Decoding Bert's purple hand

A person can get introspective when they're making 50 caterpillars out of pipe cleaners. Is there a God? What is the ratio of people who buy pipe cleaners to clean pipes to people who use them in library craft projects? And what was the deal with Bert's purple hand?

I should explain. I'm at a party on Saturday in Brooklyn and I'm talking to a lawyer friend who is wearing black sequined pants and a shirt with a rainbow zipper. Of course, the subject naturally turns to Sesame Street. People of a certain age raised in a certain way tend to find PBS to be a cultural touchstone on which they can all comment. Normally such conversations spend more time parsing the finer aspects of Oscar the Grouch's relationship with Maria or why the group Mummenschanz seemingly appeared on every single children's television program (except possibly Reading Rainbow). Anyway, this conversation gets a little wonky because my lawyer friend brings up Bert's purple hand.

Those of you born between the years of 1974 to 1980, cast your minds back. Do you remember this particularly odd Sesame Street sketch? I have half a mind to rename my blog http://bert'spurplehand.blogspot.com just to ellicit some kind of explanation from someone. For those amongst us who remember it, it was a very odd and strange segment. Ernie wanted to go play outside but Bert wouldn't go because his hand, through some twist of fate or oddity of the universe, was purple.

Perhaps you don't care. Perhaps the colors of Bert's extremities leave you nonplussed. But if you remember this segment, please let me know. I think of it as a kind of litmus test for my generation. Remembering it says something about a person.