I was going to post about the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street next week, since the seminal kids’ show debuted on Nov. 10, 1969. But yesterday I noticed a surge of traffic to the blog to some old posts on Sesame Street. As far as I can tell, they were driven by Google’s illustrating its homepage with Big Bird (now Cookie Monster) to lead up to the anniversary, leading people to believe the anniversary was yesterday. Google homepage 1, actual history 0.

Google’s not the only one getting a jump on the anniversary. Conservative blogger “Stage Right” at entertainment-news site Big Hollywood took the occasion to rant about a two-year-old episode of Sesame Street that included a reference to the fictional news network “Pox News.” (h/t Mediaite.)