John Oliver Brings In Sesame Street Characters To Sing About Poisoned Water

In putting together their latest longform segment for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the show’s crack team of researchers proved they’re worth double whatever it is they’re getting paid. In Sunday night’s top story, Oliver tackles the lead poisoning problem in Flint, Michigan and dives into America’s long history of dragging its feet on cleaning up the toxic substance. Within their brisk but comprehensive explainer on lead usage in the United States they insert a Sesame Street sketch from 20 years ago in which our favorite basic cable educators instruct chidren on how to avoid the metal.

As Oliver points out, 20 years is a long time considering we are still trying to sort out the same issue today. So to honor that episode of Sesame Street and stage a plea for lawmakers to inject serious money and legislation in the fight to abolish lead poisoning of children, Oliver gets together with Rosita, Elmo and Oscar the Grouch to sing an inspirational song. If legitimately sick kids aren’t persuasive enough to affect change, maybe sad Elmo can do the trick.