'Sesame Street' Makers To Romney: 'Everyone Likes Big Bird'

Amid a presidential race heating rapidly up to a lukewarm pitch, "Sesame Street" producers Sesame Workshop are teaching America's youth a valuable lesson: if you can't say anything nice, at least agree that you like giant talking animals.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney made arguably, if not the "best," at least the most lasting impression of Wednesday night's presidential debate with President Barack Obama. After standing behind his stance to curtail federal subsidies to public broadcasting in order to pare down the budget, Sesame Workshop kept their words short and sweet Thursday.

"Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, educational organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but we're happy we can all agree that everyone likes Big Bird," the group said via statement to "Access Hollywood" Thursday.

Romney told moderator Jim Lehrer during the debate, "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it."

Lehrer has been a PBS institution since co-anchoring "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" alongside Robert MacNeil on PBS starting in 1975. He took over anchoring the program as "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" solo following MacNeil's 1995 departure. Lehrer stepped down as anchor effective June 6, 2011.

Still, to every cloud, a silver lining. According to The Associated Press, "Saturday Night Live," Jimmy Fallon, Piers Morgan, NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America" have all been queuing up to line up "Sesame Street" character appearances.

Alas, Big Bird reportedly won't be fielding any offers.