Bert and Ernie have printed clothes but I've noticed there are variations to the illustration for Bert's collar and the length of this shirt, while the stripes on Ernie's shirt are wider on the second Ernie (on the right).
The Child Guidance Cookie Monster puppet is also dark blue. As these were the first ever plush toys of these characters, Knickerbocker had to figure out how to sell them and the colour choice seems to have been an important piece of the puzzle. Cookie Monster plush toys have been light blue, or bright blue, ever since with only a few exceptions while Grover has always been dark blue. Yet, Knickerbocker only made the smaller 8 inch sized plush toy of Cookie Monster dark blue (shown above). Note that the large Cookie Monster toys shown above are all light blue, but the character is actually supposed to be dark blue. The light blue Grover shown above is the only one I've ever seen. Usually the open mouth Grover toys have dark blue fur. As this is an earlier version it is possible that the company was still trying out the colours for each character to see if dark blue or light blue fur looked better, or if one sold more than the other. Fuzzy and Blue: I've also noticed that light blue Knickerbocker Grover plush toys are not as common as the dark blue version.
