EarnMyDegree Blog: So, first off, a hearty welcome to Captain Link Hogthrob, of Pigs in Space fame from the internationally renowned Muppet Show.

Link Hogthrob: Glad to be here.

EMDB: I understand things have been tough for you since your ship’s been permanently grounded.

LH: Um … permanently? I don’t think so. Nothing is permanent. But, yes, and now, with NASA cutting the space shuttle flights as well, every astronaut across the land is just that—on the land. On the ground. We keep each other company at the officers’ club, although recently there have been flame-ups.

EMDB: Flame-ups—like, fights?

LH: “Oooh, Link Hogthrob, you think you’re so tough,” they’ll say. Or, “Hogthrob, your face is pink,” or “You, Hogthrob, are a pig.” So I have to respond to that.

EMDB: Have you considered the possibility that some of this backlash comes from the fun connotations of your name?

LH: Of which connotations do you speak, lad?

EMDB: Your name is something of a Freudian dream.

LH: Why, just yesterday, as I was in line for the officers’ buffet, somebody, two wrinkly McGruffs in the balcony shouted something very like that to me, very aggressively: Freudian! they cackled. Freudian! Ha!

EMDB: How did you answer them?

LH: From the nearest tray, I took up a piece of sausage, maneuvered up the stairs to surprise them in their little room, and beat them about the head, neck and face areas.

EMDB: Um …

LH: They had it coming.

EMDB: With a piece of sausage, though? Isn’t that cannibalistic?

LH: What, you poke a pig in the eye with another pig’s finger and all of the sudden you eat pig for a living? Hardly.

EMDB: Okay.

LH: Distinctions, dear boy. We must makes distinctions. Firstly, I was verbally assaulted. He attacked my name! My very identity, my name likened to the pock-faced impostor of sexy-time psychology—Freud. Freud, indeed, Freuuuuud … it sounds like a pregnant toad announcing she’s hungry. So I take up the thing nearest me and use it to defend my honor. And, on yesterday, this nearby thing happened to be a hefty length of sausage in a sturdy casing. Distinctions, friend. They are important.

EMDB: I see. Are you at all in touch with Miss Piggy?

LH: Hogthrob doesn’t talk about her, and you’d be wise not to neither. You don’t keep snorting around for the golden-haired truffle for 20 years after she flaunts off with some land-bound fatcat porkcake.

EMDB: That would be sad.

LH: We keep our snouts sniffing more positive things around here. Like the group of campers that just came through—Captain Hogthrob was very well received by them, and I enjoyed teaching them the ways of the space pig.

EMDB: Do you like teaching? You should think about getting an education degree online.

LH: Perhaps I will, lad. Perhaps–ah, yes, I can see it. The time for Link Hogthrob is now.