I didn’t watch a whole lot of Sesame Street growing up, so for all I know, it’s always been this weird.  But I keep stumbling on these strange videos from the show.

First came the Katy Perry collaboration, which, while still available online, was pulled out of the television episode in which it was supposed to appear.

I mean, I know they’ve done stuff like this before (I fondly recall Feist’s appearance from a couple of years ago), but Katy Perry seems like an odd choice.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m a fan of hers, and I don’t really think there is anything wrong with this.  But as soon as I saw her outfit and thought for a second about the unaltered lyrics of her honestly-not-Sesame-Street-appropriate songs I knew that people would be up in arms about it.  Don’t the good folks over at the Children’s Television Workshop know how much people love to have fits of hyperventilation about stuff like this?

Then today I saw their parody of True Blood.  It’s more benign than the Katy Perry performance, I guess, although I’m sure people can find something in it to complain about (vague vampire references = sacrilegious?).  I was more just baffled by it.

I mean, I guess ostensibly we’re learning about rhyming?  Is that the point?  All I really took away from it was that grouches like mud.  I know they know more about education than I ever will, but it seems like we might be worrying too much about entertaining the adults watching along with their children here.

[via Best Week Ever]

[Update: Flavorwire has 10 additional Sesame Street parodies, including Mad Men and 30 Rock.]