The Golden Puppets

When the broadcast rightsholders for the Milano-Cortina Olympics were announced, I don't think anyone was surprised to see the Canadian team of CBC, TSN, and Sportsnet banding together once again to cover the Canadian angle in Italy. NBC was announced as the US rightsholder for US broadcasts which carried on their effort to be the American Olympic network, but I'm not sure that anyone knew that NBC was going to employ the residents of Sesame Street as part of their coverage. With ongoing coverage from "fabricated Americans" such as Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, and Slimey pictured above, the characters from one of America's most famous streets are in Milan to talk Olympic sports and talk with American athletes!

I don't spend a lot of time on HBIC talking about Jim Henson's creations, but tonight will give me a chance to do so as Elmo got a chance to sit down and chat with two members of the US men's Olympic hockey team in brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk! I'll avoid making "Muppets" jokes with the three individuals in the image to the right, but having Elmo interview American athletes is a fun way to get kids interested in the sports and the athletes that play those sports. The marketing aspect here is pretty fun, and NBC deserves some credit for finding a way to not only get kids interested in these sports, but their parents and family members as well!

According to USA Hockey, Elmo's interview with the Tkachuks will be on Sesame's social channels before tomorrow’s game, and I'm very interested in seeing it! I'm not expecting some sort of earth-moving journalism from Elmo or anything, but I think the Tkachuks are the right guys to sit down with Sesame Street's interviewer to make a little magic. They seem like they'd have some fun with this interview!

Having Sesame Street characters at the Milano-Cortina Olympics doesn't seem like it would be a good fit based on Sesame Street's body of work, but seeing how the Sesame Street characters take fun stuff like figure skating terms and explain them using "fabricated Americans" - salchow is demonstrated by a cow! - is a fun and creative way to get younger viewers interested and, perhaps, interested in the sports. We know hockey has a solid registration number in the US, but if this can help sports generate registrations in sports like cross-country skiing, speed skating, and others it will be worth every second Elmo and his colleagues spend in Milan.

I know the NHL has tried to incorpoate the Nickelodeon idea into specific broadcasts, but the catch here is that some of the most simple parts of the game - interviews, explanations of rules, and getting players to show a little personality - can be done extremely well by characters one least expects. CBC used to run the Peter Puck segments back in the 1970s which was fun, and Sesame Street brings back that element with these features from Milano-Cortina.

Make no mistake that the Olympics, in its empirical form, are a competition, but there's no reason why people can't have a little fun. After all, most of these athletes are being paid to play a game, so the Olympics are somewhat child-like if you remove all the drama that surrounds the Olynpics. And if you want to extend that to the Sesame Street idea, I point to the lyrics of the theme song to the show that are "Come and play, everything's A-OK, friendly neighbors there, that's where we meet". Frankly, that sounds like an Olympic Games I want to watch, so good on NBC and Sesame Street for teaming up!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!