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| I better not see any Rule 34, or else I'm retiring from being alive. |
Look, I'll level with you; I only started this blog so I had somewhere to post these strange, spooky thoughts that have been rattling around in my feeble brain. With sites like Cracked creating dipshit theories and conspiracies about pop-culture on the reg, you can barely do so much as turn a non-existent corner without some punk-ass 90's kid squawking about how the Rugrats are all actually dead for one fuck-all reason or another. In fact just recently, Cracked released what may be the all-time worst non-Buzzfeed article on the internet, and the line between the two is getting blurrier every day. With that knowledge of prior internet fuckery, the outlook doesn't look good for this article. After all, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Sesame Street at first glance are as polar as opposites can get on TV. One is a long-running American institution that educates it's audience with humor, cute, lovable characters, and maybe even a song or two to help viewers become well-rounded, functioning members of society and the other is Sesame Street.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that America's favorite filthy, unsavory adult illiterate and America's favorite furry, red 3 & 1/2 year old illiterate are similar to each other in eerily specific ways (and not just the fact hat their both friends with large, flightless birds either). Plus, as we take an in-depth look into the psyche's of each character, the ways they see and distort the world around them leads us to a possible (yet admittedly speculative) connection that takes the two characters to a very dark place. We may have hit critical mass here. Lets look at the evidence. First, the biggies:
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that America's favorite filthy, unsavory adult illiterate and America's favorite furry, red 3 & 1/2 year old illiterate are similar to each other in eerily specific ways (and not just the fact hat their both friends with large, flightless birds either). Plus, as we take an in-depth look into the psyche's of each character, the ways they see and distort the world around them leads us to a possible (yet admittedly speculative) connection that takes the two characters to a very dark place. We may have hit critical mass here. Lets look at the evidence. First, the biggies:
They Have Both Destroyed Their Bodies With Outrageous Eating Habits
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| Japan just hatched a plan for a new Kit-Kat flavor. |
Charlie being the filthy mess that he is, has developed erratic eating habits of all sorts, the most prominent being his nigh-crippling addiction to cheese, an addiction that has negatively affected his ability to function at certain restaurants. There lies the first sad realization about his consumption. After eating a whole block of cheese before a date in panic, Mac asks if gorging on cheese calms him down, to which he nods ashamedly. Charlie's cheese consumption is one of the few things that sooth him and heal his anxiousness but it's an addiction that he knows is shameful and unhealthy. Yet the presence cheese has also been known to trigger his panic attacks as seen in the clip above. It's a terrifying paradox that psychologically destroys him. When he catches a sight of the inciting dairy product, it's all over. There is nothing else, only cheese.
In addition to his over-eating of Cheese, his diet has consisted of a veritable cornucopia of non-foods that have included but are not limited to: Credit Cards, Wolf Hair, Stickers, Fish & Reptile Scales, Raccoon Meat, Sunscreen and of course, the occasional Chicken Beak. But only on the side, not Beak alone like some sort of classless animal.
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| If Charlie was alive in the dawn of man, he'd be the guy who first thought to fondle a cow's tits for nourishment. |
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| Doesn't matter if it's 1 or 2500, you're gonna get anthrax. |
And this questionable palate of his seems to have had a long history. Among the many revelations about the school-age pasts of the gang in the "High School Reunion" two-parter, we learn that in high school, Charlie gained the nickname "Dirt-Grub" because of his habit of eating dirt and other objects to keep the cool kids from bullying him and to make them laugh. Now, this regular digestion of god knows what may be more akin to Cookie Monster's diet than Elmo's, but there's one key difference: Cookie Monster rarely if ever feels the consequences of eating say, a bicycle. We do know that Charlie's eating habits does come with repercussions. His mixture of cat food, beer and glue (used to put him and Dee to sleep in order to drown out the noise of the swarm of cats outside Charlie's window) has caused his body to completely shut down, knocking him out cold almost instantly. In addition, "The Gang Gets Quarantined" reveals that Charlie along with the rest of the gang have become such alcoholics that their withdrawals almost fatally sickens them, but luckily doesn't tarnish their singing voices.
You may be thinking "So what, Charlie is a weird, filthy, sad little man in a raunchy adult comedy about a quintet of mostly deplorable human beings. Why should I feel anything for someone who willingly drinks gasoline on the reg?" Well the fact is that he's proven that he's the least deplorable of the gang, yet every single aspect of his life is loads sadder than the others and he's the one who gets thrown under the bus during schemes by the people who are supposedly his friends, and it's rarely the other way around. Even Dee gets her chances to take a wet, creamy, metaphorical shit on him every once in a while. Perhaps it's this rejection by the people he cares about that drives him to ingest things that could potentially kill him.
As this article goes on, you'll see that despite all of his scary, scary problems, habits, and life choices, Charlie is clearly meant to be the most sympathetic of the others yet rarely gets any sort of retribution for routinely being, at least by some stretch, somewhat less of a sociopath than the rest, because in the crap-sack world of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, even those that are even just marginally nicer than the rest of The Gang are the ones who suffer. And besides, Always Sunny does an exceptional job of making us care about the whole Gang despite how conceited and horrible they are. But even at that, Charlie's the one with the most sympathy from the audience and the least from the other characters, which may explain why he does the things he does.
So Charlie has some sad, scary eating problems, but what about Elmo you ask? Well no, Elmo doesn't have pica, but he has mentioned that he's had an unfortunate history with wasabi of all things, which at first seems like comparing jaywalking to mass genocide. But while Charlie may chow down on foodstuffs usually reserved for anywhere except your mouth and is an alcoholic beyond all help, (not to say he hasn't tried) but has any part of his diet made him LOSE HIS GODDAMN EYELIDS?
Most people who have seen the aforementioned Elmo appearances may think that his years-long battle with addiction ends there. Yet despite the unspeakable amount of pain he must have suffered, old habits die hard. In the heart-wrenching footage above from less than a year ago, Elmo has run off to Japan to shovel down more of the stuff in seclusion to fully immerse himself in his life-threatening vice. After leading a chant of "WA-SA-BI-AY, WA-SA-BI YAAY!", he downs an entire plateful of the saucy green chronic. This leads to a near fatal seizure-induced hallucination, in which he takes the place of high-end sushi, as he's gawked at and passed around like a dime store whore by dozens of restaurant denizens. The furry, red druggo ends up on the verge of being digested before the restaurant-goers gather around to help him snap out of his bad trip. He comes back to reality screaming in terror while the bystanders simply laugh it off as if Elmo isn't going through a horrific Burt Reynolds-style relapse right now, which he absolutely is. Shit like this is gonna make you blind, Elmo and I don't think the next generation of kids want to see that your next musical's about reading Braille.I guess it's just as well that Elmo lost his eyelids because now all he can see is pain and inner turmoil.
But the fact that wasabi causes hallucinations reveals something more important: Elmo's wasabi addiction is what causes all the things he imagines that no real 3 year old could conjure up. This means that the entirety of Elmo's World and Elmo the Musical take place solely within his wasabi-induced fantasies. This is why both segments are filled with exotic locales and bouncing CGI characters and scenery. It's why we never see Mr. Noodle or Velvet anywhere except these segments. And how else could Dorothy, a goldfish, have a mind of her own? This may also be why Elmo's friends appear in Elmo's World segments but never in Elmo the Musical: as Elmo delves further and further into his addiction his visions drift further and further from reality, creating new, wackier, characters and brightly-colored, fantastic CGI environments. The most toxic effect is that wasabi has made it around to other characters. That's why Smart Cookies, Journey to Ernie, Abby's Flying Fairy School, Cookie's Crumby Pictures or Bert & Ernie's Great Adventures exists at all. But don't dwell on the possible street-wide drug dealing for too long because shit gets much worse.
As this article goes on, you'll see that despite all of his scary, scary problems, habits, and life choices, Charlie is clearly meant to be the most sympathetic of the others yet rarely gets any sort of retribution for routinely being, at least by some stretch, somewhat less of a sociopath than the rest, because in the crap-sack world of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, even those that are even just marginally nicer than the rest of The Gang are the ones who suffer. And besides, Always Sunny does an exceptional job of making us care about the whole Gang despite how conceited and horrible they are. But even at that, Charlie's the one with the most sympathy from the audience and the least from the other characters, which may explain why he does the things he does.
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| If you feel like giving the poor bastard a hug, keep in mind that he only washes his testicles once a week. |
And this claim isn't exclusive to that Rove appearance either, Elmo lets you know again and again, like he's court ordered to go around high schools to speak about the evils of drunk driving or how smoking weed once will make you gay. This gruesome one-liner comes from the intense inflammation of the eyes when one eats an excess of wasabi or wasabi peas, or when said wasabi products makes contact with the eyes, which in some cases can cause blindness. One account from gruntdoc.com recalls after eating a high dosage:
Until that exact moment in time I didn’t know your sinuses could melt, or the inside of your eyes sweat. I didn’t know pain, and had no idea the extent to which my tongue would go to get out of my head when things get ugly. I sensed more than felt the lining of my nose sear off and fall out, and it would have looked scary had I been able to focus after forcing my eyes open, which I could not. My sinuses were now trying to escape by leaping out of my skin, through my brain, and the lungs, warned by the treacherous spinal cord, decided the best course was to stop breathing to protect themselves.A harrowing experience for anyone, but this is the 3 & 1/2 year old Muppet who taught you the alphabet we're talking about here. And what makes this and the other examples (especially the last one) in this article more disturbing is the world Elmo lives in. Always Sunny's depiction of Philadelphia and the events that occur there never hides the fact that The Gang live in a seedy, grim and overall shitty world, but Sesame Street is a show made to teach preschool children in an environment that really is bright, sunny and perpetually joyous and fun on the surface. But in reality, Sesame Street in general has a shocking amount of secretly dark moments not limited to Elmo that on occasion manages to give Sunny a run for it's money. The self-inflicted mutilation of your fictional childhood heroes is only the tip of the iceberg.
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| "INTERVENTION!! INTERVENTION!!" |
But the fact that wasabi causes hallucinations reveals something more important: Elmo's wasabi addiction is what causes all the things he imagines that no real 3 year old could conjure up. This means that the entirety of Elmo's World and Elmo the Musical take place solely within his wasabi-induced fantasies. This is why both segments are filled with exotic locales and bouncing CGI characters and scenery. It's why we never see Mr. Noodle or Velvet anywhere except these segments. And how else could Dorothy, a goldfish, have a mind of her own? This may also be why Elmo's friends appear in Elmo's World segments but never in Elmo the Musical: as Elmo delves further and further into his addiction his visions drift further and further from reality, creating new, wackier, characters and brightly-colored, fantastic CGI environments. The most toxic effect is that wasabi has made it around to other characters. That's why Smart Cookies, Journey to Ernie, Abby's Flying Fairy School, Cookie's Crumby Pictures or Bert & Ernie's Great Adventures exists at all. But don't dwell on the possible street-wide drug dealing for too long because shit gets much worse.
They Have Both Created an Unsettling Number of Alter-Egos For Approval
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| Of course, Elmo's characters tend to involve less projectile-vomiting of blood, yet strangely enough, not less Acid Trips. |
Elaborate scheming is one of the hallmarks of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and with that usually comes a disguise or two. 9 times out of 10, Charlie's the one to take on this task. It helps that Charlie has a penchant for creating characters for his own amusement or to boost his ego, much to the chagrin of the others. It's one of his great loves; when Dennis and Frank hatch a plan to impersonate police officers in "Bums: Making a Mess All Over the City", Charlie becomes outraged when they don't buy an outfit for him, that is until they get the idea for him to play an arrested criminal. Even then, Charlie arrives at the scene impersonating Frank Serpico without warning Frank or Dennis beforehand knowing full well that he's going against the plan. He dumps the plot to wander around town as Serpico, attempting to get Dennis and Frank caught on the side. That's the problem Charlie 's alter-egos pose for The Gang: he thrusts his characters into situations regardless of what The Gang thinks of them or how they will affect their schemes and plans, whether he's scaring away potential gasoline buyers as a Foghorn-Leghorn speaking oil tycoon (as Dennis puts it), struggling to grasp basic legal concepts as a self-proclaimed "bird-lawyer" or beating the shit out of Dee and the Philly Phrenetic as Green Man, just to name a scant few.
It's an obsession that rarely ends well for him, yet he's created 23 different characters (by my count) over the course of 11 seasons and who knows what the next 3 contractually-secured seasons will bring. His passion runs so deep that he can't even stumble across a Nazi uniform without putting it on, and that's just the 7th episode! But while Charlie has no qualms about making an ass of himself in character he, like Dee, has a rather unfortunate case of stage fright. He starts gagging while rambling on about cheese at a comedy club in "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life" and in "Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person" he confesses in private to Dennis about his fears of performing in front of an audience (he claims it's why he's never followed his dreams) and runs screaming on the verge of tears when his most private fears come true.
He's unable to cope with the rejection because in both these cases, Charlie was forced to make a public spectacle of himself as himself. His experience of being ostracized by others including his closest friends possibly mixed with potentially traumatic childhood experiences (which we'll get to at the last connection) has scared him away from pulling certain schemes as himself, instead creating characters and stealing others from pop culture because they posses the abilities and traits that Charlie wishes he did or thinks he has. They create a sense of belonging that he himself simply can't find in society of with his friends and family. The sense of anonymity and grandeur created by his persona shields people from who he really is; he feels as if he's on top of the world, like he's someone who can handle anything life throws at him, which is why he gets so defensive when these false identities of his are insulted, challenged, ignored or revealed.
In fact, his beloved Green Man was created specifically to serve that purpose, as he was based on a real experience that Rob McElhenny, series creator and actor who plays the delusional and vaguely homosexual Mac, had at sporting events where a man dressed in a green Lycra suit ran around the stadium to the cheers of "GREEN MAN! GREEN MAN!" from spectators.
That kind of acceptance is what Charlie yearns for when donning the outfit, as he thinks very highly of Green Man and thinks others do too. In "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest" he's willing to compromise Dee's failed attempts at making a viral video as her characters to get cheap laughs as Green Man. Furthermore, Charlie chastises Dee's sub-par and blatantly racist menagerie of characters at every turn in that episode. It's possible that Charlie sees Dee's shitty attempts at character acting as an affront to his mission to escape the kind of under-appreciation he's been suffering through for years. Charlie has been overlooked and frowned upon by his friends and peers all his life and with his endless array of costumes and characters, he can finally find a new audience and reinvent himself, never to reveal the sad, broken man that lies underneath. But yet that attention stealing bird lady Dee only stands in the way of true happiness. Charlie just won't stand for this. His dreams aren't about to be shattered this time....
Elmo on the other hand, uses various disguises and personas almost solely for his personal enjoyment. From his humble beginnings as an orphaned street dweller, Elmo has donned the guises of anyone and anything. It was only in 1986 when Elmo performed his first magnum opus: a one-man show where he performs as a store manager, owner and himself, who all work in the same Fix-It Shop, moving up a rank with each new employee that Elmo thrusts upon us. It's a real achievement in improv comedy no doubt.
As the years go on, Elmo expands his repertoire ten-fold with each passing season, using his method acting skills to give his artistic interpretations of Plants, Animals and even his friends & neighbors. With nearly 40 fucking years of public television cosplay under his belt, the sheer number of different roles Elmo has played beats Charlie's 11 to 1 with over 163 different personas (not counting ones used in books or merchandise where things just get batshit crazy). But with the massive glut of alter-egos comes the inflation of Elmo's own ego. The false sense of grandeur infused into his alter-egos is far more blatant as we enter the advent of Elmo's World, where nearly 100 of these impersonations were counted from (although those were mostly in the imagination of Elmo's barely sentient goldfish, Dorothy). Elmo's hammy bravado is amped up even further in his ongoing vanity project Elmo: The Musical in which he injects himself into fantastical titles of fame, wealth and power in ways he never has before. such as an Astronaut, a wealthy Prince or even the god damn President of the United States with not just one First Lady, but a whole harem of fine Muppet ass.
Yet while Charlie often includes his characters into The Gang's grand schemes, Elmo never includes his friends in his own musical endeavors even though they've regularly done the same for him. But after Elmo's popularity shot up, everyone on Sesame Street branched out their acting chops in hopes to compete with the big monster on campus. Any Muppet most people could name, Sesame Street or otherwise have played 10-15 different characters since the great Elmo method acting boom. Elmo creates characters so others follow the leader. Case in point is his theft from Luis's own childhood creation when Elmo dons a cape and becomes "Running Elmo". By running around in costume and generally being an ass, the way he draws attention to himself convinces Rosita and even The Count to run around like they just OD'd on molly at Burning Man.
Therein lies not only the key to Elmo's popularity with toddlers, but also points to a common ground shared by Running Elmo and Charlie's Green Man: Elmo is completely bright red and by proxy a figure whose presence demands attention, like someone dressed entirely in neon green, or bright yellow as Charlie's portrayal of The Sun in "The Nightman Cometh". However Elmo's motives for over-acting are the exact opposite of Charlie's; when Elmo performs he plasters his name to draw attention. He performs Elmo's Song, Elmo's World, Elmo: the Musical and acts as Captain Elmo Cousteau, Running Elmo and even his friends like Gordon, The Count and Abby Cadabby while still as himself all so Elmo can use the opposite method to achieve the same result.
The inherent lack of anonymity brings more attention to Elmo and creates a desire for others to be like him. He has to build and maintain his popularity because Elmo, like Charlie is uncomfortable with his own flaws & weaknesses and uses the costumes to gain approval and acceptance. That way, Elmo's friends are so caught up in being like him that no one dares to call him out on any of his flaws because everyone is doing things his way and none of his followers have the mental capacity to wise up to the fact that Elmo is using them to boost his own ego, think nothing but highly of himself and perhaps repress any sort of bad memories in his past. In short, Elmo and Charlie both want to stand out to keep negative thoughts out of their minds, but Elmo succeeds where Charlie fails because Elmo shoves his name and presence down your throat. He's the coolest kid on the block, the kid everyone else wants to be. Not to mention he has the virtue of not being a filthy, destitute bar janitor. But it wasn't always that way because....
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| That fat fuck was asking for it, though. |
He's unable to cope with the rejection because in both these cases, Charlie was forced to make a public spectacle of himself as himself. His experience of being ostracized by others including his closest friends possibly mixed with potentially traumatic childhood experiences (which we'll get to at the last connection) has scared him away from pulling certain schemes as himself, instead creating characters and stealing others from pop culture because they posses the abilities and traits that Charlie wishes he did or thinks he has. They create a sense of belonging that he himself simply can't find in society of with his friends and family. The sense of anonymity and grandeur created by his persona shields people from who he really is; he feels as if he's on top of the world, like he's someone who can handle anything life throws at him, which is why he gets so defensive when these false identities of his are insulted, challenged, ignored or revealed.
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| Did you think I was kidding about that Nazi thing? What show did you think this is? |
That kind of acceptance is what Charlie yearns for when donning the outfit, as he thinks very highly of Green Man and thinks others do too. In "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest" he's willing to compromise Dee's failed attempts at making a viral video as her characters to get cheap laughs as Green Man. Furthermore, Charlie chastises Dee's sub-par and blatantly racist menagerie of characters at every turn in that episode. It's possible that Charlie sees Dee's shitty attempts at character acting as an affront to his mission to escape the kind of under-appreciation he's been suffering through for years. Charlie has been overlooked and frowned upon by his friends and peers all his life and with his endless array of costumes and characters, he can finally find a new audience and reinvent himself, never to reveal the sad, broken man that lies underneath. But yet that attention stealing bird lady Dee only stands in the way of true happiness. Charlie just won't stand for this. His dreams aren't about to be shattered this time....
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| Top 10 Most Brutal Anime Deaths |
Elmo on the other hand, uses various disguises and personas almost solely for his personal enjoyment. From his humble beginnings as an orphaned street dweller, Elmo has donned the guises of anyone and anything. It was only in 1986 when Elmo performed his first magnum opus: a one-man show where he performs as a store manager, owner and himself, who all work in the same Fix-It Shop, moving up a rank with each new employee that Elmo thrusts upon us. It's a real achievement in improv comedy no doubt.
As the years go on, Elmo expands his repertoire ten-fold with each passing season, using his method acting skills to give his artistic interpretations of Plants, Animals and even his friends & neighbors. With nearly 40 fucking years of public television cosplay under his belt, the sheer number of different roles Elmo has played beats Charlie's 11 to 1 with over 163 different personas (not counting ones used in books or merchandise where things just get batshit crazy). But with the massive glut of alter-egos comes the inflation of Elmo's own ego. The false sense of grandeur infused into his alter-egos is far more blatant as we enter the advent of Elmo's World, where nearly 100 of these impersonations were counted from (although those were mostly in the imagination of Elmo's barely sentient goldfish, Dorothy). Elmo's hammy bravado is amped up even further in his ongoing vanity project Elmo: The Musical in which he injects himself into fantastical titles of fame, wealth and power in ways he never has before. such as an Astronaut, a wealthy Prince or even the god damn President of the United States with not just one First Lady, but a whole harem of fine Muppet ass.
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| Elmo may be 3 & 1/2 but he knows his type, and it's Nancy Reagan. |
Therein lies not only the key to Elmo's popularity with toddlers, but also points to a common ground shared by Running Elmo and Charlie's Green Man: Elmo is completely bright red and by proxy a figure whose presence demands attention, like someone dressed entirely in neon green, or bright yellow as Charlie's portrayal of The Sun in "The Nightman Cometh". However Elmo's motives for over-acting are the exact opposite of Charlie's; when Elmo performs he plasters his name to draw attention. He performs Elmo's Song, Elmo's World, Elmo: the Musical and acts as Captain Elmo Cousteau, Running Elmo and even his friends like Gordon, The Count and Abby Cadabby while still as himself all so Elmo can use the opposite method to achieve the same result.
The inherent lack of anonymity brings more attention to Elmo and creates a desire for others to be like him. He has to build and maintain his popularity because Elmo, like Charlie is uncomfortable with his own flaws & weaknesses and uses the costumes to gain approval and acceptance. That way, Elmo's friends are so caught up in being like him that no one dares to call him out on any of his flaws because everyone is doing things his way and none of his followers have the mental capacity to wise up to the fact that Elmo is using them to boost his own ego, think nothing but highly of himself and perhaps repress any sort of bad memories in his past. In short, Elmo and Charlie both want to stand out to keep negative thoughts out of their minds, but Elmo succeeds where Charlie fails because Elmo shoves his name and presence down your throat. He's the coolest kid on the block, the kid everyone else wants to be. Not to mention he has the virtue of not being a filthy, destitute bar janitor. But it wasn't always that way because....
They Both Live or Have Lived in Squalor
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| Thompson Springs, Utah has nicer homes, and no beloved TV icons live there. |
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a show that helped us come to the realization that Philly is kind of a shithole, at least in the places where The Gang frequent. But no place on the show is shitlole-ier than in Charlie's dilapidated apartment, one he's shared with Frank Reynolds since season 2. Charlie partakes in all of his favorite hobbies: huffing spray paint, creating culinary abominations, playing homoerotic games of Night Crawlers with Frank and pounding off to the Dennis's crude drawings. It's Charlie's safe haven to be himself and with someone like Frank around who's just as disgusting and crude as he is, Charlie is able to share a special bond with him that he can't with anyone else. The duo do everything together including creating their own schemes as a duo. In "Mac Fights Gay Marriage" they even get legally married to reap the monetary benefits.
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| The most progressive couple on TV. |
While he has taken umbrage to people disrespecting his mother before, all Charlie can think about is getting Frank back "into his arms". At dinner Charlie calls his mother a man-stealing whore and gets into an kerfuffle with Frank at the table. Frank is clearly the person Charlie cherishes the most in his life because at the end of the day, he's the only one he can confide in, that's there for him to cheer him up in his darkest moments. Frank's even held to a higher pedestal than his own mother, which is saying a lot since he's bit the neck of a mall Santa to defend his mother's honor.
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| BOI HE BOUT TO DO IT. |
But the apartment serves as more than just a symbol of his love of the man who may or may not be his dad. Charlie goes to sulk in his apartment when he's at his lowest. If he's depressed, he can always rely on the privacy of his one-room shit box to belt out a tune about the famed Nightman or eat god knows what. His apartment is the place where he'll always be accepted. It's a place where he can be warm, safe and secure when the world treats him cold.
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| You can't just go to the local coffee shop to smoke out hornets. Even without a restraining order. |
But we laugh at how rundown and hoarder-y Charlie's crap shack is because he's a full grown adult. Elmo however is 3 & 1/2 years old. Oh yeah, back in the mid-80's the beloved red toddler who taught you that cakes don't have teeth was living underneath a staircase with only a bed that's ready to collapse. And it's sad as fuck.
For fuck's sake at least Charlie's apartment had mother fucking walls. Here we have an actual child being exposed to the elements like Sharon Osbourne just kicked him out of the house. What the hell is Elmo supposed to do in winter? Or when it rains? And in the event of a hurricane or earthquake? Is he just supposed to hide under his blanket as the magma balls start raining down on all the heathens when the rapture strikes? And are we to assume that Elmo's an orphan, since he clearly has no parents here? Okay, nowadays Elmo does have a real apartment with real (adoptive?) parents, but are we expected to just write this shit off? Big Bird has a nest, Oscar has a garbage can, The Count has a castle, Ernie & Bert share an apartment, Snuffy lives in a cave and Elmo lives in....a dank, smutty alleyway? WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DEAL WITH THIS?!
Obviously it seems awful that a 3 & 1/2 year old had to live like how Brendan Fraiser probably lives now, but like Charlie this story of the American Dream gone awry has a happy ending. "Closer to Me" reveals that he too does everything he likes to do best without fear of scrutiny, and the two share several common interests. For instance, Elmo sings that he likes to be "alone with a book for my company" even though we know he can't read. When he finishes his song, Elmo's pretty much playing Night Crawlers by himself in broad daylight. Why not invite a friend to play, like Telly. He's probably into that shit, but that guy's a whole 'nother sad, anxiety-stricken can of worms that'll turn an already long-ass blog post into a fucking Tolstoy novel.
But as the song teaches us, Elmo doesn't need anyone to truly be happy. In fact, now that we know that Elmo stops at nothing to keep his popular-kid image in check to seem cool to others, "Closer to Me" can be seen as a longing to escape the facade that he has created. Elmo's like a celebrity on Sesame Street and he needs time to be himself. But even this happy revelation comes with a kernel of sadness and it's this: Charlie has Frank to share in his unorthodox interests, but in the 37 odd years Elmo has been on the street and despite the many, MANY friends he has, he still is without a friend who he can open up to about his darkest secrets. Since everyone sees Elmo as the well-adjusted whiz-kid that everyone else on the street wants to be, Elmo will never find his Frank.
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| Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away...... |
Now this comes from an (unknown) episode from 1986, when Kevin Clash's Elmo was still a relatively new addition to the Sesame line-up. The writers and performers still had tons of kinks to work out regarding his voice, personality, behavior and his relationships with other characters before the little red whelp achieved international stardom. But did the Children's Television Workshop brass think that showing a poverty-stricken Muppet child without addressing his destitution was a good idea? Look, I know Sesame does hordes of research on how kids respond to the show and they're allowed to have a few missteps once in a while. Around the Corner, Deena and Pearl, SAM the Robot, all honest mistakes. But...What the actual fuck, Sesame? Coming to the realization that your childhood hero was a homeless street urchin is like finding out that your doctor was actually fondling you instead of giving you a check-up. Which would be funnier with Muppets of course.
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| "SHOW ME WHERE THE MAN SHUCKED YOU!" *laugh track* |
But I digress. Once again, the sordid underbelly of Sesame Street comes into factor. The titular street on the show is supposed to encourage kids to learn by creating an environment where they feel warm, safe and comfortable. That's why Play With Me Sesame is an nothing more than an easily forgotten footnote; there's no sense of comforting familiarity because all the setting is is a series of pastel-colored patterns. Sesame Street has become such an iconic setting in TV history that any one of the millions of kids who grew up with the show can probably tell you where Big Bird lives or how to get to Hooper's Store. Sesame Street as a setting makes kids feel like they're visiting their second home, but how were you supposed to get that feeling when Elmo, a character who is the audience surrogate for many viewers, lives without a home?
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| Okay, so besides Baby David he owns a box, some blocks, some torn up posters of numbers and...a milk carton and an apple? |
But as the song teaches us, Elmo doesn't need anyone to truly be happy. In fact, now that we know that Elmo stops at nothing to keep his popular-kid image in check to seem cool to others, "Closer to Me" can be seen as a longing to escape the facade that he has created. Elmo's like a celebrity on Sesame Street and he needs time to be himself. But even this happy revelation comes with a kernel of sadness and it's this: Charlie has Frank to share in his unorthodox interests, but in the 37 odd years Elmo has been on the street and despite the many, MANY friends he has, he still is without a friend who he can open up to about his darkest secrets. Since everyone sees Elmo as the well-adjusted whiz-kid that everyone else on the street wants to be, Elmo will never find his Frank.
However, Elmo has found his waitress. No, Grover hasn't dressed in drag over at (no, not that) Charlie's Restaurant, but rather....
They've Spent Years Being Obsessed with Women Who Will Never Love Them
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| If she never yearns for death's sweet release when you're together, she ain't right for you. |
Being that our two subjects are pretty much mental equals (They can't read, don't understand figures of speech and are completely flummoxed by words like "closed" and "fleece") they're gonna have some misconceptions about love. But Charlie and Elmo have such a loose grasp on romance that they create unhealthy infatuations that they assume are meant to be and latch onto them for years, no matter how uncomfortable it makes their objects of affection. Yes, Charlie and Elmo will stop at nothing to be with the women they love. The Waitress and Gina's lives have no doubt been ruined forever. Let's take a look at Charlie first.....
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| .....and now let's talk about his relationship with The Waitress. |
That should be the end of it right? If you thought yes, then you need to stop watching your gender-fluid rock-mommy cartoon for a second and screw your goddamn head on straight because you clearly have no business gawking at this article like it's Charlie's sweet ass. What I'm trying to get at here is that The Waitress is in 22 other episodes of the show and almost all of those appearances centers around the Waitress/Charlie stalker dynamic. In that time-frame of 11 god-forsaken years, Charlie's perpetually fruitless schemes have become more and more unsettling with each passing episode. Charlie often creates schemes by playing off The Waitress's interests, no matter how small. After seeing that the Waitress is a part of the Big Sisters of America Foundation, Charlie uses his one-episode bastard son to make the same claim. When Charlie sees that The Waitress is wearing a Livestrong bracelet, he fakes fucking cancer. When it's revealed that The Waitress has fallen on tough times and is living in a shelter, Charlie lures her over by claiming the apartment's for sale and she promptly bolts the fuck out of there. but not before Charlie tries to toss her out the window which he believes is a time portal to 2006, a time when The Waitress wasn't 100% disgusted by him.
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| Even true love can start anew. |
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| Off topic, but have you ever noticed how every animal on the show (Jack Bauer, Peter Nincompoop, Poppins, the box of kittens and this dog they find on the beach) just kind of wander off and never come back? |
No matter how often The Waitress places restraining orders against him or burns his retinas with mace, Charlie can never be convinced that their relationship is anything but one of true love. Unlike the romantic exploits of the rest of The Gang, he's clearly looking for more than just sex. "Charlie and Dee Find Love" not only reveals that Charlie has been doing favors like putting vitamins in her shampoo and testing her food to prevent possible poisoning that keeps her life from falling apart, but in a rare act of borderline evil intentions, he completely fakes interest in Ruby Taft to make The Waitress dependent off of him and beg for him to come back into her life, leaving Taft devastated. The Waitress does little more than consider amending her restraining order from 100 to 50 feet. Furthermore, Charlie becomes completely heartbroken whenever he catches word of The Waitress being with someone else. The Gang keeps The Waitress's engagement a secret from him over fears that he'll go postal or kill himself. When The Waitress goes on a rant about how she slept with Frank to make Dennis jealous in "Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom", the last shot we see in the episode is a close-up on Charlie shedding a single tear on the cusp of an emotional breakdown.
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| "You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half." |
And then there's Dennis. The Waitress has proven to be hopelessly in hove with him herself, and Dennis uses this to his advantage. Charlie tells Mac to sleep with Dennis's Mom to get back at him for dating The Waitress and flaunting it off in front of him. This leads to him creating several different revenge schemes that occur one after the other until we get to the unplanned conclusion. After all this time, Charlie still believes their love was meant to be, as his infatuation is based on love and not lust. Why else would he write, direct and act in a musical about child rape just for an attempt to propose to her? That's what makes us sympathize with him throughout his endeavors, he isn't as shallow as the others because he believes that The Waitress is his true love and not some short-term Bang-Maid.
But this kind of creepy stalker shit couldn't possibly be associated with Sesame Street's lovable Elmo, right? Think the fuck again, because now it's time to examine Elmo:
When you're finished watching a Sesame Street Muppet suggestively gyrate his furry, red ass we'll begin. Totally not trying to get you on a government watch list or anything, it's cool.
It was in the mid-80's when Elmo first laid eyes upon Gina "hero-to-hormonally-confused-teen-babysitters-everywhere" Jefferson, a character who very much became his equivalent to The Waitress. Even in the Gina's earliest episodes, Elmo became drawn to her in ways that the other Muppets simply weren't. Elmo would pull any dumb plot just to be near her, like pretending to be a snowstorm with Telly. Elmo too uses Gina's interests to fuel his plans. Since Gina is Little Jerry & The Monotones's #1 fan, Elmo joins the group and performs at one of their concerts. And in a very real episode that was broadcast to young children in 1989, Elmo (by virtue of not having parents 28 years ago) chooses Gina to babysit him and most importantly give him a bath. He makes Gina chase him buck nekkid around the house, has her dry him off and eventually pressures her into, and I quote: "a game about the letter f". Fully clothed for some reason.
Hmm, a character using his own weakness (in this case his being perpetually a 3 & 1/2 year old orphan) to create sympathy and mooch off his years-long crush while making sexual advances towards her? Where have I heard this before? And after that whole exploration of flagrant nudity Elmo proceeds to sing a song about his experiences, with Telly and a group of unknowing children singing along. After almost a decade of this pervy shit, Elmo decides it's time to pop the question. Yep, just like Charlie, Elmo proposes to Gina in the most uncomfortable way he can muster. Throughout the episode he gloats to a deeply disturbed Luis, dresses up teddy bears for the ceremony and when Gina tries to let him down slowly, Elmo pulls the race card. Gina tries again but this time Elmo senses that she wants out, so he preoccupies himself with something else to make Gina jealous, and it works.
While The Gang is able to see how unsettling Charlie's obsession with The Waitress is and only help him out on occasion, Elmo has at least one person who shares his sentiments and often assists him in his fucked-up exploits: Rosita. In Episode 3280, Gina develops a crush on short-lived character Jesse and Rosita joins Elmo in gawking at them and generally low-key making their skin crawl. Alas, Jesse didn't show up much after this, probably because Elmo had his mutilated corpse hidden somewhere (there's some shady motherfuckers on Sesame Street.). But anyway, if you've read this Kotaku smut-piece, you'll know that this episode is the example that Kevin Wong uses to show how Elmo uses his "cuteness" for sympathy and will turn your kid into an ADD-riddled Leafy fan or something because Elmo is apparently so horrible. Here's a verse from this bullshit:
The two can declare a victory after Jesse promptly fucks off forever, but by 2003 things just become too risky for Elmo. He needs to act quickly to make Gina his. Unable to keep his feelings inside any longer, Elmo attempts to propose marriage AGAIN. Even adult-illiterate, sunscreen-drinking Charlie has enough semblance of a brain to know not to pull that shit twice, and he proposed to The Waitress through a musical about the rape of a small boy. Boy is this episode a doozy, because it may very well be the most fucked up Sesame Street episode out there. Unfortunately there's no footage of this one online right now, but luckily ToughPigs' Danny Horn has a disturbing play-by-play of it documented here and fittingly reacts as if he has just stumbled upon a sociopath's manifesto while tidying up his attic:
So after he attempts to send Gina erotic foodstuffs, Elmo and Rosita get the smart idea to disguise Elmo as an animal to infiltrate the vet's office. Overwrought with the thought that he may finally seal the deal, Elmo panics and dresses as four animals at once resulting in the shittiest Dr. Moreau-style stitch job since Bigg Mixx.
But this kind of creepy stalker shit couldn't possibly be associated with Sesame Street's lovable Elmo, right? Think the fuck again, because now it's time to examine Elmo:
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| fuck. |
When you're finished watching a Sesame Street Muppet suggestively gyrate his furry, red ass we'll begin. Totally not trying to get you on a government watch list or anything, it's cool.
It was in the mid-80's when Elmo first laid eyes upon Gina "hero-to-hormonally-confused-teen-babysitters-everywhere" Jefferson, a character who very much became his equivalent to The Waitress. Even in the Gina's earliest episodes, Elmo became drawn to her in ways that the other Muppets simply weren't. Elmo would pull any dumb plot just to be near her, like pretending to be a snowstorm with Telly. Elmo too uses Gina's interests to fuel his plans. Since Gina is Little Jerry & The Monotones's #1 fan, Elmo joins the group and performs at one of their concerts. And in a very real episode that was broadcast to young children in 1989, Elmo (by virtue of not having parents 28 years ago) chooses Gina to babysit him and most importantly give him a bath. He makes Gina chase him buck nekkid around the house, has her dry him off and eventually pressures her into, and I quote: "a game about the letter f". Fully clothed for some reason.
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| Kevin Clash got a fucking Emmy for this. |
Hmm, a character using his own weakness (in this case his being perpetually a 3 & 1/2 year old orphan) to create sympathy and mooch off his years-long crush while making sexual advances towards her? Where have I heard this before? And after that whole exploration of flagrant nudity Elmo proceeds to sing a song about his experiences, with Telly and a group of unknowing children singing along. After almost a decade of this pervy shit, Elmo decides it's time to pop the question. Yep, just like Charlie, Elmo proposes to Gina in the most uncomfortable way he can muster. Throughout the episode he gloats to a deeply disturbed Luis, dresses up teddy bears for the ceremony and when Gina tries to let him down slowly, Elmo pulls the race card. Gina tries again but this time Elmo senses that she wants out, so he preoccupies himself with something else to make Gina jealous, and it works.
While The Gang is able to see how unsettling Charlie's obsession with The Waitress is and only help him out on occasion, Elmo has at least one person who shares his sentiments and often assists him in his fucked-up exploits: Rosita. In Episode 3280, Gina develops a crush on short-lived character Jesse and Rosita joins Elmo in gawking at them and generally low-key making their skin crawl. Alas, Jesse didn't show up much after this, probably because Elmo had his mutilated corpse hidden somewhere (there's some shady motherfuckers on Sesame Street.). But anyway, if you've read this Kotaku smut-piece, you'll know that this episode is the example that Kevin Wong uses to show how Elmo uses his "cuteness" for sympathy and will turn your kid into an ADD-riddled Leafy fan or something because Elmo is apparently so horrible. Here's a verse from this bullshit:
But while Wong is crowing on about how Elmo is the most toxic thing for kids since the Hitler Youth Organization, he misses the fact that he and Rosita clearly have an ulterior motive. Elmo and Rosita do their damnedest to make Gina and Jesse uncomfortable by deliberately ruining the romantic mood and forcing themselves onto their picnic not because Elmo's simply acting like a spoiled child, but because this Jesse fucker isn't about to steal his woman from her.Later, Gina and Jesse plan a picnic date. Elmo wants to tag along—in fact, he assumes he’s tagging along and gears up, without asking for permission. Gina tells him that this picnic is for grown-ups. Elmo is visibly sad and downcast. He guilts the couple. So the boyfriend cracks and lets Elmo tag along. No gentle reprimand. No establishment of boundaries. Just a full-on, unreserved capitulation to Elmo’s wants and needs.
“YAAYY!!”What message does all this send? It’s easy to imagine Gina telling Big Bird, “Sometimes, Big Bird, adults need time too. If you want to go to the picnic you should ask for permission.” Nah. Elmo’s method is better. Intrude on personal space! Whine and quiver your lip, kids! Guilt gets things done! Cuteness will get you everywhere!
The two can declare a victory after Jesse promptly fucks off forever, but by 2003 things just become too risky for Elmo. He needs to act quickly to make Gina his. Unable to keep his feelings inside any longer, Elmo attempts to propose marriage AGAIN. Even adult-illiterate, sunscreen-drinking Charlie has enough semblance of a brain to know not to pull that shit twice, and he proposed to The Waitress through a musical about the rape of a small boy. Boy is this episode a doozy, because it may very well be the most fucked up Sesame Street episode out there. Unfortunately there's no footage of this one online right now, but luckily ToughPigs' Danny Horn has a disturbing play-by-play of it documented here and fittingly reacts as if he has just stumbled upon a sociopath's manifesto while tidying up his attic:
I thought I was watching Sesame Street. I was all prepared for some kind of curriculum on remembering to feed your goldfish, and all of a sudden, it's turned into a French art film about a young boy's preschool sexual awakening. Is this really what we're doing today?Yes, this is exactly what's going on right now. In this episode, Elmo is even more serious about them living together forever with their fish-babies (actual fucking quote, said by the Elmo on a show you let your kids watch unsupervised) than before. After realizing that he needs to make his love known while taking Dorothy to her vet's office, he rushes after Rosita to tell her how hopelessly in love with Gina he is. Rosita, once again being completely for this unnatural act of animalistic lust, gives Elmo some plans to finally win her heart. Being unable to express his love on his own terms, Elmo proposes through an awkward, cringe-worthy song, guaranteed to leave the recipient in utter disgust. Elmo's song is less complicated and has more of a Latin flavor:
"A-mor, a-mor! That means LOVE in Spanish! So open the door, and please -- por favor! -- be Elmo's love forever!"Readers, if anyone and I mean anyone sings a creepy fucking song like Elmo's or Charlie's to you from outside your window MOVE. THE FUCK. AWAY. ASAP. Don't even look back for a second, just start running. However, if this person decides to make you a love pizza, your probably already dead.
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| Y'all better whip out that pepper spray in 30 minutes or less. |
Finally, Rosita inadvertently thwarts Elmo's plan and Gina must once again tell him off. She explains that "only grown-ups can marry grown-ups" and that they only share "a friend kind of love" (she couldn't have told him to keep it in his pants or that he's a total sociopath considering it's a kids show) so Elmo's dreams of pro-creating fish children will stay between his non-existent ears for another decade or two until he tries again. But we don't see much of Gina nowadays, so we're left to assume that after nearly 30 years of being lusted after by a child she was finally figured to move the fuck away. I know that Sesame Street stays far away from preaching any particular religion and that's very commendable, but THIS SHOW NEEDS JESUS.
They're Eerily Similar Right Down to the Minutest Details
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| High Fashion. |
Yes, these two fuckers have a shit ton more similarities and it's scary as fuck. Not all of these add lots of insight to the reason why they are who they are, but are strange coincidences nonetheless. Also, they don't really constitute entire essays like the past 4 so the rest will just be listed as bullet points:
- They're The Same Age: While Charlie Kelly's age has never been mentioned on the show, we can assume his age is the same as Charlie Day himself: February 9th 1976, putting Charlie Kelly's age at 40. Elmo however has almost always been referred too as 3 & 1/2 years old although he was just 3 at first. Elmo even has a birthday: February 3rd. But Elmo in reality can't possibly still be the age he says he is because all the humans age. Elmo was around to see Miles adoption and Gabi's birth and he's seen them grow into adults. Gina too was a teenager when she first came to Sesame Street. Some of the Muppets have aged too, although much less so: Big Bird started off at age 4 and is 6 today. But in that time, he only became slightly smarter not different in any other regard. In addition, Grover has been said to have a psychological age of 4. Very few of the other Muppets have a designated age, whether it be physical or mental. So how old is Elmo? Well, if he was just 3 when he was first created in 1979 (Caroly Wilcox's initial sketches are below. Though it's definitely from '79, it remains without an exact date) then Elmo's birthday would fall on February 3rd 1976, making him and Charlie born within 6 days of each other. 3 & 1/2 is only Elmo's mental age.
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| Caroly Wilcox's first Charlie drawings however, have not been found. |
- (As Mentioned Before) They're Damn-Near Mental Equals: The biggest thing is that they're both pushing 40 and still can't read. Charlie is known to be able to recognize letters and certain words, but others, even simple ones like leave him baffled. He misreads "private" as "pirate" & "philanthropist" as "full-on rapist" and he completely mangles the word "Brazil". He doesn't even know what illiteracy means. It's so bad that it has it's own wiki page. Charlie however can put complicated sentences like "I have been poisoned by my constituents" together and can create immersive conspiracies like his findings on Pepe Silvia. Elmo similarly has fluctuating literacy problems: he has to have Bob read the Sesame Street sign to him and help him write his own name, yet he can write coherent stories and poems (which is more than we can say for Charlie) despite not being able to read books. Unlike Charlie, Elmo seems to somewhat retain what he's taught. At the beginning of this episode, he can now read the street sign without assistance. Elmo also knows long words most adults don't recognize like "connoisseur" and "deciduous" and expects preschoolers at home to know it too. But then again, that was during Sesame's little tryst with the STEM program so..
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| "It's not a phase Mom!!" |
It isn't just about learning disabilities. Charlie has time and time again proven to be the most child-like of The Gang. No, he isn't a total man-child but he does retain a child-like sense of wonder that the others don't, like his glee upon seeing the ocean for the first time and the joy he finds in looking for shells in "The Gang Goes to The Jersey Shore". Charlie also gets exited when he assumes that The Gang is "playing quarantine", very much like how a child would misinterpret the situation. Charlie also has difficulty dealing with stress. In high school, he would bite things as his face turned purple whenever he got exited and sometimes needs Dennis to help him calm down in stressful situations as an adult. Elmo on the other hand, as we've deduced, has actually been a child for 40 years. He has aged, but like the other Muppets, he's still mentally a 3 year old.
- They're Ambiguously Bi-Sexual: Because their dream girls are continuously breaking their hearts, Charlie and Elmo both turn towards men to fill their love holes, possibly in more ways than one. Charlie has Frank, who he sleeps with ass to ass, refers to as "his man", was formerly married to and who he engages in intimate games of Night Crawlers with. When Charlie tells Frank that he should be with someone who loves him for who he is, he begins talking about all the great things that they do together as if Charlie was referring to himself as that person. The self proclaimed Gruesome Twosome keep each other up through the night and Charlie moves to the crevice during their quarrels. They even go out to dinner to celebrate their "anniversary", as revealed in "The Gang Dines Out". Finally, a Google Search for "Frank Reynolds girlfriend" will give you a full character profile on Charlie which goes so far as to list the words "significant other" at the top of the page. If there isn't something going on here, at least we know that Charlie's gay for god.
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| How Frank sees The Gang, with Charlie as his ray of sunshine (and Dee not looking any differently than normal). |
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| Now is a good time to mention an important reminder: DO NOT DRAW, WRITE, ANIMATE, PHOTOSHOP OR L.A.R.P. ANY RULE 34 BASED ON THE CONTENTS OF THIS ARTICLE. IF YOU ARE HAVING ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT DOING ANY OF THOSE THINGS, PLEASE KEEP YOUR PASTY, WHITE BODIES FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPUTER SCREEN AND CHILDREN AS POSSIBLE. |
- They Have Passing Interests in Fitness: Charlie was sucked into Dennis's fake-cult scheme Ass Kickers United, a cult that among other things emphasized physical fitness. Created to get back at Mac for eating his Thin Mints by preying on his two most life-consuming obsessions (Fitness and Religion), Dennis's cult centers around performing acts of fitness to please the God-like figure known only as "The Master". Mac acts as the preacher of The Master's manifesto while Charlie is the absent-minded follower who for some reason gets really interested in keeping the fitness aspect in check by exercising and performing acts of carpentry. After the cult collapses when Frank and Dee turn the plot into a competition, they all move on and Charlie is never compelled to exercise or live a healthy lifestyle again. For Elmo, he becomes a health nut for direct to video excursion Elmocize. Here we take a long, grueling trip to Elmo's Exercise Camp. At his cult, Elmo takes on the role of a fitness instructor receiving an interview from Monty on the importance and "fun" of exercising. Elmo and Rosita lead a bunch of kids who can't keep in step, then Cyndi Lauper shows up for some reason and the whole damn thing is just a giant mess that will never make any sane person want to exercise but may offend the disabled. Sesame Street will sometimes have a song or a sketch about fitness nowadays, but after that none of the characters give a shit.
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| At least The Master knew better than to let washed up 80's singers into his cult, so score one for Ass Kickers, I guess. |
- They Both Have a Close Friend Who's a Vain Asshole: Charlie has Dennis, who is the smartest and most narcissistic of The Gang. His delusions are the most toxic as he can't seem to function if he feels the slightest bit of rejection. Dennis thinks very highly of himself, specifically his looks, and he feeds off of the approval of others. Even something as trivial as an internet rating or an alarm buzzer weakens him inside. Clearly, it's Grover who is the Dennis of Sesame Street and vice versa. Grover too is prone to boasting about himself and like Dennis believes himself to be devilishly handsome. Grover also goes to great lengths to prove his worthiness to others. In last season's "Grover Does It All", Grover attempts and eventually fails to do just that, with backup singers on hand to emphasize his actions. Not to mention that both pairs have sung duets together; Charlie ans Dennis write and perform the infamous Nightman ballad as a duo and Elmo and Grover have sung about the color of their fur.
- They Are Somehow Both Talented Musicians: Charlie has written a musical and two songs for Paddy's Pub despite being illiterate and is adept at playing Piano, Keyboard, Harmonica and the Saxophone after banging Russian prostitutes at ski resorts. Elmo despite also being illiterate has written several songs and poems and can easily play Piano, Violin, Guitar, Trumpet, Tambourine, Cymbals and, as I would assume, the Saxophone after banging Russian prostitutes at ski resorts. Elmo has gone skiing without an adult before, so who knows what may have happened there or how many plastic trees he may have eaten.
- Spin Doctors: FEAST YOUR EARS ON THAT SPIN DOCTORS MIX!!
- Kermit = The Lawyer: The relationship between Kermit the Frog and Elmo very much acts as a sort of laconic version of Charlie and The Lawyer's interactions. The Lawyer. like Kermit, has had conflicts with Charlie on his profession (practicing law and news reporting respectively) that resemble that of an adult trying to get on a child's level. Like Kermit with Elmo, The Lawyer can sense that Charlie probably has some sort of learning disability as well as a tenuous grasp on the English language in general. Strangest of all is that Charlie and Elmo both never refer to either of them by their real names, instead opting to use vague descriptions like "Mr. Big Shot Lawyer Man" and "Mr. Green Frog" respectively (although to be fair we haven't actually learned The Lawyer's real name ourselves). While The Lawyer has had to put up with the warped minds of the whole gang plus Charlie's Uncle Jack and the entire McPoyle and Ponderosa, Kermit too has to deal with the bullshit of a menagerie on half-wits on a damn-near daily basis. This often includes the Dennis-esque Grover, Cookie Monster, Telly, The Count, Herry Monster, Oscar the Grouch and an entirely separate cornucopia of rubes on The Muppet Show and the series and movies that followed (Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, et al.), not to be outdone by the slew of wacky off-color guest stars. Kermit and The Lawyer are the characters who have to take the most bullshit from literally everyone they meet, who make their lives worse day by day.
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| They've had to deal with nearly as many mentally handicapped degenerates as an average Comic Con panelist. |
- They Can Both Make Dat Booty Clap: I don't care how many times I show you these hot porn GIFs, who wouldn't be up for a round of Nightcrawlers with these two, if you catch my drift?
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| No matter what your sexual orientation, fine asses like these can transcend 'em all! Even Elmo's takin' a peek. |
- Sesame and Sunny Share The Same Universe and Frank Ties Them Together: Let's take a look at Sesame Street Episode 2504, in which Danny DeVito makes a guest appearance. In the episode, Oscar has created an array of sculptures out of trash in the hopes that one may be selected by curator Vincent Van Grouch to go on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Trash.. In walks Van Grouch, who dismisses each work as not being rotten enough. He eventually settles on displaying Oscar's can at the museum.
But the thing is, there is no Vincent Van Grouch at all. This is in fact a young Frank Reynolds, hot off the events of "Frank's Brother". After hiding away from the law in Columbia where he lived in poverty as quality control at a local cocaine farm, Frank returns home to see that his then girlfriend Shadynasty has dumped him for his brother Gino, who he operated a nightclub with. Down & out and without a job or money, Frank is left to fend for himself. Although the episode itself doesn't tell us what happens afterwards, it must have been during this time that he learned to pull off the elaborate, wacky schemes he pulls each week.
Figuring that New York City is a highly populated breeding ground for the gullible, Frank heads there to drum up some money-making scams. Frank creates Van Grouch and the MMoT to con Oscar out of submission fees and for some free art pieces that the pretentious and unsuspecting populous will be clamoring for. Always tweaking and developing the ways he can screw people over, Frank would borrow characteristics from Van Grouch to create two alter-egos we see on Always Sunny. The trash angle would be brought back for his infamous Trash-man while he would later create another art collector character: Ongo Goblogian in "Dee Makes a Smut Film". Finally, with all the bird jokes that come flying Dee's way, Mac using "Big Bird" as an insult in "The Gang Gives Back" was a long time coming. But that's the only mention of anything relating Sesame Street we get on Sunny and it's never once referred to as a T.V. show, nor is there any mention of the characters being puppets or even fictional. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has certainly never been mentioned on Sesame Street, nor has there been any appearances on the show by any of the Sunny cast members where they are referred to by the their real names. This is because Sesame Street is a real place in the show's universe and vice versa. Mac likely only has knowledge of who Big Bird is because Frank has shared stories about him and of Sesame Street. Not only has Frank been to Sesame Street but he's been there multiple times, even running into Oscar at a bus stop. There's photos of him with Big Bird, confirming that they've met. Frank has even run into Elmo.
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| Was this Frank's first gang? I mean, I can already spot the Charlie, Dee and Dennis of the group. |
But there's one repeated encounter with Elmo and another Philly resident that would have a far more lasting impact...
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This is Charlie's uncle, Jack Kelly.
Uncle Jack works as a lawyer and constantly frets about his small hands, which he covers with giant hand-like gloves on occasion. He often steps in to defend The Gang in court or sort out legal problems, like getting his nephew divorced from Frank or settling alimony matters between Dennis and Maureen Ponderosa.
He molested Charlie as a child.
The first time we see him, he's intently staring and muttering to himself suggestively while Charlie points to where his childhood coach supposedly touched him on a baby doll in the appropriately titled "Charlie Got Molested". In "The Great Recession" he suggests that he and Charlie share a room where they can do "fun, crazy things" together. Charlie mentions that he stayed wide awake every night when he shared a room with Jack as a child. Jack implies that he "wrestled" with him at the time. Charlie is clearly flustered and conflicted on how to view his uncle, so he bolts away the first chance he gets.
Late-night molestation and sexy, sexy hands? Yes, it is heavily implied that Jack is indeed the titular Nightman in Charlie's rock opera "The Nightman Cometh". This video dives in depth into the parallels between the play and his experiences with Uncle Jack as well as Charlie's warped psyche as a whole (Nightman discussion starts at 2:14).
The video spectacularly sums up the disturbing similarities between Charlie's uncle Jack and his songs. Everything's here: sharing a bedroom, the obsession with hands and Charlie's conflicted feelings about the whole affair. The big song here is the one he sings in "Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person" (also included in the live extended version of "Cometh") which goes a little something like this:
Night Man, sneaky and mean
Spider inside my dreams
I think I love you
You make me wanna cry
You make me wanna die
I love you, I love you, I love you,
I love you, I love you
Night Man
Every night you come into my room
And pin me down with your strong arms
You pin me down, and I try to fight you
You come inside me
You fill me up
And I become the Night Man...
It's just 2 men sharing the night
It might seem wrong but it's just right
It's just 2 men sharing each other
It's just 2 men like loving brothers
One on top and one on bottom
One inside and one is out
One is screaming, he's so happy
The other's screamin' a passionate shout
It's the Night Man
I'm feeling so wrong and right, man
I'm feeling so wrong and right, man
I can't fight you, man
When you come inside me
And pin me down with your strong hands
And I become the Night...
The passionate, passionate Night Man
Right here we're given insight on how a normal night during Charlie's childhood may have went down. Lines such as "it might seem wrong but it's just right" and "I think I love you" cements the fact that Charlie at odds with his feelings. Jack's comment about "wrestling" Charlie is referenced as one lyric reveals that Charlie tried to fight him as Jack pinned him down. Finally, bars about coming inside him and filling him up confirms that Jack indeed had sex with him. Full Penetration.
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| And so he did. |
They took you, Night Man, and you don't belong to themNot only does he mention the Nightman's hands but as the video points out, these lyrics mean that at some point Jack was indeed caught at some point in time. This was the first time that Charlie got the idea that maybe what his uncle was doing wasn't normal or right, thus trapping him in a world of darkness, the one he has to live in every day. He still misses the Nightman, for he represents a simpler time when he was completely ignorant of the horrors that plagued his life.
They locked me in a world of darkness without your sexy hands
And I miss you, Night Man, so ba-a-ad
This is Elmo's uncle, Jack.
Elmo's uncle passed away in the Sesame Street resource video "When Families Grieve". Elmo's parents inform him that he had died, but he doesn't fully grasp what that means until he visits his aunt and cousin at a picnic. Sesame Workshop put up the whole damn thing up for free as if they're just asking for us to do horrible things with a video meant to help military families cope with the death of a loved one:
Not only is Jack and his family never seen outside of this video, but the colors of these characters are eye-burningly bright like the side Muppets in Elmo The Musical. Since these characters thrust upon us and are never seen again and most of the video takes place in a park we never seen before or since, this must another one of Elmo's wasabi-fueled benders. But this fantasy is grounded in real events in his life. In fact, it only starts after Louie is finished talking to Elmo about Jack's...."death".
Yes, "death". Jack's still alive, but he's not a Muppet kind of monster.
You see, Elmo's uncle Jack doesn't exist. But Charlie's does. Why would Louie (Elmo's Dad) tell Elmo his uncle was dead? Why did they take the Nightman when he doesn't belong to them? Why have Charlie and Elmo lead such eerily similar lives? The food addictions, the alter-egos, living in poverty, their fucked-up views about love, their mental disabilities, conceited friends, ambiguous sexuality, those fine asses, WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? I'll fucking tell you what it means. Charlie and Elmo are the way they are because THEY WERE BOTH SEXUALLY ABUSED BY JACK KELLY.
This isn't a long shot either. We know that Jack's child grooming goes beyond his nephew as he's shown suggestive Polaroids of children that clearly are not Charlie. It's probable that Jack travels to meet up with other children, explaining how he got, how he got to Sesame Street in the first place.
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| How is this article tasteless? (Don't answer that.) It's art! |
But how do we know Jack went after Elmo specifically? For one thing, Elmo and his family have no last name, as most of the Muppets don't. Kelly could very much be Elmo's surname, but Louie refrains from using it because of the shame that his brother brought to the good family name. Charlie's mother Bonnie however has a much harder time coping with disaster so she ignores Jack's pedophilia. This is why in "Charlie Got Molested" Jack salivates at the sight of Charlie and the doll but Bonnie and the rest of the family don't bat an eye to it. Furthermore, when Elmo sees his uncle Jack in his fantasy, he has enormous hands. Bigger than Elmo's head. It's likely that this was based off of experiences where Jack had mentioned his hands. It's why he writes a poem about hands that he can somehow read, possibly because Jack was with him at the time to tell him what it said, hiding away when the others gather around. When Elmo hallucinates about Elmo's World, he sees Jack in the form of none other than Mr. Noodle, a full-grown adult who shares Elmo's crayon-doused apartment with him. In fact, Elmo's apartment in Elmo's World channels the cartoonish version of Charlie's Apartment that we see as the set of The Nightman Cometh. Then there's Elmo's Jack and his love of baseball. This element of Elmo's hallucination is based on fact because while Jack's interest in america's pastime isn't mentioned on Always Sunny, it's likely that it was Jack who inspired Charlie to make an ass of himself at baseball games as Green Man.
Finally, the events of "When Families Grieve" and "Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person" occur right after each other. Seriously. Here's how it went down: Jack was taken away by those who he doesn't belong to because Louie had caught wind of what he was doing to Elmo and contacted the authorities. The next day, instead of telling Elmo that Jack was a sexual predator who was molesting him, Louie tells him that Jack had died so Elmo wouldn't try looking for him and so they could wash their hands clean of Jack Kelly. Elmo who is unable to cope with the fact that Jack was dead, gorges on as much wasabi as he can consume until he blacks out. All the events of "Grieve" after their talk happens in Elmo's trip. When the news reaches Charlie's family, Charlie enters a deep depression, huffs some spray paint and begins lamenting about the how he misses the Nightman. Dennis walks in and collaborates with Charlie on the "Dayman" ballad, being none the wiser about what had happened behind closed doors. Finally feeling confident about performing the song at the bar, the crowd boos at him and Dennis and effectively shreds any glimmer of hope he may have had left. Charlie breaks down and runs away screaming.
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| The trash-throwing is obvious foreshadowing, of course. |
What has Uncle Jack wrought? The traumatizing sexual abuse that he had put both Charlie and Elmo through is why their lives and behavior are so similar.
- They Both Abuse Substances to Avoid Coping With Their Own Abuse
- They Pretend to be People They're Not Because They're Ashamed of Who They Are & The Secrets They're Forced to Hide
- The Way They Attach Themselves to Their Crushes Are So Disturbing Because All They Know About Love is From Their Memories of Jack Molesting Them
- They Confide In and Possibly Lust After Men Radically Older Than Them Because Their Experiences With Jack Planted The Thought That It Was Normal
- They Break Down When Thwarted or Insulted By Kermit and The Lawyer Because It Reminds Them of Times When Jack Made Them Feel Helpless. This is Especially Disheartening For Charlie Because Jack's Also a Lawyer.
- Spin Doctors.
So yes, pour one out for these poor, broken souls. But you can always rest easy because although the universe they share may seem like one that's cold and unwelcoming, Charlie & Elmo are surrounded by people who they love and who love them back that can get them through even their darkest hours.
And we all love them too.
Or you know, these could be two completely unrelated TV shows that have no connection to each other whatsoever and this whole article could just be utterly fucking ridiculous. I mean, one of them is Sesame Street for god's sake.
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| Statement withdrawn. |
