"Big Bird"

I heard on the radio that of the 10 million tweets about the Presidential debate, 250,000 of them were about "Big Bird".

.. back in a little apartment with gold shag carpet, a sliding door to the lawn outside the building, I lived on the same floor as Big Bird's parents.  They were old then, and that was 20+ years ago, so they are probably in their final resting places, dear Peg and Chet Spinny.

I got to meet Mr Big Bird himself in the parking lot once.  Very cool, he gave me his Big Bird voice and everything (but was dressed like a normal human - sorry kiddies).  So the fact that Big Bird got more attention than Obama's lack of teleprompter moments, or Romney's grand performance, is this a symbol of the importance of:
Public Television
innocence
childhood
?
What is the role of government in supporting these things?  And would those things (PBS, innocence, childhood) exist without government funding?  What about Big Bird?

Maybe he would exist, but maybe he wouldn't have 100 million followers.  Or is it billions if you could fans across the world.

When I listen to the classical station, I am always impressed with the "Scottish National Orchestra" and other national orchestras (since I don't think Scotland is actually an independent nation) across Europe.  And yet.  We're not Europe.  We don't even have universal health care here.

So, sorry Big Bird, you're going to have to take up a private collection.