The BBC have axed Bob the Builder. They say they can't take any chances with a children's tv star who claims to fix things.
— Steve Oliver(@SteveOliver76) November 12, 2012

So it turns out that Bob the Builder was innocent after all, and that the telly paedo-squad should have been looking elsewhere in puppet land. Logging on to Twitter this morning, I was a bit taken aback by the tweets proclaiming Elmo to be involved in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a young male. Good, I thought, surely nobody likes Elmo? Certainly not a proper old school Sesame Street fan. Elmo's arrival on Sesame Street was a full on 'jumping the shark' moment, and heralded the end of the show as we remember it and the arrival of the shouty, camera cutting, sub-MTV monstrosity that we see today. I say 'we', the UK hasn't seen Sesame Street since the turn of the millennium, so in a way we are lucky. We did however get Elmo's World on Channel Five for a bit, (yes, remember Channel Five? I've got news for you, it is still going), and somehow Elmo has become some kind of spokesperson/thing for the show. Whenever a celebrity appears on the show, (still considered quite an honour in America), they always work with Elmo. Sometimes maybe Grover or Telly but usually Elmo.

I have happy memories of watching videos (it was the early 2000s) of Sesame Street with my daughter Emily, and unfortunately she developed a liking for this annoying red sock. A full on, every cuddly toy, video, picture collecting liking that I indulged, mainly because every minute spent watching Sesame Street was a minute not watching the Teletubbies. Also, I was able to use Sesame Street as a gateway to introducing Emily to the various other works of the genius Jim Henson, such as the output of The Muppets and the criminally never repeated Fraggle Rock.

For ruining a much loved programme, I hope Elmo feels the full force of the law for this.

Hang on a minute, I've just investigated further, as I realise that Twitter might be a good news source but it's not entirely without flaws. I decided to look at the websites of some newspapers instead, and it turns out that Elmo didn't have an inappropriate relationship, (newspaper euphemism for sex) with an underage boy. It turns out that the perpetrator of this crime was Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who operates the Elmo puppet.

Kevin Clash is the one on the right.

First of all, I'm not even sure that Sesame Street is still relevant enough in this country for this to be that newsworthy. Secondly, the papers  (the tabloids in particular) can't possibly have finished unearthing all of our own sex criminals yet. Let's get ours out of the way before we start looking abroad for more. 

My main issue is with the media's use of Elmo in this story. A puppeteer is the one under scrutiny here, not a character loved by millions of children around the world. By associating Elmo with this story, it will come to the attention of small children when they see the news, or see the puppet's face in the paper. When they read the shouty headlines that he has been arrested for having sex with an underage boy, then parents are going to be faced with all kinds of awkward questions. I know how the media works, and it perhaps wouldn't have been quite the sensational story had it simply reported that a fairly anonymous behind the scenes man had been investigated, should a modicum of discretion been employed here? I'm not suggesting not reporting it, but for the sake of Sesame Street age children who might believe the story at face value, that Elmo is a nonce. I was employing comedy when I wrote that I thought Elmo had been involved, but I'm not sure Elmo's key demographic are au fait with the concept of satire.

If Kevin Clash has done wrong, then he should be removed from Sesame Street, because PBS should not be seen to be employing a sex offender to work on a children's television show. That would appear to be the BBC's department.

Besides, sexual predators have long been a problem on Sesame Street, as this video shows.