‘Sesame Street’ Executive: You Want To Think Bert and Ernie Are Gay? OK.

The Hollywood Reporter does an amazing 50 year retrospective of Sesame Street and the cultural impact it had.

Says THR: “Bert, Ernie and the gang have won more Emmys — 189 — than any other TV series (and about as many Grammys as Taylor Swift). The show has spawned scads of spin­offs (The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact), home video franchises and even a couple of feature films (including a new one in the works with Anne Hathaway). Since Burnett's inaugural guest spot, hundreds of A-list visitors have lined up for a chance to banter with its fuzzy cast (Robert De Niro once came on to explain acting to Elmo). And although Sesame Street has never been in the business of making money — Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit — it's made plenty anyway. The show has generated so many licensing deals over so many decades — 6,500 book titles, 200 hours of home video, 180 albums and hundreds of toys (including the Tickle Me Elmo doll that triggered riots at stores during the 1996 Christmas season) — that not even Count von Count could keep tabs on it all.”

And, of course, still looming large in the cultural ether are those unibrow roommates involved in what looks very much like a healthy, happy same-sex relationship.

“People can think whatever they want [about Bert and Ernie],” says Brown Johnson, Executive VP of Sesame Street Workshop, the nonprofit that produces the show, “You want to think they're gay? OK. You want to think they're not gay? They're not gay.”

As the late, great Stan Lee would say, “'nuff said.”