Big Bird: Romney Plans to Fire Sesame Street, PBS

Look out, Big Bird!

The giant yellow puppet, a beloved character on the PBS television series Sesame Street for the last 43 years, might have his wings clipped if Mitt Romney is elected.

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, the Republican nominee professed his love for both moderator Jim Lehrer--himself a PBS employee--and Big Bird, right before vowing to cut government funding for the publically-owned broadcaster that produces and runs the show.

"I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS," said Romney to Lehrer. "I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for."

Romney was referring to the federal deficit, which currently stands around $1.1 trillion. His plan to cut all funding to PBS would do little to bring down the debt. PBS currently receives about $444 million a year from the government, or about 1/100th of 1 percent of the budget shortfall.

Reporters weren't able to reach Carroll Spinney, the voice and puppeteer of Big Bird, but his wife Debra said they hadn't been paying attention to the debate.

"He really has no comment on any of this," she said to the Boston Globe. "We don't have the Internet or Twitter or anything." But PBS spokesperson Jeanne Hopkins lamented Romney's plan.

"It's unfortunate that Governor Romney doesn't understand the full impact and value of PBS," she said.

Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm engaged in a little sparring with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on CNN, with Granholm defending PBS and the brightly-plumed bird.

A Twitter user created the fake account @FiredBigBird, which as of Friday morning has over 30,000 followers.