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Home Front
Bert shows up on Binny poster
2001-10-13
  • Next to maybe Ernie, no one was more surprised to see Bert peeking out of a poster of Osama bin Laden than San Francisco college student Dino Ignacio. Ignacio, creator of the award-winning "Bert is Evil!" Web site, gave his career a jump-start by pairing the wholesome and beloved Sesame Street resident's picture with the likes of O.J. Simpson and Adolf Hitler.

    The college student says he's now being blamed -- wrongfully -- for the appearance of Bert in a collage of bin Laden photos that were placed on pickets in a Bangladesh demonstration. The picture features a menacing-looking Bert next to bin Laden in repose. Ignacio says it came from a Dutch site -- one of several that pay homage to Bert. "There's just a cult following that has taken over and mirrored this site," he said. "For this to bite me back -- it's just a real shocker." The picture was spread around the world when the Associated Press took a photo of the poster.

    "We're outraged that our characters would be used in this unfortunate and distasteful manner," said a statement from the Sesame Workshop, which owns the copyright and trademark for Bert. "This is not at all humorous."

    A manager of the Dhaka, Bangladesh, shop that made the posters said that the image had come from the Internet and that he hadn't realized Bert was in it.
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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