Muppet Welfare

WTF is this garbage? I love Muppets and I know that they can survive without being Welfare Queens. Look at the non-Sesame Street Muppets, (Fozzie Bear, The Swedish Chef, Miss Piggy, et. al. and INCLUDING one who is ALSO a Sesame Street Muppet - Kermit the Frog!); they've made it in the free market without having to go on the dole (at least until Jim Henson sold them to the über-welfare parasite known as the Walt Disney Company).

And, as for the Sesame Street Muppets other than Kermit - they've had some considerable success in the private sector in the form of merchandising - does "Tickle-Me-Elmo" ring a bell? If Sesame Street had to make it on commercial TV, it could. Yes it might have to accept commercials for sugary cereals and fast food thus causing obesity, diabetes, and toothlessness, since any child who sees commercials for such products will demand to eat them every day for every meal until they wind up in diabetic comas, and their parents will be powerless to stop them. But most children will wind up discovering such things and be drawn in by their irresistible lure anyway. So the possibility of junk food being endorsed by Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch (who I believe eats garbage from the garbage can he lives in) shouldn't make that much of a difference. Or if it did, I'm sure the creators of Sesame Street could secure an arrangement that their program could only be sponsored by their own merchandise. But then they couldn't shill for having our tax dollars support programs like Masterpiece Theatre and operas. Fine programs, of course, but ones which are mostly watched by people with more money than God, and who are to cheap to shell out a few bucks for cable channels or DVDs that offer the same type of entertainment, and sometimes even the exact same shows.