Bert goes on a rampage! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Bert is cool.

He and his buddy Ernie go back a long way together, though it's never been made clear how they met.

A rare sketch from around 1982 explores the comedic duo further:



That lengthy skit is one of the rarest Ernie and Bert segments ever, and I don't ever remember seeing it until now (possibly because I was too old for 'Sesame Street' by 1982). But it's also one of the all-time greatest, simply because of the uproarious ending - which may well be the funniest Bert and Ernie scene of all-time!

The rest of the segment is very slow-paced, but the ending more than makes up for that!

Ernie fawns over his balloons for being "fat and floaty", but expresses alarm when Bert tells him that balloons don't last forever. Ernie apparently thought that even after the sun expanded and engulfed the Earth, balloons would somehow survive the event.

The discovery that balloons are mortal leads Ernie to liberate the inflated orbs by letting them float out the window. (However, he didn't attach a piece of paper saying "Pooing is cool" to the string.)

When Ernie suggests renting a helicopter to retrieve the balloons, Bert finally loses his shit! And it's so funny to watch! The pointy-headed Muppet screams and runs out into the street in his pajamas, and the sound of breaking glass is heard. One envisions Bert with a cinder block smashing out car windows.

'Sesame Street' desperately needs to start airing this skit again! I don't buy the argument that Bert's tantrum is too much for today's children to handle. It's better to show sketches like this than to raise a generation of lifelong babies.