MFT: Sesame Street - Big Bird - ABC-DEFGHI-JKLMNO-PQR-STUVW-XYZ

The original Sesame Street was jam-packed with an inventive stuff from top to bottom. It was daring, boundary pushing entity in so many ways. Sure, it was a children's program, but that was what let it to run away with so many subversive aesthetic concepts. The sketches were always two-fold. There was one simple thing on the surface and the other much more complex right underneath it. This wasn't always intentional - but it there was always more than just a setup and a punchline in every sketch. Case in point - this sketch.

This is a sketch from Sesame Street Season _ episode _. It features Big Bird as an overzealous student who just learned how to read. However, he is yet to comprehend the meaning of what he is reading. Because of that he comically misses the meaning of an Alphabet written on a fence and reads it as if it was one big word. You can't blame him - an alphabet sequence can be pronounced as a single word, there is just no point in doing that.

And so Big Bird was very happy (let's call it "profoundly satisfied") that he managed to read and memorize such a big word and so he was eager to share his progress with Lisa. And in return she points out that he was doing it wrong - it was an alphabet all along not a big word. It was a heartbreaking moment for Big Bird - he tried so hard and yet he missed the point and did it wrong. The drama lasted a moment more or so and since this is a children's program the resolution was a compromise. That thing was an alphabet and Big Bird was spelling it wrong but he made up his own way of pronouncing an alphabet and it got the right to exists too, because why not?

This sketch is a neat showcase of the flexibility of language. Within a simple setup it shows you what the language is all about. There are rules that exists to keep it accessible to the others, but there is also an incentive to try it differently - intentionally or not. After all - why bother if it all can be only one way - even a mistake can lead to something unexpected and inspired.