Big Bird’s on Twitter, yo. In a major way–and it’s because he was the star of last night’s presidential debate. No joke!

Here’s what happened. Both of the candidates, President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, were fielding questions about the federal budget. During Romney’s turn, he described what cuts he would make to decrease the country’s debt. Most of his measures were things he’d already talked about.

However, one of the newer ways Governor Romney revealed that he wants to lower spending was to cut funding to PBS, the educational network that features shows like Sesame Street for little kids. “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS,” Romney said at Wednesday’s debate. “I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird … But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.” So, basically he’s saying that Big Bird, Elmo, and all the other friends on Sesame Street who help educate kids before they even get to school aren’t worth asking rich people to pay for in their taxes.

You can watch Romney’s full comment here:

Yikes! That’s bad news for Big Bird (and Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Grover, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Murray, Rosita, Zoe, Snuffleupagus…). This sent the Internet into a total tizzy, and plenty of Twitter accounts (many of which are now suspended) started popping up to save Big Bird. While none of these accounts were signed off on by PBS or Big Bird himself, some of them were pretty hilarious. You can check out some of the tweets from the potentially unemployed Big Bird below:

The Angry Birds just sent me a message: “Mitt’s going down…” #denverdebate #debates

— Big Bird (@BlGBlRD) October 4, 2012

 

Count von Count says Romney’s budget math doesn’t add up….

— Big Bird (@FiredBigBird) October 4, 2012

 

Mitt Romney favors Wall Street over Sesame Street

— Big Bird (@FiredBigBird) October 4, 2012

 

These accounts had thousands–some tens of thousands–of followers within just a few minutes of Romney’s comment, showing just how one remark can go totally viral so quickly. This was even bigger than Romney’s “47 percent” gaffe from a few weeks ago. In fact, the save Big Bird campaign was, in part, why last night’s presidential debate was the most tweeted-about event in American political history. (To be fair, it may also be because more people simply have Twitter now than they did a few years ago, too.)

For the record, PBS says that the actual Big Bird is only six years old and doesn’t have an actual opinion on the presidential debate, nor on the presidential election. But something tells us that Big Bird would support the candidate most likely to, well, save Big Bird and make sure kids have awesome friends like Bert and Ernie to teach them about the world.

Do you think the government should cut funding to PBS? Do you think the government should save Big Bird? Did you watch the presidential debate? Are you registered to vote in this election? Which candidate would you vote for? Tell us in the comments!

Big Bird may not understand politics, but we know all Muppets aren’t fans of this place!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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