C is for cookie. A is for art.

On a Friday morning in the minutes before the Guggenheim opens to visitors, Cookie Monster loops down the museum’s famous spiral ramp. The sweet-toothed Muppet’s blue fur strikingly contrasts the crisp white backdrop. And as his googly eyes wiggle with each step, the giggles of the gathered museum staff rise through the atrium.

The Guggenheim is the first stop for Cookie Monster on his tour of New York City art museums. Later in the day, he’ll play hide-and-seek in an ancient Egyptian temple at the Met and draw crowds of 20-something artsy types at MoMA. The visits coincide with the launch of his first special, an art-themed story titled The Cookie Thief.

At the Guggenheim, Cookie Monster is a hit with impossibly hip museum employees in leather pants and retiree tourists from middle America, but no one delights in talking to him like children. A group of kids still thawing from the bitter cold in front of a Camille Pissarro painting instantly warm up when Cookie’s gravely voice crackles out of his furry face. Cookie’s knowledge of art is much like his knowledge of everything — cookie-focused.

As he expresses an appreciation for landscape art (especially when the color scheme matches that of baked goods), one mini artist-in-training doodles a chocolate chip cookie in pencil. Whether in paper or flour and sugar form, Cookie Monster can’t resist and he squishes his face into the paper cookie.

With a belly filled by standard printer paper, Cookie Monster moves six blocks south to the Met. As he moves between artifacts and oil paintings, a patron skeptically asks, “Is that the real Cookie Monster?” The thought seems silly at first — a grown man taking his puppet to prestigious Manhattan museums — but it is New York after all, and even the real Cookie Monster showing up at The Met seems like a fuzzy fever dream.

Another sight that could make museum goers question their conscious state is Cookie Monster lurking behind the columns at the Temple of Dendur, an Egyptian artifact constructed during the Roman reign of Augustus Caesar in 10 B.C. The contrast of the desert structure in front of a snow-covered Central Park outside The Met’s windows is only made more delightfully odd by the Muppet.

Cookie goes stone-face-to-furry-face with a pharaoh before moving to the American Wing. There, amongst power-wigged forefathers and winged gold statues, Cookie encounters the massive Washington Crossing the Delaware painting. George Washington seems like the type who’d favor an oatmeal raisin, not that Cookie Monster would judge.

Cookie takes a pause from pondering Presidential art to interact with a toddler who screams with simultaneous delight and panic when he reaches out his fuzzy hand for a high-five. Cookie has this effect on humans of all ages, a trend that continues when he makes his last stop for the day at MoMA.

Walking into the museum with a Muppet is probably what it feels like to roam the streets with Taylor Swift (who could definitely be part Muppet). Every millennial near MoMA’s entrance gathers around, clutching iPhones in hopes of capturing the ultimate selfie and tweeting about that epic time they casually ran into their childhood hero.

“Hands down, the reaction of my colleagues,” Elizabeth Margulies, director of family programs and initiatives at MoMA, says when asked about the best part of Cookie Monster’s visit. “They were so excited. I haven't seen that much excited since Lady Gaga visited the museum.”

The reactions of people to a real-life Sesame Street resident might be the only thing more intriguing than the museum’s modern art pieces. Some bounce in uncontrollable delight, calling the encounter with both the Muppet and the man behind the Muppet (longtime Muppeteer David Rudman) “life-changing.” Others play it cool, strolling by Cookie Monster in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night like nothin’, only to exclaim “Cookie Monster talked to me, bro” when he offers a casual hello.

A day out with Cookie Monster couldn’t wrap up without a, well, cookie. Duh. So in the kitchen of MoMA as servers glide about and food prep continues, Cookie Monster is presented with a custom cookie by Chef Jiho Kim.

When be-doughed with the treat, Cookie Monster says: “This cookie a work of art. Me almost not want to eat it. Almost.” Maybe spending the day contemplating art has given Cookie an appreciation for the beauty of cookies and he’ll stop gobbling them down so fast. Hmm, maybe not.

The Cookie Thief airs all week on PBS (check local listings).