The Muppets are a group of
puppet characters created by
Jim Henson. Individually, a Muppet is one of the
puppets made by Jim Henson or his
company's workshop. Although the term
is often used to refer to any
puppet that
resembles the distinctive style of
The Muppet Show the term is both an
informal name and legal
trademark linked
to the characters created by Henson.
The word "Muppet" itself was said by Henson to have been created by
combining the words "Marionette" and "puppet"; however, Henson was
also known to have stated that it was just something he liked the
sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet" story while
talking to a journalist because it sounded plausible.
After earlier unsuccessful attempts,
The Walt Disney Company bought the
Muppets in 2004. Exceptions include characters appearing on
Sesame Street (as they were
previously sold to
Sesame Workshop,
although they have always had creative rights, only paying The Jim
Henson Company to create and provide their Muppet characters for
their use ) and the Fraggles of
Fraggle
Rock (which are still owned by
The Jim Henson Company). The legal
trademark on the term "Muppet" is currently held by
The Muppet Holding Co., LLC (now
The Muppets Studio, LLC, a division of the Walt Disney Company);
although Sesame Workshop and the Jim Henson Company continue to use
the term on their characters with certain permissions.
After nearly a decade, a new movie is in the works. Disney recently
enlisted
Jason Segel and
Nicholas Stoller to create the next Muppet
movie for the studio. This will be the first Muppet theatrical film
since
Muppets from
Space.
The Muppets' latest
television
special,
A
Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, premiered on
NBC on December 17, 2008. It was released on DVD on
September 29, 2009.
Physical appearance
A common design for a Jim Henson Muppet is a character with a very
wide mouth and large protruding eyes. The puppets are often molded
or carved out of various types of foam, and then covered with
fleece, fur, or any other material. Muppets may represent humans,
anthropomorphic animals, realistic
animals, robots, anthropomorphic objects, extraterrestrial
creatures, mythical beings or other unidentified, newly imagined
creatures, monsters, or abstract characters.
Muppets are distinguished from
ventriloquist "dummies"/"puppets", which are
typically animated only in the head and face, in that their arms or
other features are also mobile and expressive. Muppets are
typically made of softer materials. They are also presented as
being independent of the puppeteer, who is usually not
visible—hidden behind a set or outside of the camera frame. Using
the camera frame as the "stage" was an innovation of the Muppets.
Previously on television, there would typically be a stage hiding
the performers, as if in a live presentation. Sometimes they are
seen full-bodied. This is done by using invisible strings to move
the characters' bodies and mouths, and then adding the voices
later.
Operation
The Muppeteer always holds the puppet above his head or in front of
his body, with one hand operating the head and mouth and the other
manipulating the hands and arms, either with two separate control
rods or by "wearing" the hands like gloves. One consequence of this
design is that most Muppets are left-handed as the puppeteer uses
his right hand to operate the head while operating the arm rod with
his left hand. There are many other common designs and means of
operation. In advanced Muppets, several puppeteers may control a
single character; the performer who controls the mouth usually
provides the voice for the character. As technology has evolved,
the Jim Henson team and other puppeteers have developed an enormous
variety of means to operate puppets for film and television,
including the use of suspended rigs, internal motors, remote radio
control, and computer enhanced and superimposed images. Creative
use of a mix of technologies has allowed for scenes in which
Muppets appear to be riding a bicycle, rowing a boat, and even
dancing on-stage with no puppeteer in sight.
Muppets characters
- See also: :Category:Muppet
characters
Famous Muppets from
The Muppet
Show and its numerous spin-offs include
Kermit the Frog,
Miss
Piggy,
Fozzie Bear,
Rizzo the Rat,
Gonzo the Great,
Rowlf the Dog,
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and
Beaker,
Scooter,
Statler and Waldorf, the
Swedish Chef,
Sam the
Eagle,
Sweetums,
Pepe the King Prawn, and a band named
Dr. Teeth and The
Electric Mayhem whose members included
Dr.
Teeth,
Janice,
Zoot,
Floyd Pepper, and
Animal. Other well-known Muppets
include
Sesame Street
characters such as
Big Bird,
Oscar the Grouch,
Elmo,
Zoe,
Bert and Ernie,
Cookie Monster,
Grover,
Abby Cadabby and
The Count, as well as the main characters of
Fraggle Rock.
The most widely known television shows featuring Muppets have been
Sesame Street,
The Muppet Show,
Fraggle Rock and
Bear in the Big Blue House.
Other series have included
The
Jim Henson Hour,
The Ghost of Faffner Hall,
Dog City,
Secret Life of Toys,
Muppets Tonight,
The Wubbulous World of Dr.
Seuss and
Statler and Waldorf: From
the Balcony. A recurring adult-oriented cast of Muppets
(in a setting known as
The Land of
Gorch) were featured throughout the first season of
Saturday Night
Live.
Guest stars on some of these programs have occasionally had Muppet
versions of themselves. It was a regular practice for the first few
episodes of
The Muppet Show, and
ZZ
Top, among others, have appeared as Muppet versions of
themselves on
Sesame Street.
The puppet characters of
Farscape,
The Storyteller,
Mother
Goose Stories,
The Hoobs,
Construction Site and
Dinosaurs, as well as
from the films
Labyrinth,
Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles,
Buddy,
The Country Bears and
The Dark Crystal, are not
considered Muppets , as they were made by
Jim Henson's Creature Shop,
rather than by Henson's Muppet Workshop.
The puppet casts of
Puppet Up! and Tinseltown
are also not considered Muppets as they were
made by The Jim Henson Company after the sale of The Muppets in
2004. The
Star Wars
character
Yoda was voiced by
Frank Oz, one of Henson's regular performers, and
is often referred to as a Muppet in media and reference works; he
is not, however, a Muppet and Henson's organization was not
involved in the character's design.
The Muppets' popularity has been so expansive that Muppet
characters have been treated as celebrities in their own right. The
Muppets have presented at the
Academy
Awards and
Emmy Awards ; made
cameo appearances in such feature films
as
Rocky III,
An American Werewolf in
London and
Mr. Magorium's Wonder
Emporium; and have been interviewed on the
newsmagazine 60
Minutes.
Kermit the Frog
was interviewed early on in
Jon
Stewart's run on
The Daily
Show, guest hosted
The
Tonight Show,
Jimmy
Kimmel Live,
Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition,
America's Funniest Home
Videos and an
April Fool's
Day edition of
Larry King
Live ; and the frog has served as Grand Marshal of the
Tournament of Roses
Parade . The characters also appeared in-character on such
sit-coms and dramas as
The Cosby
Show,
The West Wing
and
The Torkelsons . The
music video for the
Weezer song "
Keep
Fishin'" is premised on the band performing on
The Muppet Show and features
appearances by several characters. On September 28, 2005, the
United States Postal
Service released a
Jim Henson and the Muppets postage stamp series. The Muppets also
appeared on
Dick
Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve for the 2008 countdown on
December 31, 2007. Kermit, Rizzo and others welcomed in the new
year with a series of messages to welcome viewers back from the
advertising breaks. After one such segment, with Kermit in Time
Square, co-host
Ryan Seacrest thanked
his pal "Kerms" for the help bringing in '08. Miss Piggy has
appeared as a guest on
The Late Show
and Kermit the Frog appeared on
Hollywood Squares and as one of the
celebrity commentators on VH1's
I Love documentary
series.
On 25 July
2007 the Center for
Puppetry Arts
in Atlanta
announced
the opening of a new Jim Henson Wing, which will house anywhere
from 500 to 700 retired Muppets, including those from Fraggle Rock
and Sesame Street. The new wing will also include films,
sketches, and other materials from the Jim Henson Company archives.
The wing, which will be a part of the Center's new building, is
slated to open in 2010.
Discography
On September 17, 2002
Rhino
released
The Muppet Show: Music,
Mayhem, and More. In addition to the many Sesame Street
and Muppets movie soundtracks available, this collection compiles
music from various Muppets sources. It includes the rare song
Rainbow Connection which was
previously available on CD only on the soundtrack for
The Muppet Movie.
From its earliest planning stages,
Sesame
Street was designed to be a show that would use music and
singing as a part of the material being taught. So it was only
natural to release the musical content on records, not only to
reinforce the curriculum lessons for children when they weren't
watching the show, but also because Sesame Street music is
enjoyable just for its own sake.
The first six albums were released by
Columbia Records and
Warner Bros. Records, both major labels with many
years of experience. These were deluxe albums, issued in colorful
gatefold covers, usually with bonus material such as posters, lyric
booklets, and photos and drawings of the show's characters. This
arrangement lasted for the first five years of the show.
During the summer of 1970, as The Sesame Street Book & Record
became a best seller,
Bob McGrath and
Loretta Long also released their own
children's albums. While not part of the Sesame Street canon (even
though they both mention Sesame Street on their covers), they also
became well-known albums because of the show's huge
popularity.
In 1974, Sesame Street created its own series of records, on an
independent label that was called Sesame Street Records, with a
custom record label logo of the Sesame Street sign. These albums
were manufactured by Children's Records of America from 1974 to
1976, and by Distinguished Productions from 1977 to 1984. Over 70
titles were produced over the ten-year run of the label. The
catalog included reissues of all of the previous Columbia and
Warner Bros. albums, although in less lavish packages than their
original editions. At first, titles were only issued on
vinyl, but over the years, they were also
produced on cassettes and 8-track tapes.
The Sesame Street Records label was shut down around 1984. Soon
after, many Sesame Street titles began to be reissued on cassettes
by an educational company called Sight & Sound. While some
tapes used the original cover pictures, others had new cover
pictures. An important historical footnote during this period is
that in 1987, the very first Sesame Street CD was produced, called
The Best of Sesame Street, and it would be the only CD produced
until the early 1990s. In 1990, titles began to appear on Golden
Music, which was the music division of
Golden Books. A mix of new titles appeared,
beginning with tributes to
Jim Henson and
Joe Raposo, along with reissues of older
titles. Golden's license lasted until 1994.
In 1995,
Sony Wonder began issuing a new
series of titles. This was looked on with interest by some Sesame
collectors, since Sony owns the back catalog of Columbia Records,
who put out the very first Sesame Street LP in 1970. While that
album has not yet been reissued on CD in its entirety, the second
Columbia album,
The Muppet
Alphabet Album, was reissued as Sing the Alphabet. However, one
section of dialogue was cut which referred to turning the record
over, which wouldn't make any sense to CD listeners.
The Sony Wonder years culminated with Songs from the Street, an
elaborate 3-CD boxed set produced in association with
Sony Music's Legacy Recordings. This set was full
of classic and rare tracks both from records and from live
performances on the show. It also contained a detailed booklet
about the history of the show, written by
Christopher Cerf. It was the first time
Sesame Street had received the boxed-set treatment from a major
label, although several multi-LP boxed sets had been released over
the years on Sesame Street Records.
In 2007,
Koch Records announced that it
would begin distributing Sesame Street titles. The first titles
began to appear in 2008, with reissues of albums that had
previously been released on Sony Wonder.
In addition to the main library of Sesame Street music, over the
years, original cast albums have been sold at the
Sesame Street Live shows. See Sesame
Street Live Discography for a chronological list of titles.
Filmography
Theatrical and telefilms
Television series
Television specials
Direct-to-video
Comic book
In 2009,
BOOM! Studios began publishing
The Muppet Show Comic Book
based on
The Muppet Show and written and drawn by
Roger Langridge.
Future
After the consensus was reached that
The Muppets' Wizard of
Oz failed to deliver critically, the question hung in the air
whether or not another Muppet film would be made. A new film has
been confirmed by
Jason Segel and
Nicholas Stoller, who both plan to
produce the next Muppet film. They have also stated that they will
both write the next picture, but only Stoller will direct.
On March 31, 2008,
First Showing revealed details about
the new Muppet film.
Coming Soon reported similar news.
After an interview with Jason Segel,
First announced,
"it's going to be incredibly old-fashioned, with the familiar
Muppet characters putting on a show to save an old theater. The
danger? An evil character wants to tear the place down to get at
the oil underneath." Segel stated that he was the most enthusiastic
about the project, also stating, "I just remember being 10 years
old and for me Kermit was
Tom Hanks.
Kermit is like the original Everyman and I remember watching the
old Muppets with my parents and seeing Peter Sellers and people
like that on. I've always had Muppet pictures and figurines all
through my house. Now that I'm getting to write it, I feel like all
of my dreams are coming true."The movie will mainly star many of
the original Muppets. The movie's title has been officially
revealed as "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made"
In popular culture
Muppet-like and Muppet-inspired puppets star
in the 2004 Tony Award-winning Broadway
musical
Avenue Q (which disavows any
relationship with Sesame Workshop or the Jim Henson Company,
possibly to avoid lawsuits from the two companies). Peter Jackson's film,
Meet the Feebles is another parody of
the Muppets. A vomit-spewing Kermit the Frog was a recurring
character on
Late
Night with Conan O'Brien, and the Muppets were frequently
"pre-empted" at the beginning of episodes for the Canadian series
You Can't Do That On
Television. Many other movies and television shows such as
The Simpsons,
Family Guy and
Robot Chicken have referenced The Muppets
- for a more comprehensive list, see
Muppet Wiki.
See also
References
- findarticles.com "Disney buys Muppets as bid
prospect fades" 2/18/04
- Variety, 3/11/08, Segel and Stoller take
on Muppets
- [1]
- [2]
- Christopher Finch Jim Henson: The Works 1993, ISBN
0679412034
- Rocky III (IMDB)
- An American Werewolf in London (IMDB)
- Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (IMDB)
- TheDailyShow.com
- United States Postal Service (September 28, 2005). Jim Henson, Muppets, get stamps of
approval. Press Release.
- New Year's Rockin' Eve 2008 (2007) (TV)
- Fleming, Michael. "Segel and Stoller take on Muppets."
Variety. Retrieved: April 5,
2008
- Billington, Alex.
- Newgen, Heather.
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