I grew up watching Sesame Street. The show helped teach me to read. Then I had kids of my own and watched hours and hours of the show with them. My oldest daughter’s favorite was Elmo, but she also really loved Cookie Monster. So we had multiple Cookie Monster toys and stuffed animals in the house for years. We’d read Cookie Monster books, and I’d read them in a Cookie Monster voice.
But despite all of that, I never knew that Cookie Monster’s name is not Cookie Monster. Did you know Cookie Monster has a “real” name? He does.
The Cookie Monster himself tweeted about it earlier this week. “Did you know me name is Sid?” he wrote. “But. me still like to be called Cookie Monster.
Yes, the Cookie Monster’s real name is Sid.
This isn’t some idle tweet by a Sesame Street social media manager, either. This is canonical stuff. Hardcore Sesame Street fans know that the show established Cookie’s real name in a musical number about his earliest days. When Cookie was a baby, he’d never eaten a cookie before. So of course he wasn’t actually named Cookie Monster. You wouldn’t name someone after a food they’ve never eaten before!
But then, while he was still a wee little baby, his mother baked him some cookies. That was all she wrote for Sid. On that day, a Cookie Monster was born.
So there you have it and now you know: The Cookie Monster is really named Sid. Also: Did you know that Oscar the Grouch’s real name is not Oscar? It’s true. His real name is Bippy the Grouch, but he was obsessed with the Academy Awards as a kid, and so his parents started calling him Oscar.
Okay I made that last part up. But the Cookie Monster stuff is true!
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