GUEST POST:
Hello…Hello…Yip-Yip-Yip

OK…folks…I have a bone to pick. Although this isn’t my soapbox per se, since I did most of the custom programming, I think I deserve a few linear inches of venting space.

About what, you ask? You, AYMB’s supposedly loyal readers.

See, while you noodle your way through Mental Mondays, feast your eyes on Foodie Fridays, and indulge all things in between, there is one thing you seem to have overlooked: The Yip Yips petition. What gives?

I grew up on Sesame Street, but cannot for the life of me remember the Yip Yips. It seems that Sesame Street ran Yip Yips segments only intermittently and only for a couple select years. Thanks to the intersection of YouTube and copyright infringement, however, I discovered the Yip Yips belatedly in between train-crossing segments on YouTube (search for “five engine train,” “SP4999” or “Minto Brown” to find clips whose conclusions will cause violent tantrums in most male toddlers).

These little alien dudes rock.

Toddlers eat up the Yip Yips because they make funny sounds; parents love them because they’re super clever and, at bottom, educational. Leave it to Sesame Street to bridge that generation gap better than almost any other show. But, alas, the Yip Yips went the way of Dynasty, only without any of the “Who shot JR?” fanfare.

At launch, Aimee took it upon herself to draw readers’ attention back to the daily Yip Yips deprivation that Sesame Street works on kids today. She wrote this article embedding the above fun video clip, started this petition, commissioned me to hack-up a sidebar button encouraging folks to read/watch the former and sign their name to the latter, and even reached out to this Facebook user and this Facebook group, which, together, boast almost 8,000 members.

Only 27 33 people have signed the petition so far. What gives? While AYMB ain’t TMZ, it certainly has magnitudes more readers than that single score of signatories.

So, for the love of God, people. For the children. For the future. For all things holy. Sign the petition, would you?

Please forward, retweet, beg, borrow, steal, cajole…whatever it takes. Future generations will thank you.

P.S. What do you think of the new Mental Monday and Foodie Friday header “buttons”?