TVSquad

I'm feeling a little melancholy today. This past Friday, a friend of mine lost two daughters in a senseless automobile accident. They were thirteen and eighteen; one having just started college and the other just entering the magical teen years. It was so sudden and insane that I can't really wrap my brain around it. As a parent, I can only begin to understand what he and the girls' mother are going through, but even then I'm sure it pales in comparison to the reality.

As I thought about this blog and things to post on television, I was struck by how death can have a dramatic and instant impact on a fictional show as well. Sometimes when an actor dies, the show is able to move on with relative smoothness, but other times there is an irreplaceable hole that just never seems to be filled.

• Relax, Sesame Street isn't welcoming Britney Spears as their next celebrity guest.
  
• Too much information: Ryan Seacrest opens up about his own special style of dating.
  
• Stephen Colbert's presidential campaign is hitting some legal snags.
  

• Rumor is, Jay Leno doesn't want to make way for Conan in 2009.
  
• CNN's Anderson Cooper guest starred today on Sesame Street.
  
• Prepare to be bombarded with public service announcements: analogue television is going extinct in 2009.
  

While it has persevered for almost four decades, Sesame Street's heart and soul is very much a product of the 1970s. There was nothing like it when it first hit the public television airwaves in 1969; while other children's programs took place in mystical and magical lands, Sesame Street took place in a regular inner city neighborhood. Okay, it was an inner city neighborhood where monsters and people lived together, but it's that partial realism which set it apart from other programs, and, perhaps subconsiously, gave kids a sense of community and belonging.

Chalk this up to one of those items that got lost amidst all of the other crap that goes on in Congress. Last week, in a vote of 357-72, members of the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's plan to eliminate the $420 million dollar subsidy the federal government pays for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The CPB was created by Congress back in 1967 to shield public broadcasting from political influence. The funds they receive are distributed between PBS and local public television stations as well as National Public Radio and its affiliates. Funding for the CPB has been a point of contention in Congress over the last few years. Two years ago Republicans attempted but failed to slash the public broadcasting subsidies (Not a jab at Republicans here; just stating facts).

That's the Television Critics Association, the organization that represents over 200 TV critics nationwide and in Canada. They've revealed their nominees for their annual awards, and while a lot of the usual shows make the list, there are a few surprises as well. Some of that has to do with their choices, and some of it has to do with the categories they have and the way they nominate (for example, there aren't separate categories for "Best Performance in a Drama - Male" and "Best Performance in a Drama - Female," it's all under "Individual Achievement in Drama."

The list is after the jump.

If you were a fan of the Sesame Street: Old School DVD set, the one with episodes from the series' earlier, and arguably better, years, you'll be happy to know that a second set will be released sometime this year. Muppet News Flash has the scoop, which is that the sets should come out sometime between August and October. Sorry I can't be more specific than that, but who cares, it's more of the classic Sesame Street folks my age and older grew up with, and I ain't complaining.

Oh yeah, and despite whatever warnings they may put on the DVD, I say plop your kid down and let them enjoy a show that managed to combine educational material with some truly funny writing, songwriting and animation. There's never been another show like Sesame Street, and that includes today's Sesame Street.

If you have little kids in your home, either because they're your children or you just left a window open and some random kids crawled into your home and now refuse to leave, you might like to know that there are six free videos from the Learn Along with Sesame series available on iTunes. The segments include: