[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7nD02Im5E]
With Hunger Games mania sweeping the nation in advance of Catching Fire coming to theaters this Friday, it’s no surprise that Sesame Street got in on the action. In their latest viral video, the PBS staple casts Cookie Monster as Cookieness Evereat in The Hungry Games: Catching Fur. In the video, Cookieness must team up with her friends Finnicky, Tick Tock Lady, and Pita (a piece of delicious looking flat bread that’s a riff on Josh Hutcherson’s character Peeta) to try and win the competition and escape from the nefarious poking monkeys and insidious tickling winds by solving puzzles to eat food.
The video manages to make grownups laugh, while also teaching kids, in this case, about patterns. It’s a balance that Sesame Street has mastered lately. Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and True Blood were just some of the very adult shows that Sesame Street has parodied this year while still using the videos as an educational platform for children.
In this video with TIME, the show’s executive producer explains that there’s a very good reason that Sesame Street makes child-friendly versions of adult shows.