“I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were [lovers],” Saltzman told LGBTQ publicaton, Queerty. “I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them. The other thing was, more than one person referred to Arnie [and] I as ‘Bert & Ernie.’”
Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organisation behind the long-running children’s television programme, have always maintianed that Bert and Ernie are just friends and reaffirmed that in a statement released this week.
“As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remains puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”
However, Bert and Ernie have held an unofficial iconic status in the gay community, inspiring parts of the Broadway musical Avenue Q, and even inspiring an online petition in 2011, calling for them to marry.
Did Saltzman also inject a bit of yidishkeit into his muppets? According to The Forward: “Heavy-hearted, long-suffering Bert, yes.”
