Hackers appeared to have commandeered the YouTube page of the venerable “Sesame Street” children’s show Sunday, reprogramming the page with content brought to you by the letter “X.”

The show page was taken offline Sunday afternoon, and visitors were greeted with a message from the video website informing them it had been shut down “due to repeated or severe violations of our community guidelines.” Users who called up the account earlier had found explicit sex videos instead of Muppets.

“YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit graphic content,” a YouTube representative told CNN. “As always, we remove inappropriate material as soon as we are made aware of it.”

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street, issued an apology Sunday…

[continues at CNN]

There’s a new kid on the block on “Sesame Street.” The long-running children’s show will debut a new muppet, Lily, in a primetime special that highlights childhood poverty and hunger, Entertainment Weekly reported.

Lily’s family background reflects the bitter economic reality of the 17 million American children who live without regular access to affordable and nutritious food, the magazine reported. Country music singer Brad Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams Paisley, will host the hour-long show, titled “Growing Hope against Hunger.”

“We are honored that Sesame Street, with its long history of tackling difficult issues with sensitivity, caring and warmth, asked us to be a part of this important project,” the couple said in a statement. The show will air Sunday, Oct. 9. It is sponsored by Walmart.

Read More: NY Daily News

Sesame Street has become loved and reviled for its socially-conscious programming; in one famous example from 1983, after an actor on the show died, Sesame Street took the chance to impart to very young children the temporal nature of human existence by marking his character’s death on the show. The forward-thinking episode invited some degree of opposition because even adults themselves continue to find death very uncomfortable or even impossible to psychologically confront.

Premiering tonight on PBS at 8 p.m. EDT is a program, “When Families Grieve,” that features four families, two of which features fathers from the American military. (One of the soldiers killed himself. The other died in a helicopter crash in Iraq.)  It’s important to note that the publicly-subsidized program has made a point of representing the suffering of military-serving families under the umbrella of a discussion of, as a whole, grief, a topic universal to the human experience. The program — sponsored by defense contractors BAE Systems, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, Oshkosh Defense — explores the concept of loss from a entirely nationalistic perspective.

Tonight’s special discusses military families’ suffering through the prism of the death of famed puppet character Elmo’s uncle, who was killed in the line of duty. At a press conference at the Pentagon yesterday morning, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Admiral Michael Mullen greeted Rosita, the grieving daughter, along with her cousin Elmo.

Said Deputy Defense Secretary Lynn, “This [episode] deals with the even more difficult challenge [than a previous episode discussing servicemembers coming home injured] of confronting death and loss. It’s an essential part of the human experience, but talking about death is a very difficult thing.”

Said Gary Knell, president and CEO of Sesame Street Workshop, “This project, we hope, will help us to bridge the gaps that might exist between military kids, children within the general public.  Regardless of the situation experienced, millions of kids have to endure the most emotionally challenging experience in their lives.”

In front of a studio audience and broadcast on Pentagon Live, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the deputy Defense secretary shared a few tender moments with the two puppets.

Said the young puppet, Rosita, whose father died fighting an unseen enemy, “You know what? We love military families, our friends and we want to show them how much we care about all of you. And you know what? We care a lot. And we want to help in any way we can.”

Explained Elmo precociously, “Well, Elmo and Jesse are cousins. Elmo’s daddy and Jesse’s daddy were brothers.”

“That’s right. But my dad died last year.”

Looking on with utmost affection, Admiral Mullen replies to her, “We know that, Jesse.  And we also know that you’re here to share that experience, and we very much appreciate you doing that. That will make a big difference for military children who have experienced that as well, as well as other children in America.”

This nationalization of the death experience to children is truly the next step in military propaganda. If it was groundbreaking to simply feature one prominent character’s death in an episode, this is even more revolutionary. Through the use of beautiful, talented celebrities (such as John Mayer and Queen Latifah), PBS will help prevent military families’ grieving experiences from becoming in any way insulated from the (usually) natural death causes which other parents must face. Encouraging children to understand death as a distinctly American experience from their earliest conscious moments tacitly ensures that later on in life that they imagine that degree of suffering as a construct somehow remote from the foreigner’s perspective. This is absolutely critical to meeting recruitment goals, and further normalizing the military lifestyle.

“When Families Grive” will ensure that sympathy for human beings suffering the loss of a loved one is focused as exclusively as possible on Americans. And Americans only.

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

See more fun things on All That’s Interesting

Big Bird is leaving Sesame Street!

That’s what he decides on the “Sesame Street” season opener. A rapping real-estate agent pitches him on migrating to a new habitat (”habitat,” the episode’s “Word on the Street”). After sizing up a beach and a swamp for his new habitat, Big Bird chooses a rain forest.

But then he comes to his senses with a musical number.

“Sesame Street is my habitat!” he sings. “Sesame Street is my home!”

Indeed, Big Bird — that towering, yellow-feathered 6-year-old — has been calling Sesame Street home for four decades, ever since the show premiered on Nov. 10, 1969.

Now, as it marks its 40th anniversary on Tuesday on PBS (check local listings), he remains an essential member of the flock…