Sesame Street S6: Misc.
As I’ve spoken of before, what I love about these sketches is that while Ernie tends to be Bert’s “antagonist,” for lack of a better word, Cookie tends to be the same for Ernie, placing him in the same sorts of situations that he places his yellow, oval-shaped buddy. And as per often, it involves one of them scamming the other out of food. In this case, Ernie has a box of cookies, and Cookie offers to help count the contents of said container with his latest invention. By placing a rod on the box, his computer is able to count how many cookies Ernie has. As soon as Cookie’s machine ascertains that there are 5, Ernie asks Cookie if he can try, as well.
Naturally, as Ernie approaches the machine, however, Cookie surreptiously snarfs down the cookies in the box, and so when Ernie tries it out, it tells him that there are 0 inside. But that doesn’t mean that the cookies simply disappeared. When he points the rod at Cookie’s belly, it indicates there there are now 5 cookies inside there instead! Which gives a nice little addition/subtraction lesson along with the simple counting and comedy. I also love that, at one point, Ernie calls him “CM” for short.
“Dr. Monster”
In “Doctor Monster,” Cookie once again takes away some of Ernie’s food. At least this time around, however, it’s a bit more healthy. At the start of the sketch, a desperately hungry Cookie begs Ernie for his apple, a request that Ernie rejects because he needs it. After all, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That’s when a bell goes off in Cookie’s head and he concocts his scheme to pose as a doctor–Dr. Monster, to be exact–in order to scam it from him.
But when he leaves and returns a moment later, in full doctor garb, Ernie isn’t buying it. He accuses him of lying, and a shocked Dr. Monster asks, “How can you say that, Ernie?” “It’s very easy,” he responds, with a bit of Kermit attitude. Actually, Ernie is quite Kermitish throughout the scene, yelling an exasperated “WOULD YOU CUT THAT OUT?!” to Cookie as he proceeds to give him a check-up. Every now and then, Jim Henson’s performances of the two characters tended to bleed together and this is one of those times. One could accuse Ernie of being a hypocrite, as he’s often just as if not more annoying to Bert than Cookie is to him here, but what can you do?
The next great moment is when Dr. Monster tells Ernie there’s something wrong with his eyes, which Ernie protests. Then Cookie shakes his own googly eyes and asks him whether he can do that. Since Ernie can’t, Cookie claims that’s clearly a symptom of a serious condition. I love how Jim and Frank here take what is basically a meta observation about the construction of the Cookie puppet vs the Ernie puppet and have the characters themselves acknowledge it as part of the text of a scene.
Speaking of which, this is followed by what I would guess is an ad-lib. While Cookie is direly pronouncing Ernie’s “illness” to be something called “cookamungaphobia” (of course he’d put the sound of “cookie” in there) and slams the palm of his paw down hard, Ernie responds, “Good heavens…” for a moment seeming to be concerned but then following it up with “You’re making my apple jump!” From the tone of voice, it seems to be off the cuff, and it’s perfect as it springs from Jim instantly observing what was going on around him and immediately incorporating it into the scene in a way that bolsters the characterization, with Ernie undercutting Cookie’s dramatics even more than before.
As the scene wraps up, Ernie continues to seem to have the upper hand. He sees right through Cookie’s lie so much so that he even guesses that Dr. Monster’s next line will be that apples are bad for people with cookamungaphobia, but Cookie manages to surprise him, even hilariously mimicking Ernie’s “k-k-k-k-k-k” laugh. On the contrary, apples are very good for people with the condition! A bit thrown by that, Ernie accepts what Dr. Monster says, so much so that he basically forgets to ask about a catch. He does, however, ask what he owes the doctor for his house visit, and before he can protest, Dr. Monster tells him that the price is…one apple, which he grabs before Ernie can protest. *cymbal crash*
Next up, yet another adorable John-John clip, this time with Bert and Sherlock helping him count to 10, with just one brief snafu along the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3PMrMMk5M