F is for Fraud, T is for Torture

Sesame Street, the world’s most cheerful street, has become the talk of the global town after being linked to torture and fraud.
Last week it emerged that the apparently innocent Sesame Street tunes were used to torture people. And on Wednesday news media carried schocking reports about fraud in the Pakistani edition of the famous children’s programme. And the show is not exactly a stranger to controversy either.
Sim Sim Hamara is what they call Sesame Street in Pakistan. Last year the show was presented with great fanfare, not just as a means to teach children basic reading, maths and social skills, but more specifically to raise the self-awareness of Pakistani girls. This is why the lead character in the Pakistani edition of the show is a six-year-old girl: quite an audacious step in a country which has not much of a reputation where women’s rights are concerned.
F is for Fraud
So far, there has been no happy ending to this story. 'Elmo caught with his hand in cookie jar’ read Wednesday’s headline of Pakistan Today. The head of the show’s production company had only his own interestst at heart, or so it would seem. He allegedly embezzled part of the seven million US dollars in US financial support. The Americans have ended any further contributions to Sim Sim Hamara.
T is for torture
The show also made headlines last week, when it emerged that in the world of grown-ups cheerful Sesame Street tunes were used to torture prisoners. The Al Jazeera news channel revealed that detainees at Guantanamo Bay were forced to wear headphones which played Sesame Street tunes at deafening volume. The CIA believes it is an effective way of persuading prisoners to talk.
This is probably the first time Sesame Street has been linked to torture and fraud, but certainly not the first time the show has been linked to controversial issues. However, it’s usually the makers who are causing the controversy. A wide variety of local adaptations of Sesame Street are broadcast in more than 100 countries across the globe. The show has sparked controversy on numerous occassions, but we’ll limit ourselves to just five:
A is for AIDS
In 2002 apuppet named Kami was introduced in a number of African versions of Sesame Street. The cheerful yellow puppet is an AIDS orphan and himself HIV-positive. Conservative Republicans in the US were outraged, fearing that Kami might be added to the line-up of characters on the US edition of the show.
P is for Palestine
In 2006, at the height of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Sesame Street stirred up emotions when the new season of Rechov Sumsum included an Arab-Israeli character called Mahboub. 
O is for obesitas
Cookie Monster’s legendary bouts of binge cookie-eating have raised concerns with many parents. Particularly in the US, where so many children are suffering from obesity, Cookie Monster was blamed for encouraging children to adopt unhealthy eating habits. The show’s producers relented, and in 2005 Cookie Monster sang 'A Cookie is a Sometimes Food'. These days, the notorious monster can also be seen snacking on fruit and veggies. And this is not the only bad habit Cookie Monster’s had to kick: in the late 1960’s he smoked a pipe.
H is for homosexuality
Last year Sesame Street felt it had no choice but to issue a formal statement to assure viewers that Bert and Ernie were ‘puppets’, and just ‘best friends’ without any kind of sexual orientation. The statement came in reaction to rumours that Bert and Ernie, who share a bedroom, were gay.
S is for sex
2010 saw a major commotion sparked by a video which included Elmo and US pop star Katy Perry. She wore what some parents apparently thought was a rather risqué outfit and invited Elmo to play dress-up.  The producers at the last moment decided to pull the video, much to Elmo's chagrin.
(gsh)