Can U.S. Kids Handle a Muppet With HIV?

With their 40th anniversary approaching, it's important to remember that our favorite kids show, Sesame Street, has never shied away from the topical, even as the majority of their audience remains in the three-to-ten-years-old demographic. When Harold Hooper died in 1983, the episode didn't sugar-coat what happened to everyone's favorite grocer. And pushing the envelope even further in 2002, the PBS show introduced Kami to their South African program, the 5-year old Muppet who is HIV positive.

The process of conceptualizing and building the golden yellow Muppet with a shock of ginger hair took five months – and deciding on her name took eight. The team was eager to select the right name for the Muppet, and after a lot of discussion, Yvonne Kgame, head of South African Broadcasting Co-operation Education TV, suggested the name “Kami,” which is derived from the Setswana word “Kamogelo,” meaning “acceptance.”
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”Her whole intention is that she lives positively despite the fact that she has this disease,” says Sesame Workshop’s Takalani Sesame producer Naila Farouky. “She’s also asymptomatic, which people are becoming more familiar with, especially with the proliferation of drugs that the government has just started to make available.”

Even though Tami has been around for 7 years now, she has never made a U.S. appearance, as some Republicans have even lobbied PBS to have her removed from any of the shows conceptions, calling it another one of Sesame Street's "homosexual ploys." You know, like Bert and Ernie, or Big Bird and Snuff.