Hey ‘Crunchers: I mentioned this item in Saturday’s Weekend Crunch Crumbs, but for those who may have missed it, that damn cancer has taken another beloved figure of yesteryear.

Sesame Street actress Alaina Reed Hall-Afeni has died after a lengthy battle against breast cancer.

Hall passed away in Los Angeles on Thursday, Dec. 17, The Springfield News-Sun confirmed last week. Hall began her career in Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including Chicago and Hair, before being cast as Gordon’s little sister Olivia on Sesame Street in 1976. She left the show in 1988. The mother of two once called her role on the long-running PBS series “the best job I ever had.”

Hall also co-starred as the sassy Rose Lee Holloway in the 1980s sitcom 227. She began a romance with her co-star Kevin Peter Hall; the 7’2″ actor who rose to fame in the 1987 film Harry and The Hendersons. The couple later married both on and off-screen. However, the fairy-tale romance was short-lived. Kevin died from complications of AIDS — which he contracted through a blood transfusion –in 1991.

Alaina Reed Hall is survived by her third husband and two adult children.

2009 needs to hurry up and get out of here — and so does the Big C. May the new decade bring a cure…….