All of this recently culminated in that telltale culture-news saturation point indicator, a withering segment about them on The Daily Show. And on Friday, The Jim Henson Company—which makes Muppet toys for Chick-Fil-As kids' meals—cut ties with the company as well. So, how's Chick-Fil-A fighting back?

The Daily Show's co-creator, Lizz Winstead, Tweeted out this photograph today:

It appears to be from the Willow Grove Mall in lovely Willow Grove, PA. Blogger Joe My God found that they're not the only one taking this message tactic:

Chick-fil-A is initiating a voluntary withdrawal for our Jim Henson Creature Shop Puppet Kid's Meal Premiums due to a product issue (even though all puppets passed safety testing requirements). In lieu of the kid's meal premium we will offer a Kid's Icedream. We plan to have replacement kid's meal premiums within 2 weeks. Thank you and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Now, technically, they're not The Muppets, which Disney now owns, but Jim Henson creatures are all kind of informally common-noun "muppets," no?  Either way, Chick-Fil-A is saying that the "voluntary recall" happened before The Jim Henson Company made their announcement: Essentially, that they recalled the product voluntarily, and The Jim Henson Company exploited the moment to take a stand.

Which seems unlikely, given both the "voluntary" nature of the product recall, as well as the varying messages each Chick-Fil-A franchise seems to be putting out.

When contacted for quote by the Huffington Post, The Jim Henson Company referred a reporter to their previous statement and basically told them to check in with Chick-Fil-A, but as The Consumerist pointed out, the recall is in fact "voluntary," which refutes what the sign at the heart of this reads: That it's a recall. Furthermore, they contacted the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which issues recalls like the one that'd be required for the toys in question; they had no issues with the toys listed for recall action.

But essentially, what you have here is an anti-gay fast-food chain and The Jim Henson Workshop engaged in a P.R. war, with a confused media caught in the middle, attempting to interpret subtleties in messaging that have more or less been distributed through social media. It is mostly weird, and relatively funny.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Against God's will: Bird refuses to age (Getty Images)

Happy Birthday to Big Bird, who is 43-years-old today. No wait, actually, he's six, and he'll always be six. (Except for the time he was 4, and when he was originally very old.)

Come on Sesame Street: how much are you going to make us suspend our disbelief here?? A big yellow talking bird...fine. A big yellow talking bird that doesn't age? That's just nutty!

To celebrate the special occasion, the  Sesame Street Workshop interviewed Carroll Spinney, who has played Big Bird (and Oscar the Grouch) since the show's conception in 1969. Unlike Mr. Bird, Mr. Spinney has definitely aged. The puppeteer explains the reasoning behind his character's inability to age...sort of.

On the very first show the writers gave a two minute period to say hello to Big Bird. I said, “What’s Big Bird like?” And Jim said, “I don’t know, what do you want him to be like?” I said I wanted him to be pretty human. As the show progressed, the writers didn’t know what he was, they hadn’t seen it. He looked like quite a different character. At first I played him like Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy.  It wasn’t long before I decided that it should be a childlike character, not a goofy old guy. Since he couldn’t read or write, he was 4-years-old. By the end, he was writing little poems and stuff, so then he had to be six so he could read. He’s turning six and he always turns six. His birthday came about on a calendar on the early days of the show. Someone decided he should have a birthday and I decided it should be the first day of spring.

Big Bird was originally an old crotchety dummy who transformed into a child that doesn't age? That's some Benjamin Button-level craziness over at Mr. Hooper's Store.

Can James Murdoch hack it here? The townhouse in question.

This past spring, our Matt Chaban cracked the sale of the 40-foot-wide townhouse at 117-119 East 69th Street that the late Jim Henson used as a studio to craft his Muppets. (We're quickly reminded of News Corp. employee Homer Simpson's description of what a Muppet is for son Bart: "Well, it's not quite a mop, it's not quite a puppet, but man... [brief laughter] ... So to answer your question, I don't know.")

And we don't quite know what might become of the Muppet Mansion now that its purported owner, James Murdoch, confronts a full schedule in London. Here's the thing:

- Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought the townhouse in the fall of 2008 for $28.5 million (Henson had bought it in 1977 for $600,000).

- He sold it for $23 million this past March, apparently taking a 20 percent loss.

- The buyer hid behind an LLC named Statler. Clever, but not clever enough. Per Mr. Chaban:

That happens to be the name of the tall, skinny muppet who heckles the stars from a theater box along with his pal Waldorf on the old Muppet Show. And yet the joke is on the buyer, as the deed lists an address for the LLC at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, headquarters of News Corp., and the deed has been signed by one of the building’s denizens, Jesse Angelo, editor of The Daily.

- Statler was not, in fact, Mr. Angelo.

- Statler may be James Murdoch, Mr. Angelo's close friend since their days at Harvard. It certainly makes sense, given the details on the deed and that the younger Mr. Murdoch was planning to move to New York to become the No. 3 at News Corp.

Such a move now seems unlikely (or unwise), given the litany of allegations and possibly interminable depositions confronting Mr. Murdoch; his future within News Corp. seems uncertain now, too.

We have an email out to a News Corp. rep.

Update: The email came back: "No comment."

tacitelli@observer.com  ::  Follow on Twitter: tacitelli

Mr. Bronfman has resettled in London, which is said to be why he is selling the home. Having offloaded his old townhouse around the corner to Len Blavatnik for $50 million in 2007--more than 10 times what he paid for it in 1994--perhaps the Seagrams heir and Warner Music boss can come to terms with a 20 percent loss on the Muppet manse, which just sold for $23 million, according to city records.

The buyer has a sense of humor, hiding behind a limited-liability corporation by the name of Statler. That happens to be the name of the tall, skinny muppet who heckles the stars from a theater box along with his pal Waldorf on the old Muppet Show. And yet the joke is on the buyer, as the deed lists an address for the LLC at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, headquarters of News Corp., and the deed has been signed by one of the building's denizens, Jesse Angelo, editor of The Daily.

This seems like an awfully expensive home for the 37-year-old Murdoch man, whose most recent purchase was a $1.9 million condo at the Meatpacking District's Porter House, bought in January 2005. Then again, as a recent profile revealed, Mr. Angelo is the son of a hedge fund manager. Plus, there is the $30 million Rupert gave his squire to start his iPad-only publication...

The 12,000-square-foot home is in need of a top-to-bottom, every-inch renovation, as Corcoran brokers Carrie Chiang and Loy Carlos write in their listing: "There are few opportunities to create a 40-ft wide majestic residence reminiscent of the golden era when the most prominent New Yorkers like the Fricks, Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Roosevelts built palatial homes in what was then an up and coming neighborhood... the Upper East Side. In 1928, Beekman Winthrop commissioned architect Julius Gaylor who created this masterful residence. [...] The house awaits a special purchaser who desires to undertake a restoration befitting its history, marrying it with the best of 21st century technology."

Does Mr. Angelo really have that kind of money, or could the home be for one of his News Corp. cubicle mates? He did not return repeated requests for comment, and the brokers, who had a co-exclusive with Brown Harris Stevens' Paula Del Nunzio and Alina Pedroso, declined to comment. "We don't even know who the buyer is," Ms. Chiang said.

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

This is the year of the ridiculously massive, gloriously ambitious real estate listing.

Remember the $75 million house on East 71st that art collector Aby Rosen bought for just $15.65 million in 2004, or the $64 million house on East 68th that sold for $7.6 million in 2003?

It's another day, and there's another epic listing. Corcoran's Carrie Chiang has put the red-brick, neo-Georgian mansion at 117-119 East 69th Street (between Park and Lexington) on the market for $32 million.

Muppet mogul Jim Henson bought the 12,000-square-foot house in 1977, but his family kept it until 2005, a decade and a half after his death.

According to city records, the Henson estate sold the place for just $12.4 million to Brian Brille, the global head of investment banking for Bank of America, and his wife Leslie. They want just about $20 million more than they paid three years ago, but it turns out that the Brilles haven't done renovations yet.

"It’s not even an outrageous price like Aby’s," Ms. Chiang said, referring to the collector's $75 million listing. "That needs a gut renovation, mine is gutted, ready to go!" The broker wouldn't discuss her clients, but she said they ripped the house to its bear bones, then opted for an apartment.

"He decided he wants a doorman," she said.

The mansion's grand staircase and living room are still intact, but everything else has to come from the buyers. "The bedrooms you have to redesign," the broker said--and same goes with the plumbing and the elevator. "Everything has to be brand new-ed. But it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous mansion."

This listing aside, today hasn't been good for Mr. Brille. His bank, the second largest in the country, just said their first quarter net income tanked to $1.21 billion from $5.26 billion one year earlier. Oops.

"Alexandra Clancy, individually, bought the apartment to replace a smaller one that she had sold earlier in the year," wrote a spokesperson via e-mail. "Mrs. Clancy has family in New York and has maintained an apartment for use in visiting the city."

She and her husband have other ties to the city. In June 1999, Mrs. Clancy (née Llewellyn), a former television reporter, married the best-selling novelist at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, followed by a lavish reception at the St. Regis Hotel. And Mr. Clancy bought his own Gotham pad a few years ago-a $2.685 million duplex penthouse at the Promenade at 530 East 76th Street.

But the couple lives permanently not far from Washington, D.C., in an idyllic Maryland home-the Peregrine Cliff mansion overlooking Chesapeake Bay, with over 400 acres of land. (There are ties there, too: Mrs. Clancy is the second cousin of former Secretary of State Colin Powell-in fact, he introduced his cousin to Mr. Clancy at a fund-raiser.)

Things have cooled down for the couple since their explosive affair. The press took a few swipes at the family-values-touting novelist when it was revealed that he had become romantically involved with an attractive young reporter-she's 20 years his junior-while still married to Wanda T. King. That marriage dissolved after 28 years and four children. Divorce proceedings became embroiled in legal disputes over the rights to Mr. Clancy's literary namesake, the Tom Clancy's Op-Center paperback book series.

Although Mr. Clancy's publishing empire has raked in millions, his bride was free to marry for love. Her father, J. Bruce Llewellyn, is chief executive of the Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Co. In 1999, the prominent businessman even sold his new son-in-law a vacant plot of land in Martha's Vineyard for $1. In 2003, the author began construction on a Victorian-style summer house to be built on the property.

The continuing saga of the Jim Henson estate is inching closer to a final resolution. Representatives for the late puppet master went to contract last week in the "ballpark" of the $12.4 million asking price on the neo-Georgian townhouse located on the north side of 69th Street, between Lexington and Park avenues, that is being sold as part of the estate.

"We have a signed contract due to close in 40 to 60 days," said Paul Massey, founding partner of Massey Knakal Realty Services.

In February, The Observer reported that a prospective buyer was ready to grab it. The Church of Scientology had bid on the mansion, but the transaction fell through, according to sources close to the deal. The church hoped to move their Celebrity Centre from 82nd Street, but the Henson property wasn't large enough for their needs.

In the past few weeks, talk in the real-estate world abounded with speculation of a possible bidding war between two parties. Several top Upper East Side brokers believed a prominent foundation would take up residence in the Henson place.

"It's a house buyer," said Mr. Massey. And so the trend of taking mansions that had been renovated for institutional use and returning them to their single-family splendor continues on the Upper East Side.

This one is among the grander houses in the neighborhood. Long before the Muppets took Manhattan, the 16,000-square-foot, five-story mansion was built in 1929 for the family of Beekman Winthrop, a New York banker and onetime governor of Puerto Rico. The New York Pharmaceutical Association purchased the property a little over two decades later; the organization renovated the property for office space and several lecture rooms. Later, Mr. Henson's creations came to life in the townhouse.

Upper East Side

315 East 69th Street Two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom co-op. Asking: $1.795. Selling: $1.5 million. Charges: $2,062; 50 percent tax-deductible Time on the market: one month.

TWICE BITTEN A single thirtysomething finance professional picked up this two-bedroom co-op from someone who knows the building inside and out. "It's the second time I sold the apartment," said Sue Marcus, senior vice president of Century 21/William B. May Realty. "I have sold over 102 apartments in that building-some more than two or three times." This former renter was lucky to be the one buying it the second time around. The previous owner purchased the property five years ago and completed an ambitious renovation, gutting the place to enlarge the kitchen and the second bedroom. The original owner and his family had been living there since shortly after the place was built in 1962; the building went co-op in 1979. (Ms. Marcus herself has lived in the building since 1967.) The two-bedroom co-op is located on a tree-lined street and features marble baths, a dining room, bright interior space, a 24-hour doorman and north, east and south exposures.

Greenwich Village

86 Macdougal Street Four-story, 4,500-square-foot townhouse. Asking: $4.5 million. Selling: $4.74 million. Time on the market: 10 months.

THE PRICE IS-FINALLY-RIGHT After sitting on the market for six months at $6.5 million, the sellers of this 20-foot-wide, 4,500-square-foot house on Macdougal Street, who had lived there for 42 years, took a drastic step: They slashed the price by $1.6 million, and then by another $400,000 two months later. At that price, they found a buyer-a European family that plans to restore the building. "It was the right time to go to contract," said Bridget Restivo, senior vice president of Alice F. Mason Ltd., who represented the buyers. Accomplished British architect Christopher Smallwood will lead the renovation. One of the prized raw materials he has to work with is a rare private garden bordering Macdougal and Sullivan streets.