When I was a kid, I never believed that Cookie Monster was actually EATING the cookies. I could always tell that he would crush them up in his mouth, and fall all over the ground. What I could never decide was whether he knew that he couldn't swallow the cookies. I always sort of thought that he knew, but he just liked the TASTE. It seemed to me that he was sort of like the Tin Man, pretending that he had a heart, even though all he had was a plush toy from the Wizard. Life is easier when you pretend you can eat cookies.

The alternative to me was just too depressing; the notion that he was constantly hungering for cookies, but never being able to satisfy the craving. Whenever I saw that as a possibility, Cookie Monster seemed a tragic figure, a sort of blue Everyman, always striving for what he couldn't have.

At the same time, being the Cookie Monster gave him an identity of his own; it was his NAME, for chrissake. But more than just his name, it also gave him a set of goals unknown to the rest of his muppet kin: the constant acquisition and consumption of cookies and cookie-related products. He was perhaps the most ambitious muppet. He would do anything for a cookie. He was a cookie junkie. But he couldn't swallow the damn things.