Follow That Bird Flu, Part 2

Part one explored what would happen if Sesame Street aired a gloom and doom message about "Big Bird Flu," which could potentially ravage the globe and kill thousands (mostly children).

Due to Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop's uncanny ability to put their kiddie audience in the throng of real-life crisis issues, I thought of some additional character tie-ins to other actual health issues. Here's 10 more:

Kermit the Frog Warts - Despite what the tabloids claim, Kermit insists the warts around his mouth and on his tongue are just a skin condition caused by a "food allergy" and not the result of a tryst with a tainted toad in the swamp.

"I eat pigs in a blanket every morning before I get out of bed, so maybe it's that," Kermit admitted. "What can I say, it ain't easy bein' green."

Sesame Street News gossip columnists have pointed the finger at Miss Piggy, claiming promiscuous porking on the Pigs in Space set may have led to Kermit's ailment, which the couple vehemently denies.

No matter where the pesky pimples came from, they sure are a hassle. Luckily for Kermit, there's Valtrex. And it's gonna' be a brand new day once they figure out how to formulate that shit for frogs.

Guy Smiley Game Show Face - This illness only affects game-show hosts. It involves being such a work-aholic that you take your work home with you and that personality takes over your life. Smiley has it so bad he will introduce anyone he sees to the "studio audience" that is no longer there. He will yell "Yayyy!" and spew a lot of fake energy, all the while keeping a clownish grin permanently planted on his mug.

He tells his muppet friends to "come on down" rather than "come here" and he makes them answer stupid trivia questions for "points." When out shopping, he hands a store clerk a check for $1,000 and tells them he'll "take the ceramic dalmatian for $280 and put the rest on a gift certificate."

Instead of asking his muppet wife what she wants for dinner, he forces her to make a choice for what's behind door #1, door #2 or door #3. Then when she finally picks something, he tries to make her trade it for what's behind a curtain or a box. There is no known cure.

Typewriter Guy Typing - This is similar to "cutting," but even more macabre because the typewriter guy actually types messages onto himself. It starts out as depression, but eventually the paper is not enough to type on, so the machine alters himself so he can peck out messages on his arms or eyeballs. If he really wants to get a message across he'll type on the same spot over and over again for a bold statement. Therapy and white-out are usually enough to erase this illness.

Elmo Speech Impediment - This little red furball speaks in a falsetto voice and constantly refers to himself in the third person, as if he's a professional athlete. The need to sound squeaky gives him the compulsive need to spend the last 15 minutes every hour babbling bullshit about a place called Elmo's World. He is wildly popular despite these annoying traits.

He could be cured easily by working with a voice coach and a grammar teacher, but that would mean losing all the money from whoring himself out as any type of stuffed animal imaginable from Tickle Me to Chicken Dance.

Two-Headed Monster Split Personality Disorder - This is pretty much a freak of nature. It is much more complicated than a split personality within one mind. This monstrosity seems to have one body yet has two heads - possibly the result of some muppet inbreeding (does Sesame Street Unpaved mean up the dirt roads to Muppet Hillbilly Country?).

Each head has its own thoughts and agendas, which means the two heads have to work together to accomplish anything. This is easier said than done because the two heads can be bull-headed at times (they even have the horns to prove it). Both heads agree on one thing - Stuck on You with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear sucked.

Beetlemania - This was a term coined for the mass music fan hysteria caused from the "insect invasion" and their hit songs "Letter B", "Thinking of U", and "Hey Food." Eventually, some Japanese muppet hooked up with one of the members and broke up the band.

Each of the quartet went on to have successful solo projects. The Lennonesque bug was eventually assassinated (stepped on, actually) by a crazed fan, but his music and the band's legend lives on.

Yip, Yip Men's Syndrome - This is 10 times worse than the ass-kissing ailment at the workplace known as "The Yes Man." The muppet version of this overly positive mental state had its name shortened because instead of just telling management a simple "Yes," the muppet martians go to the extreme and say "Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip, Uh-huuhhh, Uh-huuuhhh."

No matter how asinine the task, the "Yip Yip Men" will swear the task will be completed on time, even when they know damn well it won't. They do have one thing going for them: They can't be fired or these Martian muppets would tattle to the government about their "illegal alien" status.

Harvey Kneeslapper Injury - This obscure character was famous for his practical jokes, especially when he'd ask others if they "wanted one." When they said yes, he would slap a #1 on them and then laugh himself into a waterfall of tears, many times even soiling himself.

He laughed at his own jokes incessantly, and over-exuberant knee slapping led to complete tears of his ACL and MCL before the 1978 PBS season, ending his prankster career. Tragically, he pulled the same #1 gag on his surgeon and then died laughing in the operating room.

Forgetful Jones Muppet Alzheimer's - They called this clumsy cowboy "forgetful" because he usually forgot everything he wanted to do or say. That's putting it nicely. Too young for muppet senility, Jones is obviously showing symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease.

Maybe they'll finally get him the treatment he needs when he gets "forgetful" one morning, kissing his horse Buster goodbye before throwing a saddle on his girlfriend Clementine to take her for a ride.


Fat Blue Muppet-Pattern Baldness - It's bad enough that Fat Blue can't seem to get a decent waiter, taxi driver or other service employees to adequately serve his needs on Sesame Street. He's usually in a hurry and in a bad mood. To top it all off, he's bald - a rarity in the muppet world. Most bald humans had hair at some point. Fat Blue is bald because that's how he was made.

There's no Hair Club For Muppets to help him out, and he doesn't have enough hair of his own to perform radical hair replacement surgery. A monster or grouch would probably be willing to lend him a few tufts, but the problem is, Fat Blue has become a bald icon, like the Mr. Clean of muppetdom and is pretty much stuck as is.