Howard Bumperthumper, the all-singing all-dancing microbe-meister has thrilled Big-Top audiences young and old alike for over 20 years now with death defying feats of astonishing, if not suicidal, bravery. Armed only with a small retractable sponge, an eye dropper and a petri dish, this Sultan of Streptococci has tamed the most virulent of this planets myriad lethal bacteria and viri, leaving them mere quivering microscopic blobs of cytoplasm, or shattered strands of peptonucleides. Clad in his multistained lab coat Howard has provided audiences with many heart stopping moments as he taunted, jibed and forced these malevolent microbes to his bidding, making them jump through hoops of fire, perform tricks and make human like sounds, while the audience watched a large screen relaying these antics. He has sullied small-pox, and smiled; danced and diced with diptheria, and was merely diverted; he has enraged ebola, and eschewed the consequences; run with rabies, and relaxed at the end of it all. In one famous incident showing the humour of the man, a multi-drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis was "accidentally" released into the audience when Howard tripped on a liebig condenser, spilling the contents of a graduated cyllinder over the first and second rows. The ensuing panic, in which 8 people were trampled to death, was only brought under control when Howard mischieveously revealed the contents of the flask to be nothing more than a raving case of amoebic dysentry. The audience immediately saw the funny side as Howard administered antidotes to raffle winners. The sad news of his death when a large safe fell on his head has left us all gasping for breath in between being racked by painful fits of laughter.