2012 United States presidential election debates



During the 2012 United States presidential election debates, Mitt Romney referenced Big Bird with relation to funding for PBS. (Previously, he had mentioned the character, as well as Bert and Ernie, at a variety of campaign stops.)

"I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one."

At a campaign stop the next day in Fairfax, Virginia, US Presidential incumbent Barack Obama commented "For all you moms and kids out there, don't worry: somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. Rounding him up. Elmo's got to watch out two. Governor Romney plans to let Wall Street run wild again, but bring the hammer down on Sesame Street."

Thank goodness someone is finally getting tough on Big Bird. We didn't know Big Bird was leading the federal deficit."

Romney clarified that, "I'm not going to kill Big Bird, but there's going to be ads on PBS, to pay for Big Bird." He also commented "He's going to have to get used to Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Sesame Workshop and PBS response
One media outlet visited Arts & Framing, a gallery in Putnam, Connecticut authorized to sell Caroll Spinney's artwork. Through the owner, Spinney issued a "no comment".

Sesame Workshop released a blog post in response:

"Sesame Street has been a proud partner of PBS for 43 years, and is dependent on PBS to distribute our commercial-free educational programming to all children in the United States. At a time when improvements in school readiness are recognized as being much needed for a significant number of America’s preschoolers, PBS’s ability to connect Big Bird and Friends to these children is essential. We highly value that connection. Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, educational organization. We do not comment on political campaigns, but we’re happy we can all agree that everyone likes Big Bird."

Sherri Westin of Sesame Workshop appeared on CNN Thursday morning to clarify:

"Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS. So, we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship. So quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of public broadcasting. But when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say we’re going to kill Big Bird—that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here."

Big Bird himself indirectly referenced the remarks on Twitter: "Big Bird: My bed time is usually 7:45, but I was really tired yesterday and fell asleep at 7! Did I miss anything last night?"

Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon, Piers Morgan, Today, and Good Morning America all offered appearance spots to Big Bird; Sesame Workshop declined all offers.

Paula Kerger, CEO of PBS, appeared on CNN to comment, as did LeVar Burton, as the former host of Reading Rainbow.

Other responses

 * During the debate, Google's top four rising search term were "Simpson Bowles", "Dodd Frank", "Who is winning the debate", and "Big Bird".
 * Social media responses cited in the media included a Facebook campaign to elect Big Bird president, an Indiegogo campaign, and @FiredBigBird, a parody account with over 31,000 followers. According to USA Today: "the Twitter Government account, @gov, tweeted that the phrase "Big Bird" had generated about 17,000 tweets per minute."
 * The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Leno showed a car covered in bird poo.