Better Feed the Cookie Monster

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RACHEL MARTIN, host:

The number one beagle.

ALISON STEWART, host:

But apparently so, he's out to win it. He's in it to win it this year. Beagle, his name is Numero Uno. So keep your eye on the beagle.

MARTIN: Lovely name.

MATT MARTINEZ: In it to win it. I have the - Hi, this is Matt. How are you?

STEWART: Hey, Matt.

MARTIN: Hey, matt.

MARTINEZ: Hey, I have the number one e-mailed story at npr.org right now. It is from Elizabeth Blair. It's about Cookie Monster. It's part of NPR's In Character series. It's about, you know, what makes great characters? What does it take to create them? Why do they matter?

And so she sat down a Cookie Monster and some folks who know Cookie Monster and tried to…

STEWART: Big Bird?

MARTINEZ: Yeah. No, no Big Bird.

(Soundbite of laughter)

PASHMAN: This is exciting as exciting as it been all morning.

STEWART: I know. Really.

MARTINEZ: other folks…

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTINEZ: She try to get on the bottom of what make Cookie Monster such a fascinating character.

ELIZABETH BLAIR: We at NPR News have high journalistic standards. So I sat down with Cookie Monster for an exclusive interview.

Is it true you things other than cookies?

COOKIE MONSTER: We eat everything. Yeah, one cannot live on cookies alone. Me eat vegetable, fruit, meat, fish, bicycle, truck. Me once ate fire hydrant. Me monster, yeah. Num, num, num, num. ME getting kind of hungry now.

BLAIR: The Cookie Monster has always bee veracious, but he didn't always eat cookies or at least his predecessor didn't.

Years before "Sesame Street," Muppet creator Jim Henson made a very similar monster who ate snack foods in television commercials. Sheryl Henson, Jim's daughter and president of the Henson Foundation says then he ate computers.

Ms. SHERYL HENSON (President, Hendon Foundation): He devoured machines for an IBM industrial film which was a film to entertain the IBM executives.

(Soundbite of video clip)

Unidentified Man: This is a recorded analytic program readout to be utilized by engineering personnel exclusively.

Ms. HENSON: he crunched up machines and gobble them all up.

(Soundbite of video clip)

Unidentified Man: The quantum polarization of the energy transfer involved here in…

Ms. HENSON: The big difference between that puppet and the final cookie monster id that this one had teeth and those came out from eating cookies.

BLAIR: So the basic look and spirit were there but the character we know today was still a ways off. Enter puppeteer Frank Oz. For nearly 30 years, Henson and Oz was an extraordinary team. Sheryl Henson says they shared a subversive sense of humor. Their Muppets were regulars on "The Ed Sullivan" and "Tonight Shows." Frank Oz says the idea for cookie monster began on a Muppet game show.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FRANK OZ (Co-creator, The Muppets): I remembered that Jim played Guy Smiley who was the host of the show.

Mr. Jim HENSON (Muppets Creator): (As Guy Smiley) Hello everybody. Hello there and welcome to the Mr. and Mrs. Game. This is a show where…

Mr. OZ: And there was a character who was just a monster. And the monster won on a show and he had a choice.

Mr. HENSON: (As Guy Smiley) You can choose either an all-expense paid two-week vacation in Hawaii, along with a new car, a new house and $10,000 in cash or a cookie.

Mr. OZ: And he chose the cookie.

COOKIE MONSTER: Cookie.

Mr. HENSON: (As Guy Smiley) A cookie.

COOKIE MONSTER: Cookie.

Mr. HENSON: (As Guy Smiley) You just won a cookie.

Mr. OZ: And I remember us screwing around with that. And that, I think, is the beginning of it.

BLAIR: Ultimately, Cookie Monster was the brain child of several people improvising. Writers and producers like John Stone and Jeff Moss, and puppet builder Don Saline.

Mr. DON SALINE (Puppet Builder): It just happened during performance and with the writers and Jim, innately and organically.

COOKIE MONSTER: What starts with the letter C?

BLAIR: Cookie Monster's anthem was written by longtime "Sesame Street" composer Joe Raposo.

COOKIE MONSTER: Who cares about the other things? (Singing) C is for cookie, that's good enough for me...

BLAIR: But the person who gets the most credit for Cookie Monster is Frank Oz. He was known for taking Muppet character development seriously. He also did Miss Piggy and Bert, among others. "Sesame Street" veterans Chris Surf(ph) and Norman Styles worked on the show throughout the 1970s and 80s.

They say Frank Oz wouldn't break character as Cookie Monster, even when they were writing.

Mr. CHRIS SURF ("Sesame Street"): So it wouldn't be, you know, Frank saying, well, I'm not sure if this works or that works or whatever. It would be, What you think, maybe me do this? What you think? Maybe we should hold cookie over here.

Mr. NORMAN STYLES ("Sesame Street"): I mean, Frank puts everything that you can into that part. And people have really said this when they analyze it. It's really like Frank's bid. You know, it's just with no control on it whatsoever.

COOKIE MONSTER: Me got to taste cookie soon or me going to go crazy.

Mr. STYLES: And Bert is the exact other half that's very worried about everything and very square.

BLAIR: Frank Oz doesn't perform on "Sesame Street" anymore but he is still the best person to answer the question: who is Cookie Monster?

Mr. OZ: A very sensuous monster, very tactile. As opposed to many of us who need many things to try to make us happy, he only needs one thing, and that's a cookie. And he's insatiable. He's not intellectual, he's not that smart. As I said, he's very sensual and tactile. But that's pretty much him.

Ms. ANNETTE BENNING (Actress): My name is Annette Benning and I'm going to talk about here and there. And Cookie Monster's going to help me. Right, Cookie Monster?

COOKIE MONSTER: Why we here, Annette, and not there, Annette? Where you put cookies?

BLAIR: Another reason Cookie Monster is so appealing, says Norman Styles, is that he's sweet.

Mr. STYLES: In all of, you know, his mono-mania, that would not stop him from caring about somebody else.

COOKIE MONSTER: You finished?

Ms. BENNING: Uh-huh.

COOKIE MONSTER: Okay. Right now that all cleared up, let us leave here and go there with cookies, okay?

Ms. BENNING: Okay, Cookie Monster. I will go there.

COOKIE MONSTER: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Ms. BENNING: Not yet, Cookie Monster.

COOKIE MONSTER: What? What? What? What?

Ms. BENNING: We haven't finished talking about here and there. I have another question I want to ask you.

Mr. STYLES: He's not going to knock anybody over to get the cookies. He's going to try to get around them to get the cookie. He's going to beg for the cookie. He's going to: oh please, please, please, please.

BLAIR: "Sesame Street" producers tried to reign in Cookie Monster's obsession a few years ago as part of their Healthy Habits for Life campaign. He started singing cookies are a sometimes food. For a while, there were rumors that he'd be replaced by a veggie monster. It wasn't true but a Sesame Workshop executive says they were inundated with mail from angry fans.

More than 3,000 of them signed an online petition. What's wrong with you people? one of them wrote. To quote the monster himself, "C is for cookie and that's good enough for me."

COOKIE MONSTER: So we done?

BLAIR: We're done.

COOKIE MONSTER: No more talking?

BLAIR: No more talking.

COOKIE MONSTER: You aren't going to need this microphone any more?

(Soundbite of chewing)

COOKIE MONSTER: Wow, that's solid, that's solid steel. This going to be challenge.

(Soundbite of chewing)

STEWART: Oh, man. That kills me. That special cookie profile brought to us courtesy of NPR's Elizabeth Blair.

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