Curtains!

An astounding chapter in American entertainment came to a sad, grisly end today, as the formerly deceased Oscar Hammerstein II, recently reanimated in a stunning cyrogenic laboratory experiment, had to be felled by Army snipers from a Manhattan rooftop.

The celebrated Broadway librettist and producer, once thawed, became enraged upon his first venture outdoors to experience what he slurred "my great white way today," and happened past the Lunt-Fontanne, where "The Addams Family" currently holds court starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth.

"He turned purple," said Dr. Horgus Reem, director of the New York Cyrogenic Center for Research. "Then came a string of epithets I'd never dreamt could emanate from anyone whose been dead for 50 years – much less a showbiz legend."

A SWAT team was able to end the episode in timely fashion with a merciful bullet. All hostages were recovered with only minor injuries.

NYPD Captain Kyle Durley likened the incident to a similar past event. "It was the same when they thawed out Disney," he said. "He was really jazzed about the innovation of VHS, until someone let him see a cassette of 'The Black Cauldron,' and he went postal."

"I can still see him," continued Durley, "screaming like a wounded boar, waving the 9mm.'"