I’m Guy Smiley and you’re entering The No Strings Zone. Is Sesame Street being devastated by America’s economic crisis? I don’t think so! Last I saw there were sunny days keeping the clouds away and everything was A-O.K. My guest tonight is liberal amphibian and head of the gay-rights organization Rainbow Connection—Kermit the Frog. Kermit disagrees with my position and has come on the show to speak about the peril he thinks Sesame Street is in. Kermit, you have a new book out called Open Sesame: A Revealing Look at Life on the Street. Tell me … why do you hate Sesame Street so much?

Hi-ho! Kermit the Frog here. And I have to say, times are hard on Sesame Street. We’ve got Muppets living in trashcans—

Let me interrupt you for a second, Mr. Frog, because I want the record to show that, for example, Oscar the Grouch had already established residency in a garbage receptacle long before this current “economic crisis”—

Yes, but that was a magical trashcan, with many levels and enough room to host parties—and fit an elephant! Now, he just lives in a regular Dumpster. He had to eat his only friend, Slimey the Worm.

I ate the worm once, right out of the mouth of this stripper in Tijuana … she rode a donkey … oh, spring break, how I miss thee … Which reminds me—isn’t Sesame Street full of immigrants?

Sesame Street is and has always been an ethnically, culturally, and racially diverse community. We like it that way.

Well, I’d like to bring up Grover—or should I say Super Grand Wizard Grover? He’s very outspoken about his views on immigrant Muppets coming in, taking all the cute jobs and speaking funny languages, and he believes we need to rid them from near … and far. Near… and far.

I don’t speak for Grover and I would like to emphasize I think it’s unfortunate what changing times can do to a Muppet. Even Grover. And that is what my book is about … but I would like to point out that the residents of Sesame Street are trying to cope with this crisis in many positive ways. I can give you an example of two best friends making sacrifices to make things work—

Hey, if you want to hold up deviant sexual behavior with pigeons and rubber duckies as positive poster children, be my guest. We’re going to break for a second and go to commercial.

And we are back. I want to get off the subject of homosexuals who have sex with birds—

You’re missing the point, Guy! Cookie Monster has been begging for crumbs in Mister Rogers’ neighborhood ever since the Electric Company shut down—

Again, you’re citing an example of someone who clearly had a problem before the downward turn in the economy. O.K., O.K., enough propaganda. We’re running out of time. Thank you for joining me, Kermit. Though we might not always see googly eye to googly eye, there is one problem we can agree on—Mr. Hooper: still dead.

Sigh.

On tomorrow night’s show: Fraggle Rock—Underground hippie commune or dangerous Muppet terror compound? Who’s laughing whose cares away?