Bye Bye Birdie
Bye Bye Birdie was a Sesame Street motion picture. It was produced in the late 1970's, but never officially released to theaters because it contained sex, violence and conspiracy, which the film's producers thought would be appropriate for children.
The first time the film was actually shown to the public was when it accidentally aired on TV in 1992 on ABC right after a 12-Hour marathon of the Muppets. Countless young children were exposed to violence and sexual activities much earlier than they would normally because of this incident. The kids' infuriated parents sued ABC for showing their children such profane material. The film was shown on TV again in 2003, this time on the channel Comedy Central.
Plot[edit | edit source]
The musical starts out with our blue muppet friend Grover walking to Oscar the Grouch's trash can, where he finds that the bum has been strangled to death with his pet worm, Slimey, who was stabbed to death. Grover is shocked and wonders who killed them, so he goes to Miles Robinson, who is pretending to be a detective. He shows Miles the bodies of Oscar and Slimey, which causes Miles to have a heart attack. Grover quickly brings Miles to his parents, who are in their room. Grover walks in on Miles' parents doing it doggy style. They don't realize that Grover is there for a few minutes, then they both quickly call the police because they think that Grover killed Miles. Grover tries to tell them that he had a heart attack after seeing Oscar and Slimey dead, but he ends up getting blamed for those murders too, and he's sent to jail. Grover plots against Sesame Street in jail and calls Elmo to help him escape prison. Elmo comes crashing through the jail on Snuffy and then they escape with Grover. Together, Grover, Elmo and Snuffy plot the downfall of Sesame Street. They decide to start a conspiracy. They go to the Fix-It Shop and force Maria and Luis, the shop's owners, to write their wills in which Grover inherits the shop. They agree, and later that night they kill Maria and Luis but make it look like they had commit suicide. Grover inherits the shop and makes Elmo and Snuffy co-owners of the shop.
Snuffy arranges a deal with his relatives in Hawaii for them to ship him illegal drugs, including Heroin and cocaine, along with shipping them weapons, such as switch-blade knives and rifles. Elmo, Grover and Snuffy open a discreet black market behind Big Bird's house, where the Cookie Monster buys chocolate-chip cookies that have the contents of pot brownies inside of them, though the Cookie Monster doesn't know and gets high after eating them. He rapes Zoe while high and leaves her dead body in an alley, where he has sex with her lifeless body when high. Big Bird finds out about the Cookie Monster raping Zoe and reports him to the police, who sentence him to be executed in the electric chair. Elmo persuades the Cookie Monster to join him, Grover and Snuffy, and the Cookie Monster accepts. They create a dummy of the Cookie Monster and the dummy gets electrocuted rather than the real Cookie Monster. They continue with their black market scam until Snuffy's relatives come from Hawaii to get the money that Snuffy owes them. They kill Snuffy and leave his body outside of Big Bird's house, who realizes that he shouldn't ratted out the Cookie Monster. Big Bird goes to Bert and Ernie for help, who reveal to Big Bird that they're really both the last two remaining godfathers of the Italian Mafia. They say that they can help him if he agrees to have threesome sex with them, and so they do so. After this, Bert and Ernie call in Rosita, Forgetful Jones and the Telly Monster, the only three remaining underlings of Bert and Ernie. They gather their weapons and prepare for a gang war between them and Grover's trio.
The next morning, Big Bird hears two gunshots. He goes outside with his pistol to find Grover, Elmo and the Cookie Monster down the street. Grover, holding a gun, stands above the dead bodies of Gordon and Susan Robinson. Bert, Ernie, Rosita, Bruno and the Telly Monster stand behind Big Bird, all wearing suits and armed with weapons. The two gangs start to shoot at each other. The Cookie Monster is shot down by Rosita as soon as the fight begins, following with Rosita being killed by Grover. Big Bird jumps behind his house's stoop for cover while he shoots at Grover, missing each time. Elmo kills Ernie, which causes Bert to go crazy and shoot Elmo down then himself. Grover throws knives at the Telly Monster and Forgetful Jones, killing the Telly Monster and wounding Bruno. Grover then shoots Jones in the forehead, causing him to die. Big Bird's gun is shot by Grover, causing it to break. Big Bird runs to the guns of his fallen companions, but Grover shoots them all, rendering them all useless. Grover slowly approaches Big Bird, who is now cowering in fear next to the body of Bruno. Grover presses the barrel of his gun against Big Bird's head, then Big Bird quickly takes the knife that was thrown at Bruno from his dead body and stabs Grover in the heart, killing him. Big Bird sings a song about his survival.
| “ | It seems I am alive, I guess I will not die, as I look into the sky, I do begin to cry, I have messed up their plot, they thought that it would work but it did not, I have avoided their dark scheme, now I can begin to dream, but this street's time has come, to float up towards the sun, so should I leave this place, venture off to another space? (repeat the only verse once) | ” |
Suddenly, an airplane piloted by Jonathan Huang crashes into Big Bird. The plane explodes, destroying Jonathan, Big Bird and most of Sesame Street. The musical ends with a bird's eye view of Sesame Street in its current, demolished state.