Last night the world was sent into shock by the news that Big Bird, yellow star of Sesame Street has been missing for the last three days. Furthermore, an employee of the “Children’s Television Workshop” (CTW), was dismissed after claiming that Big Bird had in fact been EATEN by his fellow cast members.

Big Bird, who has appeared in the hit show since it began in 1969 was last seen on Saturday morning filming remounts with the Snuffle-Uphagus for the current production block of 26 new Sesame Street episodes. When rumours of Big Bird’s disappearance began to circulate yesterday lunchtime, CTW made a statement claiming that Big Bird had taken “an extended leave” from the show. Mere hours later, production assistant Bill Spencer sent a fax to DFTFC’s associate Dougie B. The fax Dougie received contained a brief statement and a shocking picture sketched by Spencer of what he claims to have witnessed. The statement read “Big Bird is not on leave. He will not be coming back. He was killed and eaten on Saturday night.” The picture on the fax is reproduced below (and has been coloured in for your continued enjoyment):

Following this horrifying sketch, was a suggested explanation of events by Spencer. It seems that after 30 years of Big Bird camping it up on the Street, there was so much of him in CTW’s extensive video archives, that they could get away with using old footage for the Big Bird segments and save money on shooting new ones. The fax ended with the words: “of course, It was all Bert’s idea… may God have mercy on his soul.” It has been widely assumed that Bert is the real boss of CTW. One ex-employee referred to Bert as a “real nasty piece of work”. Spencer was dismissed by CTW later that afternoon.

Dougie B went to confront the six characters in Spencer’s illustration.

‘Bert’, smoking a Cuban cigar and with ‘Ernie’ in hand declined to comment. The pair then disappeared in a black Sedan. When approached by Dougie B, the ‘Count’ turned into a bat and flew off, while ‘Oscar the Grouch’ told our man to “f☣☣☣ off” before locking himself in his trashcan.

Dougie B did however manage to get something out of ‘Elmo’: “Big Bird gone! Big Bird gone away for real long time! Big Bird happy! Elmo happy too! Play with Elmo! Be Elmo’s friend!” Dougie B having been trained well by DFTFC saw straight through this subterfuge and gave ‘Elmo’ a good kicking.

‘Cookie Monster’ proved difficult to find, but if the case comes to trial, he looks likely to face a lesser charge, as we all know he never actually eats anything, he just pushes things at his face and the bits go flying everywhere.