Piers Morgan has thrown his hat in the ring over the current debate around ‘Sesame Street’ characters Bert and Ernie.
More specifically, Piers has hit back at the production company Sesame Workshop’s recent reiteration that the characters are not a couple, because they are puppets and therefore don’t have a sexuality.
The Bert and Ernie issue resurfaced earlier this week, when a former ‘Sesame Street’ writer admitted that he’d always had in his mind that the long-time roommates were an item when he was writing lines for them.
However, a spokesperson for the show devastated ‘Bernie’ shippers when they hit back at this idea in a statement, saying: “As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends… even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets and do not have a sexual orientation.”
Piers wasn’t buying it when the subject came up on Wednesday’s ‘Good Morning Britain’, though, insisting that as someone who has watched the show in the past, the two are “clearly gay”.
While co-host Susanna Reid stated they were “just friends”, Piers persisted with his argument, before noting: “Do you not realise it’s talking about it in this way is an utter farce? What are we doing as a world?
“Is there now going to be a statement about Miss Piggy and Kermit? Was Kermit gender fluid after all? Was the marriage ever consummated? If not, was it a real marriage? We need to know these things.”
Throughout the show’s 49 years on the air, ‘Sesame Street’ bosses have always maintained that Bert and Ernie’s relationship is strictly platonic, occasionally issuing similar statements to the one posted earlier this week.
They claim that Bert and Ernie - who share a home but sleep in separate beds in the same bedroom - are intended to teach children that they can be friends with someone with whom they’re distinctly different.