Company In Trouble After Using Bert and Ernie in STD-Related Ad

A company that makes at-home STD testing kits is in trouble after using Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie in one of their advertisements without permission from Sesame Workshop.

In the ad, the characters, who have long been thought to be an adult gay couple living together rather than the best friends that Sesame Street insists they are, are looking at papers with Bert saying, "See Ernie, you've got nothing to worry about, everything is positive!"

First of all, positive results on any STD test are the opposite of nothing to worry about. Secondly, the trademarked characters aren't part of any fair usage rights the company thought they had. "The Mately ad is an unauthorized, unlicensed use of our characters," a Sesame Workshop representative told TMZ. "We will be contacting Mately and the appropriate parties with a cease and desist letter instructing them to take this down."

Mately has since removed the ad from their website and social media, but Bert and Ernie can't seem to escape their supposed sexuality. In the recent past, Sesame Street even released a statement, saying:

Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.

Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets(tm) do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.