HIV comes to Sesame Street, and Tim Blair wonders how:
How will the character’s contraction of the disease be explained? Sharing a needle with Oscar in his squalid street dwelling? Sex can be ruled out — Muppets don’t have genitals.
A blood transfusion doesn’t make sense; where would any donated Muppet blood come from? Each Muppet is the only living example of its species. The fluid oozing through Big Bird’s avian veins is unlikely to sustain whatever the hell Elmo is.