The Cookie Monster is One of TV's Greatest Characters

Who’s the greatest TV character of all time?

It’s a question I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about, despite the fact that I always like to say “favorite” rather than “best” or “greatest.” Still, it’s a question I can’t help but think about because TV serves so many specific purposes, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what you’re aiming for when it comes to what a great character can be. On top of that, if you fix a character’s flaws and there’s no longer a show, yet they have to be interesting enough to sustain many many hours of television over multiple years. So who should we point to when we’re in search of a character who can meet all those standards? 

The answer, of course, is that it depends on the show and what it’s trying to accomplish. But… don’t be a weenie. I’m writing the content here.

When most people think “great TV character,” they probably turn to the prestige drama canon. Someone like Tony Soprano or Omar Little. Characters that contain multitudes as far as their personalities and values who strike at the emotional core of the audience. Some may turn to characters from the comedy world. Your Michael Scotts or your Homer Simpsons. Characters who tap into some universal truth regarding our stupidity and sloppiness and somehow still make us laugh. 

Most TV fans probably have personal favorites as well. I have a soft spot for Titus Pullo from Rome, a character who makes great TV happen pretty much every time he appears on the screen. I also would put up arguments for David Fisher from Six Feet Under, I think Ladonna Batiste from Treme is a criminally underrated character (and performance from Khandi Alexander), and this was almost an article about Britta Perry from Community, who I will be writing an article about at some point down the line.

Character after character ran through my mind every time I thought about this question. Then one day, I thought about Cookie Monster, and… it just kinda felt right. I think. Maybe.

To be clear, this is not an article definitively saying that Cookie Monster is the greatest TV character of all time. We all know there’s no such thing, and really, I’m just farting around here. Rather, this is an article about why the notion of Cookie Monster being the greatest TV character of all time isn’t as stupid an idea as it may seem.

I’m probably not going to convince you of anything here. I haven’t really even convinced myself. But indulge me for a bit.

He’s Funny No Matter Where You Put Him Or What You Have Him Say

Why is Cookie Monster funny?

Of course, that would depend on who you ask, and that also assumes who you ask think Cookie Monster is funny in the first place. (Though if you don’t think the Cookie Monster’s at least conceptually funny, then you probably have a dead soul and you never knew happiness.) For some, the answer’s simple. He speaks in a silly voice in a silly way and he loves cookies, and that’s all you really need. But I think it goes a little deeper than that. Not much deeper, but… a little deeper.

I think the real reason Cookie Monster’s funny is because he’s all id and chaos. It’s not just that he loves cookies. It’s that he loves cookies so much that it’s overridden all aspects of his personality and ability to function. As such, it often feels like he’s barely holding himself together, and when he sees a cookie, he becomes an unstoppable force of nature. He is, simply, the most animalistic character on the show. (At least on the Sesame Street side of things. And I’m talking about the OG Sesame Street characters.)

Put him in a regular Sesame Street setting, or really any children’s programming context, and the joke is generally funny. These are, after all, the conditions Cookie Monster was originally conceived to be funny in. He’s an injection of disorder into what is otherwise supposed to be a straight forward down-to-earth education show. Someone’s trying to teach a lesson about a letter of the alphabet, and suddenly there’s an out-of-control monster yelling about cookies.

However, put him in any other context and the joke becomes even funnier.

There is, of course, the simple joke of seeing any of the Sesame Street characters out in the real world. After all, it’s the real world! Puppets don’t have sentience and animals don’t talk in the real world! However, it’s extra funny when it’s Cookie Monster because of his specific lack of social grace and control. Put him in an art museum and it’s funny. Put him in a library and it’s funny. Put him in any cultural or intellectual hub, or really, any place that requires even the slightest amount of civility and it’s funny. And while you’re there, try to have him voice a thought that requires even the tiniest amount of cognitive rigor and it becomes even funnier.

The real trick, though, is that there’s no level of maliciousness to it. The joke is at nobody’s expense but his own, and thus the chaos Cookie Monster brings only exists to evoke joy.

Many characters operate with a similar lack of social grace, and the joke is that they don’t or can’t function in the normal world. Characters like Charlie Kelly from It’s Always Sunny or Andy Dwyer from Parks & Rec come to mind. It’s not that Cookie Monster is a better character than those examples or any other or that I’m saying Cookie Monster is a perfect comparison. But when it comes to wild cards, there’s an argument to be made that Cookie Monster perfected the formula, and all wild cards that come after bear his lineage.

He’s a Testament to the Human Imagination

Most of the time when we think of the great characters of TV and beyond, we think about the aspects of their development that make them tangible people. Their personalities and their traits and the journeys they go through and how they’re changed by them. Walter White was a timid and resentful man bound by the limits of his station in life until he embraced the underworld of drug dealing and became a monster. Elliot Reid from Scrubs began the show an easily overwhelmed doormat prone to extreme neurotic tendencies and ended the series as one of the most assertive and competent characters on the show… who was still prone to extreme neurotic tendencies. Michael Lee from The Wire was a sweet and innocent kid until the system got a hold of him. Then he became something else.

Walter, Elliot, and Michael are all brilliant characters. They’re defined enough that you could write full books on all of them, they have personality traits that are dialectically opposed to one another yet still make sense within the framework of the character’s formulation, and, simply put, they’re all engaging to watch. However, they’re all just human beings. The act of their creative conceptions was bound by the need to be played by live actors with human physicality and brain power.

Cookie Monster, on the other hand, is not a human. He’s a monster. Or really, he’s what appears to be a pretty simplistic puppet. (Whether or not that’s actually true I’m not qualified to say. I’m talking about the perception the puppet, not the literal goings-on behind the scenes.) If we wanted to be snarky internet assholes about it, we’d say that he’s basically just a sock puppet with some fake fur and some googly eyes glued onto him and somehow he has arms that shove cookies into his mouth. 

Simple. But isn’t that kind of the beauty of it?

If we want to stick to only the most academic definition of a great character, or you’ve just entered your high school snobbery phase (in which case I don’t envy you), then maybe the simplicity of the Cookie Monster may not do it for you. But for me, there’s something beautiful about the idea that you can get what looks like a blue bathroom mat, shape it into a puppet, glues some big eyes on it, and that creation becomes an iconic character around the world.

Cookie Monster is a testament to the human ability to create something out of nothing. He is ingenuity incarnate. A prime example of what you can accomplish with what’s right in front of you. Of course, you can argue that those iconic characters were made on a blank page on a computer screen. But that doesn’t make them as tangible. There’s so much to Cookie Monster, yet at the end of the day, he’s just a puppet and an actor.

Some are quick to write off animated characters or puppets. They shouldn’t. After all, they’re just as much a part of our creative projections as anyone or anything else. More so, in certain ways. Kid’s entertainment. It’s good.

Cookie Monster is Universal and Eternal

What would you do if there weren’t any rules? What if nobody was watching? What if there wasn’t any established social expectations? Or disgrace? What would you allow yourself to have?

Maybe it’s something low stakes. I, for example, can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to take another slice of pizza or eat the whole bread basket at the table or order dessert. But I didn’t. I had to consider the other people I was sharing that pizza with. I was self-conscious about how I would look if i ate all that bread. I didn’t want to hold up everybody from leaving the restaurant just because I’m the only one who wanted dessert. Once you get over the basic barrier of not giving a shit about your health, the only thing really stopping you from doing something like this is a potential lack of desire, shame, or consequences. But what if you were unburdened by all three?

Maybe it’s something on a larger scale. Something you’d normally prevent yourself from having in the name of seeming civil or respectable. Maybe it’s sex. Maybe it’s ill-gotten money. Maybe it’s a certain emotion or cats or attention or whatever you’d fill yourself up with if it weren’t, in one way or another, bad for you.

Everybody has something they would allow themselves to have if it weren’t for the restrictions of their surroundings. Not only have, even, but have aggressively and without shame. If only it weren’t for those fucking rules. Hell, those rules are probably why you want that thing in the first place. 

As we talked about earlier, Cookie Monster is funny because he has no control. That thing you don’t allow yourself to devour? That thing for Cookie Monster is, obviously, cookies, and he lives in that reality we all dream of. It’s what makes him funny, but it’s also what makes him relatable. Not only that, but it’s also why he’s always been relatable and always will be.

Tony Sopranos is one of the most endlessly fascinating characters ever conceived of when it comes to television. But I don’t want to be him.

I want to be Cookie Monster every day.