This Post Brought To You By the Letter "J" and the Number "8"

I have to admit that, not counting the important stuff, and second to getting onto Jeopardy! of course, one of my greatest life goals is to be asked to make a guest appearance on Sesame Street. Why? Well I figure that to get onto Sesame Street you've got to be pretty famous and the producers must think you're wholesome enough to be a role model for millions of kids that watch the show everyday. Now that I think of it, maybe I could parlay an epic 76 episode win streak on Jeopardy! into an appearance on the show....(insert Scrubs style daydream here)...

Back to the point though, being a guest on Sesame Street is really about a lot of different factors. More than any other children's show in history, Sesame Street always sought not only to engage its "target" audience of pre-kindergartners at home that still need to learn their letters and numbers, Street's producers have also always sought to engage parents as well. Before Shrek made telling adult jokes in children's media popular, Sesame Street had long played off of pop culture icons and parodies in order to make the show appealing for parents as well. Why bother? Well producers figured that by engaging parents and siblings in their children's educational process that they would be able to amplify the educational goals of the show. Besides, do 4 year-olds really know who "bookaneer" Tina Fey is? Do they realize that that is actually Feist teaching you how to count to the number 4? And my lord, do they realize that the world's greatest magician is teaching them tricks...I mean illusions! In the same manner that pioneered ways to get kids to actually watch their half hour long program (they tested if targeted audiences were interested by playing a video of a squirrel dancing on the corner of the screen, how cool?), producers also realized that the pop-culture cameo can do the same to hold parents' attention spans as well.

That said, and without further ado, some of the finer cameos I have come across online.
-Robin Williams
-Jack Black
-Yo Yo Ma (a personal favorite)
-Robert De Niro (woof woof, hilarious)
-Natalie Portman
-Chris Brown
-NPH (for my HIMYM loving friends)
-And a special Sesame Street on Scrubs clip!

PS- This week's sign of the apocalypse: Dating a Banker Anonymous