Million Muppet March Planned In DC To Defend ‘Sesame Street’ And PBS

A Los Angeles animation executive and an Idaho college student are planning a “Million Muppet March” in Washington, DC, to protest Mitt Romney’s pledge to eliminate federal funding for PBS.

Michael Bellavia and Chris Mecham came up with the idea for the event separately after Romney told moderator Jim Lehrer — a former news anchor for PBS NewsHour — he would stop the subsidy to PBS during the October 3 presidential debate.

Romney said, “I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you too, but I am not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”

The protest is set to take place November 3 — three days before the election — on the National Mall. Bellavia, who is the CEO of Animax Entertainment, told Reuters:

“I figured, why just make it a virtual show of support. Why not take this opportunity because it seemed like there was already some growing interest in it and actually make it an active, participatory event. I literally just said, ‘It’s happening.'”

According to Deadline, Bellavia had already bought the domain www.millionmuppetmarch.com and later discovered that Mecham had already created a Facebook page with the same name. The two connected before the debate ended and started planning the march.

Mecham added:

“Romney was using Muppets as a rhetorical device to get rid of public broadcasting, which is really so much bigger than Sesame Street. While he was still talking, I was thinking of ways I could express my frustration at the argument. Before the debates were over, I had already put up the Million Muppet March Facebook page.”

Bellavia said the protest may fall short of one million people, but “it does seem like we might get close to the biggest ever assemblage of puppets in one place and probably the most ever puppets marching on Washington.”

What do you think of the Million Muppet March?