If you’re around millennial age, chances are pretty high that you got home from school every day to find your mother watching the newest episode of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” which aired for six seasons between 1996 and 2002. This seemingly banal variety talk show featured celebrity interviews, extended production scenes from topical Broadway shows, and jokes mailed in from children around the country. While the show itself was fairly nondescript amongst the sea of like-minded programs pervading the airwaves at the time, The Hard Times has recently discovered a sinister bit of information regarding its presenter.
It turns out the bubbly, chatty host occupying our living rooms for the better part of a decade was actually a diabolical bioterrorist. Good God!
Throughout certain episodes, O’Donnell (and sometimes the presumably unaware and well-intentioned guest) would launch Koosh balls into the audience, which was presented as a light-hearted gag and appeared to be well-received by those in attendance for the tapings. However, in a recent interview with People, O’Donnell admitted that every Koosh ball was purposely infected with Streptococcus pyogenes, colloquially known as scarlet fever. While the details of her access to this largely controlled scourge of the pre-antibiotic era are unknown, O’Donnell appears unapologetic for these heinous crimes, stating that her exasperation with being forced to repeatedly interview Barbara Streisand and the Spice Girls to entertain bored baby-boomers across America was the impetus for her reprehensible actions, Furthermore, she states that her only regret was that the show’s cancellation in 2002 prevented her from infecting more innocent bystanders.
Holy shit! Like you, we are completely stunned at the unrepentant and unabashed lens through which O’Donnell views her past atrocities.
Following these shocking and horrific admissions, epidemiologic investigators have been able to link four outbreaks of scarlet fever in midtown Manhattan that killed seven children in 1998 to tapings of the Rosie O’Donnell show at Rockefeller Studios, which tragically is not an exhaustive list of victims. As the coming weeks unfold, we are sure to see the true scale of suffering caused by the evil, vindictive trespasses of this disgruntled entertainer. One fact is certain amidst all the unknowns at this time: such behavior should not go unpunished.
Will there be justice for this unspeakably vile assault on the health of our country’s most vulnerable citizens? We’re unsure if a precedent even exists for a decades-old case of deliberate, Koosh ball-fueled spreading of harmful pathogens, but we can only pray that the statute of limitations has not run its course. Rosie O’Donnell may have brightened our moods consistently throughout the latter years of the nineties, but every day she enjoys outside the constraints of a jail cell is an absolute affront to the moral, legal and hygienic order of our society.