By then, he was pretty much done with Bert is Evil, even though the joke was still proliferating online. The result was effectively the internet’s first viral meme, as everyone was free to update their version of the site however they liked and create more compromising pictures of poor Bert. Unable to afford the increase, Ignacio offered Bert is Evil up for other sites to “mirror,” which basically means he allowed anyone to copy the site. Soon, Bert is Evil was getting so much traffic that Ignacio’s web hosting service asked for more money to support the traffic. I even won a Webby in 1998.” Bert at the site of Kennedy’s assassination “But then it got picked up by a print magazine called Internet Underground, and it became really popular. “At first, the audience for the website was like, four or five of my friends,” Ignacio tells me. As I was looking at Bert, I said to myself, ‘Gosh, this guy looks evil.’”įrom there, Ignacio made a joke website called “ Bert is Evil ” featuring photoshopped images of the unfortunate Muppet in a variety of precarious situations - he was at a KKK rally he was standing beside Hitler he was fondling a young Michael Jackson he was having sex with Pamela Anderson. Back then, there wasn’t much comedy on the internet - most websites were academic - but I wanted to make something funny. On my desk, I had a Bert doll that I’d given to my niece, but she didn’t want it, so I took it back. “Back in 1997, I was living in the Philippines,” he begins. How did it get there? Well, that story begins in 1997 with Filipino artist Dino Ignacio. On one of the posters, an angry image of Bert was seen beside Bin Laden. In October 2001, an anti-America/pro-Osama Bin Laden rally occurred in Bangladesh where supporters held up posters of the al-Qaeda leader. The joke’s proliferation mirrored something that happened right around 9/11 with another Muppet: Bert from Sesame Street. Unsurprisingly, the director’s statement did nothing to quell the conspiracy, and the joke only spawned more and more iterations. The movie was filmed in Vancouver, and the background they used in that scene predated 9/11. As Adam Downer, senior editor at Know Your Meme, explains, “In 2013, the Tumblr account Nerdy Facts posted the trivia that the Twin Towers stand in the movie’s alternate reality, and the next day, the post was reposted to Funnyjunk with the title ‘Kermit is a Terrorist.’” A few years later, the joke had taken off enough that the director of It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie chimed in, explaining that it was a mistake. Just some food for thought! Have a nice day! /umT7ERZO6Dįrom that obscure detail in an even more obscure Muppet film, a conspiracy grew. In that alternate reality, you can see the World Trade Center outside Piggy's apartment window. Want to remind everyone that in 2002's "It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas," Kermit wishes he had never been born. In other words, in 2002, in a timeline where Kermit never existed, the Twin Towers still stand. In the Miss Piggy scene, we can see out her window into downtown Manhattan, where the Twin Towers are clearly visible. In this reality, Fozzie is a pickpocket, Rizzo the Rat is being eaten on Fear Factor and Miss Piggy is a lonely spinster. He’s then transported to an alternate timeline where he sees how the world would be had he never existed. Making use of the same premise as It’s a Wonderful Life, the movie finds Kermit wishing he’d never been born after failing to save the Muppet Theater. The allegations are so patently absurd that they render themselves harmless, but as a die-hard Muppet fan, there’s another reason why I love the joke - most Kermit memes are random gags, yet “Kermit Did 9/11” actually stems out of an obscure piece of Muppet history.ĭuring the 2002 holiday season, NBC premiered the largely forgettable It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. If you’re unfamiliar with “Kermit Did 9/11,” it lays blame for the September 11th attacks on the host of The Muppet Show. But although I personally find most 9/11 conspiracy theories to be absurd if not downright offensive, I can’t help but love this one. government to Popular Mechanics, one conspiracy has never been thoroughly investigated: “Did Kermit cause 9/11?” While most of them have been disproven by everyone from the U.S. As we approach the 20th anniversary of September 11th, old conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks are starting to resurface.
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