The Global Economic Crisis hitting all of our pockets is tough, but now it’s just taking the piss. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit producer of “Sesame Street”, says it’s cutting 20% of its work force because of the recession. The company says it’s eliminating 67 of 355 staff positions. How can the recession hit Sesame Street? Oscar the Grouch already lives in a bin, where’s he gonna go from there? Maybe ‘Tickle me Elmo’ will have to up the ante to get extra cash. Assumedly ‘The Count’ will only be paid up to ‘one, one dollar ah ah ah ah’.

Today’s Sesame Street was brought to you by the number 0 and the symbol $.

The Parents Television Council is filing an indecency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission or the FCC, against ‘Family Guy’ for a March 8th episode that included — and this is from the press release — “bestiality, orgies and babies eating sperm.” What a spectacular sounding episode!
PTC president Tim Winter said: “Fox treated viewers to everything from an ‘eleven-way’ gay orgy to baby Stewie eating a bowl of cereal with horse sperm instead of milk … if that isn’t enough, the show’s leading character is also shown fanaticizing about his wife and moaning while a horse licks his bare behind. Clearly, the explicit content was not isolated to one instance in one segment of the show; it permeated the entire program.”

Trust me, I’ve seen the clips and they are nowhere near as bad as the scaremongering sounds. Anyway, we’ve all done it…

The PTC is urging its purported 1.3 million members to file FCC complaints against “Family Guy” as well. The organization has a history of taking issue with the show’s content and I’m sure you’ve all seen the episode of ‘Family Guy’ dedicated to the FCC and censorship a few season’s back. No signs of this being the last run in between these two lovebirds.

In other ‘Family Guy’ news, production is underway on the Family Guy treatment of ‘Return Of The Jedi’, which according to The Hollywood Reporter is going under the working title ‘Episode VI: The Great Mupper Caper’.

Already made, but not hitting our screens until the end of the year, is the show’s take on ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, entitled ‘Something Something Something Dark Side’.

The first part of the thirteenth season of ‘South Park’ is just about to kick off, premiering in the US on 11th March, and on Paramount Comedy (soon to be Comedy Central) in the UK on 13th March at 10pm. And we’ve just found out who the episode one target is – the Jonas Brothers. Now I had no idea who these characters were so I google’d them and apparently they’re some sort of Disney created boy band group like Hanson or Linkin Park. Apparently they’ve done some movie called ‘Camp Rock’ which speaks volumes I assume.

Anyway, the episode ‘The Ring’ will see Kenny taking his girlfriend to see them perform and on meeting the band, they give Kenny and his girlfriend purity rings, which pretty much destroy Kenny’s plans for the evening…

The brand new series – classed as season 13a – features a mere seven episodes, but hey that’s enough to keep me going for a while.

One of my favourite shows is thankfully coming back to our screens for a seventh season, and is reuniting the cast of a legendary series in the process. The four main stars of ‘Seinfeld’ will be reuniting with co~creator Larry David on his show, the fantastic ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ on HBO.
Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards will all star in a “multiple-episode story arc” on David’s award~winning show later this year. This is the first time all four have appeared together in a scripted show since the finale of ‘Seinfeld’ back in 1998.
The seventh season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is currently being filmed and is thought to screen in the Autumn. Viewers of the show will remember that Seinfeld, Dreyfus and Alexander have all appeared individually on David’s HBO series. If you’ve not already seen it, you can get series 1-6 DVD box set on Amazon for £49.98 which is stupidly cheap.

It was also recently revealed that Jerry Seinfeld has created a reality show about relationships called ‘The Marriage Ref’ where couples get help from celebs and sports stars. Sounds like it will completely suck but if Jerry’s there, I’m there. For a bit.

Lastly this week, in the spirit of geekdom there’s an interesting new series coming to Comedy Central US, which will hopefully filter over to the UK in time. Comedian Daniel Tosh, will host a news show that mocks the online world.

“The Internet has become an essential and familiar part of our viewers’ lives and it’s filled with humor, be it a blog, site or video, that calls out for comedic commentary,” said Comedy Central programming president Lauren Corrao. “Daniel is the guy you want offering up opinions on everything around you — he’s biting, hilarious and so quick.”
So assumedly he’ll be reading Nerdles and stealing all our jokes.
The 10-episode weekly show, “Tosh.0,” is slated to begin production immediately and is scheduled to premiere in June.

“Finally, a television show that steals from the Internet, as opposed to the other way around,” said Tosh.
I say ‘D’oh’ ‘I pity the fool’ that stoops to that. ‘The truth is out there’…. ‘And I’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky kids’…..

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