Few David Lynch projects ever achieved the mainstream success that his television series Twin Peaks did. In 1990, Lynch and his creative partner Mark Frost had the entire world asking the question “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Twin Peaks propelled Lynch’s vision of small-town America and its hidden secrets onto the covers of Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, and parodied on SNL. Even Sesame Street of all things joined in the parody game. This happened back in a 1990 segment of Sesame Street’s Monsterpiece Theater called “Twin Beaks.” You can watch this delightful ’90s time capsule down below:
We’re not sure what your average kid thought when Cookie Monster as “Agent Cookie” investigates a mysterious small town, hoping to discover just why they call it Twin Beaks. These references must have been fun for their parents though. Agent Cookie even meets a bird going by the name David Finch, and even the Log Bird. Yes, there’s coffee and cherry pie. You can’t have a Twin Peaks parody without that. They couldn’t parody too many elements of the very adult Twin Peaks in a show aimed at pre-schoolers. But they got away with as much as they possibly could.
Other children’s shows parodied Twin Peaks back in its heyday, like the classic Disney Afternoon favorite Darkwing Duck. Their episode also had the name “Twin Beaks,” and it contained the phrase “The cows are not what they seem.” This was poking fun at Twin Peaks’ cryptic message from the otherworldly Giant, when he says “The owls are not what they seem.” Twin Peaks parodies on kid’s shows continue to this day, as a few years back there was one on Scooby-Doo. What a great testament to David Lynch’s imagination, that Twin Peaks’ iconography even filtered down to pop culture aimed at a completely different demographic.