Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is a governmental and social construct, generally consisting of organization and government oversight of many aspects of daily life. Bureaucrats serve their government or corporate employers by ensuring that all processes and actions under their jurisdiction comply with directed norms. As such, most bureaucrats are generally seen to be impersonal or even rude, while retaining no personal character of their own. Bureaucracy is common to both communism and capitalism.

Muppet Bureaucrats

 * Inspector LaBrea is a government noise inspector who threatens to shut down The Muppet Show in episode 413, until he realizes that the guest star is his hero, Dizzy Gillespie. LaBrea is redeemed by having his own personality, and while his job may be in danger, the Muppets no longer need to fear him. (Also, he's not a bad saxophone player.)


 * Dinosaurs portrayed at least two bureaucrats during its run. The Job Wizard (in "Career Opportunities") provides Robbie Sinclair with only two career choices, which are determined by those of his parents. The Job Wizard always wanted to be a dancer, but lacked the personal wherewithal to ignore convention and follow his dreams. The Clerk from "The Son Also Rises" later displays another side of bureaucracy. He ignores Robbie and Earl's desire to challenge each other physically, and suggests instead well-crafted essays, on duplicate carbon copies. The Clerk's own submerged desires soon become evident, as the antagonism between Earl and Robbie excite and arouse his dinosaur nature, and he soon gladly referees their fight. The Clerk demonstrates the fundamental dissatisfaction that bureaucrats sometimes feel with the bloodless, impersonal nature of their jobs. Being a bureaucrat can be boring, and The Clerk needs more excitement than carbon copies can provide.


 * Vogons are prime examples of especially evil bureaucrats. They destroy the Earth simply to build a hyperspace bypass, and ignore the pleas and cries of humanity because humanity hasn't filled out the proper forms (also because they are particularly nasty and sadistic). Vogons have enormous respect for forms and protocol, and their only attempt at personal expression, their poetry, is so incredibly bad it can be used for the purposes of torture. Vogons, when faced with the suggestion of personal freedom and individuality, tend to ignore the choice, sometimes going so far as to push people out of airlocks into open space.


 * In Episode 110: Almost There of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, Fox in Socks and Mr. Knox have to navigate the Travel Center to claim their free trip to far-off Gazir. They must deal with many different civil servants in order to begin their travel.


 * In Episode 213: Red's Club of Fraggle Rock, Red starts down the slippery slope to bureaucracy when she becomes over-reliant on rules and regulations to form her club. Soon she learns that personal freedoms suffer when challenged by authoritarian rulers, and that Fraggles don't make good bureaucrats.


 * Clive Cahuenga, the singing civil servant from episode 316 of The Muppet Show, is another dissatisfied bureaucrat. He has gone so far as to set The Municipal Vermin Abatement Code to music, which he sings twice, because he must do everything in duplicate. Clive Cahuenga wants personal expression and art in his life, but he only ends up embarrassing himself publicly.


 * Oscar sets up a toll booth in Episode 0809 of Sesame Street. Everyone who wishes to pass must pay Oscar a jar of mud. (This demonstrates the learning concept of "Bureaucratization.") Oscar's toll booth represents the worst bureaucracy has to offer: a demand of a useless (but time-consuming to complete) object, in return for something traditionally free, plus brand new rules and regulations on top of that. However, Oscar's lifelong pursuit of personal freedom and individuality make him, like Red, a poor candidate for bureaucracy. We never hear about the jar-of-mud tollbooth again.