April Fools: Sprout's 6th Anniversary: Baseball Bat Blunder

UPDATE (4/2/2025): For my April Fools day prank yesterday, I decided to tell you about Sprout anniversary stunts that never existed for what would've been the network's 20th this year, inspired by ToughPigs' prank in 2019, where they reviewed forgotten Sesame Street anniversary specials for the show's 50th that year. This picture is inspired by GloverLand's "World Music Post Program Damage" over on DeviantArt.

On the afternoon of September 26, 2011, Sprout aired a special afternoon block from 12PM to 3PM entitled "Sprout's Sprouterrific Birthday Bash." It was just like their Big Birthday Surprise in 2006 and Chica's in 2008 - packed full of special guests, birthday cards and wishes, and there was intended to be a special guest - Mike Posner, who couldn't make it since he was stuck in traffic, so the team decided to hire a group of high school students to perform a few songs, but instead of doing so, they caused damage to the hosts in attendance - Michele Lepe was hit with a baseball bat, the same bat was used to slap Liz Filios several times, Sean Roach was shot, and Kelly Vrooman was punched. This stunt was live, so many Sproutlets watching screamed their heads off and cried tears at the sight of their heroes getting attacked. Fortunately, those high school students were put in juvenile detention for what they did, and these kind of damages never happened to the hosts ever again.