Momentous news. David Beckham has made his debut on legend- saturated edutainment show Sesame Street, in an episode that will air in the US later this month.
However, the fact that he appears with Elmo represents a rare and frankly remarkable dropping of the ball by the army of darkness in charge of Brand Beckham. Seriously, Elmo? Couldn't they insist he was paired up with anyone other than Elmo? Everyone knows Elmo totally ruined the show. He's Sesame Street's Scrappy Doo.
Yet, despite being handed a golden opportunity, advance leaks indicate that Beckham did not use it to challenge Elmo with a question like: "Do you understand that every time you appear on screen, squealing about yourself in the third person, you do not simply trample all over that episode? You trample on Big Bird, you trample on Cookie Monster and the Count - you trample on every deceptively off-the-cuff dialogue Bert and Ernie ever sweated to produce. And it's not just me saying it: Oscar the Grouch weeps for what you've done. Do you even wonder why he barely emerges from his can? I asked him why he didn't fight for how it used to be and he just shook his head and said: 'It's a lost world. It's all about the kid Elmo now. The kid gets what he wants, and the rest of us just have to eat it.' The guy looked beaten. You are a disgrace to the Children's Television Workshop, sir. A disgrace."
As I said, Beckham declined to speak for a generation. Instead, he introduced Elmo to the word "persistent". Like he needs help with that concept.
Incidentally, Lost in Showbiz's favourite Elmo story - apart from the faked sex tape - concerns the Floridian woman who claimed that the Elmo doll threatened to kill her son by name. Fisher-Price actually investigated it and ended up giving her a new doll. Yet still this guy works in television. Where's the justice, America?
