymore. I understand why that must be so: when Henson died (sob), the Ernie-Cookie relationship was probably sacrificed to make Oz's transition to occasional muppeteer seem less drastic and to preserve as much Ernie-Bert interaction as possible. I'm sure there were also some pedagogical and marketing reasons, but I wish those had been ignored.

In honor of the good old days, I devote this day to Ernie's old pal, Cookie. Please be amazed by the monster's anticipation of future phenomena.