Christopher Cerf

In the early 1960s, he was involved as a writer and performer on musical satires released by The Harvard Lampoon. Since its first season in 1969, Cerf has played a role in the creation and production of the Sesame Street television program, most notably as a regular contributor of music and lyrics, and as the producer of many of its music albums. In the process, he has won two Grammy Awards and three Emmy Awards for songwriting and music production. Since writing and performing his first song for Sesame Street, "Count It Higher" (1973) in Season 5, Cerf has written or co-written over 200 songs featured on the program, including "Put Down the Duckie", "The Word Is No", "Dance Myself to Sleep", "Monster in the Mirror", and such parody songs as "Born To Add", "Letter B", "Wet Paint", and "Furry Happy Monsters". Cerf also played a role in the ongoing funding of Sesame Street, founding and serving as the original editor-in-chief of Sesame Workshop's books, records, and toys division. In addition to his contributions to Sesame Street, Cerf's musical material has appeared on Saturday Night Live, The National Lampoon Radio Hour, The Electric Company, Square One Television, Between the Lions, and in numerous Muppet productions, and his songs have been performed by Paul Simon, En Vogue, John Candy, Joe Williams, Cheech Marin, Keb' Mo', Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Lily Tomlin, Shari Lewis's Lamb Chop, Andrea Martin, Goo Goo Dolls, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rick Moranis, Take 6, Waylon Jennings, Harry Belafonte, Jeff Redd, Chris Barron, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, R.E.M., James Taylor, Tony Bennett, Dixie Chicks, Tracy Chapman, Carol Channing, Randy Travis, The Four Tops, Melissa Etheridge, Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, Wynton Marsalis, Little Richard, B.B. King, Jimmy Buffett, Bart Simpson, and the Metropolitan Opera's José Carreras. The blond, curly-haired Muppet character from Sesame Street is his namesake and the lead singer of the rock group "Chrissy and the Alphabeats."

Cerf also worked as an author and satirist. In 1970, he helped launch the National Lampoon, serving as a Contributing Editor from its first issue until the mid-1970s, and in 1978, he co-conceived and co-edited with Tony Hendra, George Plimpton and Rusty Unger the journalistic parody Not The New York Times. The Experts Speak, the "compendium of authoritative misinformation" that Cerf co-authored with Victor Navasky in 1984, has recently been reissued. In 1986, Cerf collaborated with National Lampoon colleague Henry Beard on The Pentagon Catalog: Ordinary Products at Extraordinary Prices, which offered readers the historic opportunity to obtain a free hex nut—valued at $2,043 by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation—with every copy they purchased. (The book has a die-cut hole in its front cover and first few pages: the book was sold in clear plastic shrink wrap with a steel hex nut inside this hole, slightly less than flush with the cover. The shrink wrap displayed the hex nut and prevented it from falling out before the book was purchased.) The Official Politically Correct Dictionary, also written with Beard, first appeared in 1992. In 2008, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of George W. Bush's victory speech aboard the U. S. S. Lincoln, Cerf again collaborated with Victor Navasky to produce Mission Accomplished!: Or How We Won the War in Iraq based on America's military presence in Iraq.

• Alligator, with Michael K. Frith as by "I*N FL*M*NG" (Harvard Lampoon parody of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels), 1962 • The Vintage Anthology of Science Fantasy (editor), 1966 • The World's Largest Cheese, 1968 • The Chicago Conspiracy Trial: The Chicago Conspiracy vs. The Washington Kangaroos / Official Pogrom (editor, with Michael Frith), New York: Domesday Books, 1969 • Official National Lampoon Bicentennial Calendar 1976 (with Bill Effros), 1975 • Not The New York Times (co-editor, with Larry Durocher, Josh Feigenbaum, Tony Hendra, George Plimpton, and Rusty Unger), 1978 • The 80s: A Look Back at the Tumultuous Decade 1980–1989 (co-editor, with Tony Hendra and Peter Elbling), 1979 ([paperback]) • The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (with Victor Navasky), 1984 ([paperback], [hardcover]), 1990, 1998 • The Pentagon Catalog: Ordinary Products at Extraordinary Prices (with Henry Beard), 1986 • Marlo Thomas & Friends: Free to Be... a Family (co-editor, with Marlo Thomas), 1987 • The Book of Sequels (with Henry Beard, Sarah Durkee, and Sean Kelly), 1990 • Small Fires: Letters From the Soviet People to Ogonyok Magazine, 1987–1990 (co-editor, with Marina Albee), 1990 ([paperback]) • The Gulf War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (co-editor, with Micah L. Sifry), 1991 • The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Henry Beard), 1992, 1993 • The Official Sexually Correct Dictionary and Handbook (with Henry Beard), 1995 • The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (co-editor, with Micah L. Sifry), 2003 • Marlo Thomas & Friends: Thanks and Giving: All Year Long (co-editor, with Marlo Thomas), 2004 • Blackie: The Horse Who Stood Still (with Paige Peterson (artist)), 2006 • Mission Accomplished! (or How We Won the War in Iraq), (with Victor S. Navasky), 2008 • Spinglish: The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceptive Language (with Henry Beard), 2015 • A Skunk in My Bunk!, 2019