Earth day at 51

 In 1990 the 20th anniversary was celebrated, in part, with a curious TV special featuring a host of familiar faces from sources ranging from E.T to the Muppets to Danny DeVito. Along for the ride was Bette Midler as Mother Earth and Robin Williams as a loud-mouth profiteering shill. 

Of course, the early 90s was the era of public service announcements via cross-corporate mash-ups, anyone remember Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue the special featuring Winnie-the-Pooh, the Ninja Turtles, ALF and a host of others that was as misguided an anti-drug campaign as the greater picture of the War on Drugs proved to be?

Thirty years later, with copyright holders far less bending, it is unlikely to see such grand collaborations  (the "We are the World" of popular characters if you will) again and the mash-ups from by-gone days unlikely to get a revival. The original Muppet Babies has been withheld from DVD and Blu ray, after all, for its frequent satirical references to the archives of pop culture. 

For now, then, we will always have YouTube to remind us tat at one point in TV history, Bill Cosby was seen as harmless enough to appear in a TV special alongside Kermit the Frog. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TExYI2JWDk

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