It's tough out there for Neil Patrick Harris. First, the evil geniuses behind Harold & Kumar force him to film scenes atop a sparkly unicorn. Now, those nefarious producers at PBS have cast him on Sesame Street as a character called The Shoe Fairy. After telling Conan's audience that he "loves puppets!" and misunderstanding their muffled laughs, Harris goes on to give us a sample of what those sneaky writers put in his script:

I had to say lines like, 'I am the greatest fairy in all the land!'"

Concerned with the level of snickering that lines like this might induce, NPH was able to convince the showrunners to change his character's title from Shoe Fairy to Fairy Shoeperson. Phew. Still, we are forced to ask why NPH was cast as a character and not as himself. After all, Anderson Cooper was able to pop out of a garbage can in his CNN garb and interview muppets named Walter Cranky, while Melissa Etheridge simply stood around and crowed the All-Star Alphabet when she came on the show. Here's hoping that NPH's work as a tweaked out unicorn rider in Harold and Kumar 2 finally establishes him as a star worthy of an "As Himself" credit the next time he appears on Sesame Street.