Cookie Monster

I love to do Cookie Monster balloons but I'm getting really sick of hearing this:

"Did you hear?! They changed Cookie Monster's name to Veggie Monster and he doesn't eat cookies anymore!!!"

No matter what I say, they don't believe me when I tell them that no, really, he's still Cookie Monster. I can direct them to Snopes, I can direct them to Muppet Wiki; sometimes, people just want to be angry.

Instead, I'm going to load up this Colbert Report video on my phone and play it every time I hear the rumblings of Veggie Monster unrest: Stephen Colbert accuses Cookie Monster of abandoning the pro-cookie agenda. It's five of my favorite minutes in all of television (and educational, too!)

Here, the Cookie Monster balloon demonstrates his googly-ness:

*I wish I could take credit for this awesome eye design but I can't. I learned it years ago when I first started and it's still one of my very favorite tricks. Everything's better with googly eyes.

Pepe

I'm really torn about this entry. On the one hand, I feel like this balloon came out pretty nice and it was fun to make--not an hours-long struggle like some of the Muppets have been. On the other hand...

Pepe is a controversial Muppet. It seems that most who like him REALLY like him and everyone else...not so much. Personally, I'm cool with him. I saw Muppets from Space again* over the summer and I came out kinda liking the guy and saying "okay" at the end of every sentence.

Whatever the case, he has more Facebook fans than I do. An inactive, probably unofficial Twitter account for the prawn has 50+ followers, nearly as many as very active, totally official me.

That inspired me to set a goal: I'd like at least twice as many Twitter followers as Pepe. If you're enjoying my work, please help a girl out and follow me on twitter as @BlackCatBalloon. If you want to be super awesome, tell your friends to as well. I won't be beaten by a crustacean, okay?



*Our local theater does free weekday movies during the summer and the ad said "Muppets Take Manhattan". We stood in line for half an hour waiting to see it on the big screen--the first time I've seen the movie in years, the first time my kids would have ever seen it.

You can imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be Muppets from Space, which I didn't love during its original release. This time, though, it was pretty enjoyable. Maybe it was that I'd forgotten Josh Charles (who makes anything better) was in it. Maybe it was the fact that it was free. Maybe it was because the kids were just happy to see Muppets and eat popcorn.

Mostly, I think it's because when I first saw Muppets from Space, I didn't have kids. In the past 5 years, I have become intimately acquainted with some really crappy children's entertainment and now understand that even my least favorite Muppet movie is infinitely better than an episode of Caillou.