Even before the end of the presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3 when Romney pledged to end the U.S. federal government’s subsidy for the Public Broadcasting Service despite his professed “love” for Big Bird, Michael Bellavia, 43, an animation executive from Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, a university student in Idaho were already working on a way to save Big Bird and PBS from possible extinction in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the “Million Muppet March.”
Coming from rural Idaho, Mecham said he was aware how important public broadcasting was in sparsely populated areas that receive no other signals over the air.
“Romney was using Muppets as a rhetorical device to talk about getting rid of public broadcasting, which is really so much bigger than Sesame Street,” Mecham said. “While he was still talking I was thinking of ways I could express my frustration at that argument. Before the debates were over I had put up the Million Muppet March Facebook page.”
The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election.
The Muppets vs. The GOP. My money is on Miss Piggy.