Claim: Bert, the Sesame Street muppet, appears on posters carried by supporters of Osama bin Laden.
Origins: Eh? Is that really Bert, the irascible muppet partner of Ernie on TV's Sesame Street, peering over the left shoulder of Osama bin Laden in the poster shown below? How did he get there?
Dino Ignacio, a San Francisco artist, started Bert is Evil!, a long-time favorite humor site on which, as a running joke, he attempted to prove the muppet Bert was "evil" by inserting him, Zelig-like, into photographs with notorious people and infamous historical scenes.
Although Ignacio stopped updating his site few years ago, several mirror sites have kept the gag going, and "Bert is Evil!" enthusiasts have continued to create and post new pictures, including an image of Bert posing with Osama bin Laden:
The picture of muppet Bert with Osama bin Laden was inadvertently picked up by someone in Bangladesh scouring the web looking for photographs of Osama bin Laden to use in a collage-like poster:
Mostafa Kamal, production manager of Azad Products, the Dhaka shop that made the posters, told the AP he had gotten the images off the Internet.
"We did not give the pictures a second look or realize what they signified until you pointed it out to us,'' he said
The company had printed about 2,000 posters, and they were snapped up by the demonstrators, who were angry over the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan.
Kamal said he would leave out the controversial images from his next posters.
The Osama bin Laden poster — with the muppet — was displayed at rallies by pro-bin Laden protesters and appeared in photographs carried by news agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press.
See the links below for additional coverage of the Bert-bin Laden connection.
Bin Laden's Felt-Skinned Henchman? (FOXNews.com)
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