Have you heard? Sesame Street is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Just think about that. Four decades of Sesame Street falsely teaching children that the last letter of the alphabet is ‘zee’ instead of ‘zed’. Four decades of Sesame Street teaching children to laugh in an unconvincing east European accent whenever they count to five. Four decades of Sesame Street showing slightly underwhelming short-form documentaries about bottle factories.

And four decades of solid gold musical performances. For a kid’s TV show, Sesame Street has played host to some genuinely incredible musical acts in its time, and here’s a list of our favourites. Do let us know if we’ve missed any out…

10 – Tony Bennett, Little Things

Where Tony Bennett tells a child that she shouldn’t hurry to grow up because he believes in little things “like colours in the sky”. Which we believe is a polite way of telling her that when you get old your teeth fall out and sometimes you accidentally wet yourself. Charming, nonetheless.

9 – Feist, 1,2,3,4

A spectacular puppet-heavy recreation of Feist’s famous 1,2,3,4 video. So preposterously delightful that you can even forgive Sesame Street for teaching children to find value in bland coffee shop music.

8 – Norah Jones, Don’t Know Y

A true multi-tasker of a performance. Not only does Norah Jones teach children about the letter Y and sing her best-known song, but it is also more likely to put children to sleep faster than any other song ever performed on Sesame Street by anyone.

7 – REM, Furry Happy Monsters

Who knew – re-recording old songs with new lyrics and singing them next to a bunch of dangerously bipolar puppets actually improves them. You learn something new every day.

6 – James Blunt, My Triangle

Yes, look, it’s James Blunt. And everyone knows how much of a knobshine James Blunt is. But, admit it, at one point during this song you thought “Hey, maybe James Blunt isn’t so bad after all.” Didn’t you? It’s OK. It’s our secret.

5 – Billy Joel, Just The Way You Are

Of all the lessons that Sesame Street ever taught us, this one has stayed with us the longest – that whenever Billy Joel sings, it’s OK to shout abuse at him and to repeatedly tell his deaf friend to go away. Remember that, kids. One day it might come in handy.

4 – Destiny’s Child, A New Way To Walk

Not so much for the song itself, or the tortured way that the song is introduced, but for the moment two and a half minutes in when Grover comes perilously close to having his eye taken out by Beyonce’s wayward crotch.

3 – Johnny Cash, Nasty Dan

This is just immense – it’s a battle of wits between mean old Johnny Cash and mean old Oscar The Grouch. Who comes out on top? No contest – the sneer that Cash gives Oscar after Oscar tells him that Nasty Pearl sounds OK could freeze blood. Terrifying.

2 – Paul Simon, Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard

Not that the little girl next to him seems to think it’s called Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard, though – in her head it’s clearly called Dance Dance Dance Dance Dance Alright Dance Dance Dance EVERYBODY DANCE EVERYBODY DANCE OH YOU CAN DANCE WITH ME YOU CAN DANCE WITH ME Dance Dance Dance Dance Dance. Almost illegally heartwarming.

1 – Stevie Wonder, Superstition

Now this is just in a different league. Stevie Wonder, before he got fat and rubbish, singing a glorious six-minute song about the dangers of organised religion to a group of impressionable children, some of whom have more of the funk than we will ever fully begin to comprehend. Not just the greatest musical performance on Sesame Street, but maybe one of the best videos of all time. Perfect.

BONUS VIDEO: Stevie Wonder again

He doesn’t just sing his own songs, you know. Stevie Wonder also makes up throwaway songs about Sesame Street. And they rule, too. Amazing.

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In life, Michael Jackson always had a touch of the Willy Wonkas about him – reclusive, eccentric, fond of kids.

But in death? Well, in death the comparison’s gone berserk. Not only was the audience for yesterday’s Michael Jackson memorial service doled out via a lucky ticket-style lottery system, but Michael Jackson himself made sure he was front and centre throughout the show in his great big shiny coffin. How nobody started a mass singalong of I’ve Got A Golden Casket is beyond us.

But what a show the Michael Jackson memorial service was. Try and top that, Gary Glitter.

OK, good, that’s it. Michael Jackson has died, his memorial service is over and his family has held a private service for him. That’s it. It’s all over. Unless you count the inevitable child custody battle, the inevitable legal squabble over his estate, the toxicology results and the potentially upsetting news it’ll bring and the fact that none of this is clearly even partially over, in which case you’ll realise that this is just the tip of a grotesque, oddly-faced, squeaky-voiced iceberg.

Because of this, yesterday’s Michael Jackson memorial service in LA’s Staples Centre wasn’t the full stop that everyone had hoped it’d be, rather a slapdash comma separating Michael Jackson’s death from the morbid news about all his alleged drug addictions, tell-all interviews with his staff and rush-released sensationalist biographies called things like Michael Jackson: He Had A Disturbing Face And You Wouldn’t Exactly Trust Him Around Your Kids, Would You?

But, as send offs go, you have to admit that the memorial service was a doozy. Anyone who was anyone was there – Mariah Carey, Usher, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, that creepy little smug kid from Britain’s Got Talent, Michael Jackson himself, encased inside a coffin so gaudy that it probably gave Donald Trump an erection – and, as Reuters reports, Michael Jackson’s own children:

Jermaine and Marlon lamented the loss of their brother, but it was Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, who left the crowd — and the world — with the most moving words of the ceremony. “Ever since I was born,” she began, sobbing and barely mustering the strength to speak, “Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just want to say I love him so much.”

It was an undeniably tender moment, and thankfully one not disrupted by Paris’ little brother Prince Michael II adding “Well, maybe not the ABSOLUTE best father. He did dangle me off a balcony that time, remember? That was kind of effed up. Remember? That time he actually dangled me off an effing balcony. What was that all about?”

However, as spectacular and moving as Michael Jackson’s memorial service was, it might not be too long before it’s outdone. We heard that when Tito goes, his memorial service will feature tributes by Bradley Walsh, two members of Kajagoogoo, that homeless bloke who plays the washboard outside the Wolverhampton branch of Carphone Warehouse and a tin of dogfood. Eat that, Michael Jackson.

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Ours was the Jonas Brothers/ Stevie Wonder duet. No, of course we’re joking here – watching a gang of pubeless bumstreaks like the Jonas Brothers and what appeared to be a morbidly obese sealion huff and screech their way through Stevie Wonder’s Superstition was the dictionary definition of unbearable. Honestly, you’d need to be a monumental cockhammer to enjoy something as clearly abhorrent as that.

Incidentally, the Jonas Brothers have called the duet ‘perfect’. We’re just going to leave it at that, we think.

The Jonas Brothers have had quite the year. This time in 2008, nobody who counts really knew who any of them were, but look at them now – one of them isn’t having sex with a girl whose eyebrows clearly weigh twice as much as she does, they’re getting to make spectacularly awful-sounding films and they’re even being invited to the White House. Not bad for a gaggle of virgin wolfmen who have to tolerate Miley Cyrus for a living.

But they needed a cherry to put on their cake. And, if possible, a great big blind creatively-spent cherry. Which, funnily enough, is what the Jonas Brothers got during Sunday night’s Grammys, when they were asked to perform a duet of Superstition with Stevie Wonder himself. Now, before we go on, here’s a video of that duet…

Pick a word to describe what you’ve just seen. Clumsy? Awkward? Cringeworthy? Upsetting? The word that’s probably furthest from your mind at the moment is ‘perfect’. Not even if you like the Jonas Brothers would you describe their Grammy duet as ‘perfect’, because if you like the Jonas Brothers you’re statistically a remedial-level three-year-old and you haven’t got round to learning any two-syllable words yet.

But if you happen to be one of the Jonas Brothers and all of your objectivity has been blurred by fame and your fringe and your ridiculous eyebrows then, yes, maybe you would describe your hideous Grammy abortion as perfect. Which they’ve done, in fact. Reuters reports:

“I don’t think we would have wanted to perform with anyone else. I mean, there were stars in that room who we’d love to perform with, but that was such a perfect opportunity and a perfect collaboration.” “We walked away very, very happy,” added Kevin. “We were raised on Stevie Wonder and his music. We were blown away. To be at the Grammys for the first time performing with Stevie Wonder was awesome.”

OK, so the Jonas Brothers are wrong about the quality of their duet – gloriously, apocalyptically wrong in fact – but you can’t fault their enthusiasm. After all, as they say, they were brought up on Stevie Wonder. It’s just a shame that Stevie Wonder can’t reciprocate the praise.

After all, just look at Stevie Wonder. It’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t raised on anything other than great big wads of deep-fried cheese. Really, Stevie Wonder is very fat.

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And that’s probably the reason why the US Library of Congress has decided to bestow Stevie Wonder with one of its highest honours, the Gershwin Prize. The Gershwin Prize is either an award to recognise an artist’s lifelong ability to foster mutual understanding through music, or just something they give to people who’ve spent the last decade eating so much food that they’re now starting to resemble giant fleshy beanbags.

Frankly it could be either one of those. And whichever one it isn’t, someone needs to invent it and give to Stevie Wonder as well. He’s equally brilliant at both, you see. And, no, that’s not because he’s blind. Your bigotry offends us sometimes, it really does.

If American Idol audition song choices are a barometer of success, then Stevie Wonder is truly a giant among men. Obviously, though, they aren’t a barometer of anything – if they were then Anastacia would be rich enough to gold-plate Australia and we’d all be walking around with the words ‘Celine Dion! Woo!’ tattooed across our foreheads – but you get the idea.

Stevie Wonder is still culturally relevant. Every time Stevie Wonder pops up at the Grammy, surprises everyone with how fat he’s getting, rambles on about nothing and then honks into his mouth organ like he bloody invented them, it’s because he’s culturally relevant. Every time Stevie Wonder wades into the current political scene, it’s because he’s culturally relevant. And every time Stevie Wonder declares that Jesus killed John Lennon, it’s because – yes – he’s culturally relevant.

And that’s why Stevie Wonder has been named as the recipient of The US Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Since Stevie Wonder is only the second artist to receive the award, and since Paul Simon was the first, we assume that the Gershwin Prize exists to recognise artists who used to be quite good but then went inexplicably shit. Or, as Reuters puts it:

Librarian of Congress James Billington said the Gershwin Prize was set up to commemorate George and Ira Gershwin, the American songwriting team whose manuscript collections reside in the Library of Congress. He said the prize honors musicians for a lifetime of contributions to the field of popular music that helped bring diverse listeners together and fostered mutual understanding.

It’s hard to overstate the prestige of winning a prize like this – a distinguished panel of scholars and experts has effectively ruled that the music of Stevie Wonder is some of the most important ever written. That’s quite a compliment for a man who once wrote a song called Power Flower.

However, it’s important that you don’t get the US Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize confused with the other vaguely political cultural awards, the Kennedy Centre Honours. For winning the Gershwin Prize, Stevie Wonder gets to compose a brand-new piece of music that will be preserved forever in the library, whereas if he’d won a Kennedy Centre Honour then Jessica Simpson would have just buggered up one of his songs in front of him and ran off crying. Big difference.

After God knows how many months, the Democrat party has been finally chosen Barack Obama over Bill Clinton’s wife as their candidate. And Obama has received some support from celebrity land.

Now, in the 2004 American election, when the world witnessed George W Bush and John F Kerry wrestle for the chance to sit in a big, white house, we all saw celebrities show their support.

The majority of film, sports, music and TV stars said George W Bush was a silly head and shouldn’t get your vote. We all know how much of a success that was when the American public stupidly voted Calamity George back into power.

It’s becoming a case of déjà vu as hip and trendy people like Bono tell us to vote Barack Obama and not John McCain.

Well, Stevie Wonder has just praised the Barack Obama and fucked his chances a little bit more.

Now, you may think that Hecklerspray is going to do one of two things:

1 – Make a cheap joke about Mr Wonder’s lack of vision.

2 – Quote lots of Stevie Wonder lyrics and say “Stevie just called Obama to say he loved him” and wish him good luck in the election.

No, for a change we won’t. Option one did tempt us, but after the angry outburst from Lee Ryan fans, we didn’t want to make a joke about a singer whose fanbase will attack us.

And we respect Stevie Wonder a lot more then Lee Ryan. One has talent, while the other runs off reality TV programs.

We’ll cut straight to the chase. At a press conference to promote his European tour [something Lee Ryan knows nothing about], a question was asked if Stevie supported the Democratic nominee.

He replied:

He’s a combination of JFK (former U.S. President John F. Kennedy), and Martin Luther King (Jr.). With that he can’t lose.

As we’ll agree, both of these are men were hugely influential leaders of their time for various reasons. However, they do have the following in common.

They both got shot.

JFK on November 22, 1963 and Martin Luther King on the April 4, 1968.

We guess that before comparing Barack Obama to these two men, Stevie Wonder didn’t realise he was doing this. Maybe a lack of vision on his part? D’oh!

Baring in mind that a maniac did prematurely end their lives, we hope Stevie isn’t part of a wacky cult to rid the world of the Democrat hopeful with fellow members Geroge W Bush and John McCain.

Of course not, don’t be silly. That’s like saying Robert Mugabe rigs the Zimbabwean election.