News Update: May 6, 2011

NEWS UPDATE: May 6, 2011

Sesame Workshop recently debuted three new animated shorts starring Grover on their YouTube channel. These shorts are meant to provide basic safety information to children such as remembering to wear a helmet, buckling your seatbelt, and looking both ways before crossing the street. The videos feature Grover in various outfits and occupations, including astronaut, airplane pilot, and safari guide. They might as well throw in forensic scientist as well, he seems to be just about everything else. According to Sesame Workshop's official information about these videos, "Sesame Workshop has appointed Grover as the Road Safety Ambassador as part of the United Nations Decade of Action on Road Safety. In these three Public Service Announcements, Grover promotes road safety behaviors addressing seatbelt, helmet and street crossing safety. The goal is to make road safety a family priority and a shared family experience." Based on the lack of dialogue and international appeal of Grover, these videos are set to go global as part of the United Nations' goal, which is great for everyone's favorite Road Safety Ambassador Monster.

In more Grover news, a third Sesame Street video game for Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS is coming in August. Ready, Set, Grover! stars Grover, Elmo, and Abby Cadabby as they play through an exciting obstacle course filled with active movements and adventure. According to the official website for the game (which includes some awesome screenshots) the game promotes healthy life habits including physical activity, nutrition, hygiene, and rest. As with the previous two Sesame games, Ready, Set, Grover! includes an exclusive Grover Wii-Remote cover or a jumbo Grover stylus for the Nintendo DS.

In even more Grover news, he, Elmo, and Cookie Monster made quite a few live appearances at various airports around the country to promote the brand new Sesame Street DVD Elmo's Travel Songs and Games, which was released this past Tuesday. The monsters traveled to numerous Delta terminals including ones in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Atlanta Airport. According to Sesame Street's Twitter feed, Cookie Monster was in charge of getting guests to board the plane, which went predictably poorly. "The downside of having Elmo, Grover, and Cookie here? No one is boarding the plane! We hope the flight doesn't leave without the passengers!"No word yet on if all passengers made it to where they were going. I know I would have just stayed...

The Muppets Studio actually posted something on Facebook on Wednesday, which is usually very exciting, and this time was no different. In the post, seen here, they posted the picture of Jason Segel with the Muppets from Entertainment Weekly that we've all seen a million times already. But what is notable about this post is that they also linked to two Facebook fan pages. One for Kermit the Frog and one for Miss Piggy. We're still not positive if these are official fan pages, but the fact that Muppets linked to them and currently also have them listed under their "Likes" points to them being very official. So go "like" them yourselves, Muppet fans!

Another random cameo has been announced for this fall's The Muppets, but this time it isn't a person, it's a place! The Bonanza Casino in Reno, Nevada has been revealed as a location for the new movie, specifically where Fozzie Bear will be seen performing with "The Moopets," a Muppet tribute band that Fozzie joined up with after the Muppets split. KTVN News in Reno has a scoop on the filming, but it's not known whether shots of the casino were just used to establish location or if the Muppets actually filmed inside.

And, finally, thanks to our friends over at ToughPigs and their handy-dandy countdown clock to The Muppets at the top of their home page, we now know that it is exactly 200 days until The Muppets comes to U.S. theaters! That may seem like a lot... and that's because it is. But we're getting closer and closer all the time which is ridiculously exciting.  And... that's all I have to say about that.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier