Like a lot of people, I grew up on Sesame Street and the Muppets. But did you ever stop to wonder where they came from?
....
..
..Many Muppets came from humble origins; Kermit once was made of a coat and ping-pong balls...
Some of the characters we know and love were recycled from other TV
shows and commercials Jim Henson worked on, while others were invented
by using whatever materials were around. Be prepared for a
little nostalgia, and I hope I didn't leave out your favorite -- not
all of the characters have interesting background stories (sorry, Big
Bird).
1. Cookie Monster: Jim Henson drew some monsters
eating various snacks for a General Foods commercial in 1966. The
commercial was never used, but
Hensonrecycled one of the monsters (the "Wheel-Stealer") for an IBM training
video in 1967 and again for a Fritos commercial in 1969. By that time,
he had started working on Sesame Street and decided this monster would
have a home there.
2. Elmo: The way it's described by a
Sesame Streetwriter, apparently this extra red puppet was just lying around. People
would try to do something with him, but nothing really panned out. In
1984, puppeteer Kevin Clash picked up the red puppet and started doing
the voice and the personality and it clicked -- thus, Elmo was born.
3. Telly Monsterwas originally the Television Monster when he debuted in 1979. He was
obsessed with TV and his eves would whirl around as if hypnotized
whenever he was in front of a set. After a while, producers started
worrying about his influence on youngsters, so they changed him to make
him the chronic worrier he is now. ..
4. Count von Countmade his first appearance in 1972 and was made out of an AnythingMuppet pattern -- a blank Muppet head that could have features added toit to make various characters. He used to be more sinister -- he wasable to hypnotize and stun people and he laughed in typicalscary-villain-type fashion after completing a count of something and
thunder and lightning would occur. He was quickly made more
appealing to little kids, though. He is apparently quite the ladies'
man -- he has been linked to Countess von Backward, who loves to count
backward; Countess Dahling von Dahling and Lady Two.
5. Kermitwas "born" in 1955 and first showed up on "Sam and Friends," a
five-minute puppet show by Jim Henson. The first Kermit was made out of
Henson's mom's coat and some ping pong balls. At the time, he was more
lizard-like than frog-like. By the time he showed up on Sesame Street
in 1969, though, he had made the transition to frog. There are rumors
that he got the name Kermit from a childhood friend of Henson's or a
puppeteer from the early days of the Muppets, but Henson always refuted
both of those rumors
6. Real
Swedish ChefLars "Kuprik" Bäckman claims he was the inspiration for the Swedish
Chef. He was on "Good Morning America," he says, and caught Jim
Henson's eye. Henson supposedly bought the rights to the show's
recording and created the Swedish Chef (who DOES have a real name, but
it's not understandable). One of the Muppet writers, Jerry Juhl, says
that in all of the years of working with Jim Henson on the Swedish
Chef, he never heard that the character was based on a real person.
7. Animal:
The Who's Keith Moon may have inspired everyone's favorite member of
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. This is speculation, but people who
support the theory will point out that Jim Henson named one of the
Fraggle Rock characters "Wembley," which is the town where Moon was
born
.
8. Miss Piggy is apparently from Iowa. She started
as a minor character on "The Muppet Show," but anyone who knows Miss
Piggy can see that she wouldn't settle for anything "minor." Her first
TV appearance was actually on an Herb Alpert special. It wasn't until
1976, when "The Muppet Show" premiered, that she became the glamorous
blonde with a penchant for frog that we know and love today. Frank Oz
once said that Miss Piggy grew up in Iowa; her dad died when she was
young and her mother was mean. She had to enter beauty contests to make
money.
9. Rowlf the Dog, surprise, surprise, was first
made in 1962 for a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials. He went on to
claim fame as Jimmy Dean's sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show and was on
every single episode from 1963 to 1966. Jimmy Dean said Rowlf got about
2,000 letters from fans every week. He was considered for Sesame Street
but ended up becoming a regular on "The Muppet Show" in 1976.
10. Oscar the Grouchis performed by the same guy who does Big Bird, Carroll Spinney.
Spinney said he based Oscar's cranky voice on a particular New York cab
driver he once had the pleasure of riding with. He was originally an
alarming shade of orange. In Pakistan, his name is Akhtar and he lives
in an oil barrel. In Turkey, he is Kirpik and lives in a basket. And in
Israel, it's not Oscar at all -- it's his cousin, Moishe Oofnik, who
lives in an old car.
11. Gonzo: What exactly is Gonzo?
Nobody knows. Even Jim Henson had no particular species in mind. Over
the course of "The Muppet Show," "Muppet Babies" and various Muppet
movies, Gonzo has been referred to as a "Whatever", a "Weirdo" and an
alien. Whatever he is, he first appeared on the scene in 1970's The
Great Santa Claus Switch. His name was Snarl the Cigar Box Frackle. In
1974, he showed up on a TV special for Herb Alpert & the Tijuana
Brass. He became Gonzo the Great by the first season of The Muppet Show
and developed his thing for Camilla the Chicken almost accidentally:
During one episode where chickens were auditioning for the show,
puppeteer Dave Goelz ad-libbed, "Don't call us, we'll call you... nice
legs, though!" It was decided then and there that Gonzo would have a
bizarre romantic interest in chickens.
12. You have to love Statler and Waldorf.I couldn't find much on their particular inspiration, but I can tell
you that they've been around since the 1975 "Muppet Show" pilot. They
are named after popular New York City hotels (the Statler Hotel was
renamed the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1992.) Guess what Waldorf's wife name
is? Yep... Astoria (she looks startlingly like Statler.) FYI, Waldorf
is the one with the mustache and white hair. Statler has the grey hair.
Apparently Waldorf has had a pacemaker for more than 30 years.
13. Beaker:I always thought of Beaker and his buddy Bunsen Honeydew as characters
that came along later in the Muppet timeline, but they have been around
since the "The Muppet Show." Although Beaker usually says things along
the lines of, "Mee-mee-mee-mee!", he has had a few actual lines: "Sadly
temporary," "Bye-Bye" and "Make-up ready!" Despite being
word-challenged, he manages to do a pretty convincing Little Richard
impression and, surprisingly, had mad beatbox skills. Beaker is one of
the only Muppets that was never recycled from some other purpose -- he
was created solely for "The Muppet Show."
14. Fozzie Bear.Poor Fozzie. He's the perpetual target of Statler and Waldorf because
of his horrible jokes and puns. It actually created a bit of a problem
during the first season of The Muppet Show, because when Fozzie got
heckled, he got very upset and sometimes cried. Viewers didn't feel
sympathy; they felt embarrassed. The problem was solved by making
Fozzie an optimist so that even when he got heckled he was good-natured
about it. It's often thought that he was named after Frank Oz, who was
his puppeteer, but Frank said it's just a variant of "fuzzy bear." Yet
another story says he was named for his builder, Faz Fazakas. Wocka
wocka!!
15. Bert and Ernie are the Muppet version of
Felix and Oscar ("The Odd Couple," for you young'uns). Lots of people
think Bert and Ernie were named for some minor characters in It's A
Wonderful Life, but according to the Henson company, that's just a
rumor. Jim Henson always maintained that it was just a coincidence --
the names just went well together and seemed to fit the characters.
Jerry Juhl, one of the head writers, corroborated this and said that
Jim Henson had no memory for details like that and would have never
remembered the name of the cop and the taxi cab driver in the old Jimmy
Stewart movie. Other rumors to clear up: Bert and Ernie aren't
gay and neither one of them are dead. Now that we've got that
straightened out, here are a few more tidbits: the original Ernie used
to have a gravelly voice similar to Rowlf the Dog's. Frank Oz was
Bert's puppeteer and hated him at the beginning. He thought Bert was
ridiculously boring, but then realized that he could have a lot of fun
with being boring. Jim Henson once said, "I remember trying Bert and
Frank tried Ernie for a while. I can't imagine doing Bert now, because
Bert has become so much of a part of Frank."
16. Grover:Everyone's favorite "cute, furry little monster" made his TV debut on
the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1967. At the time, he was known as "Gleep"
and was a monster in Santa's Workshop. He then appeared on the first
season of Sesame Street, but sported green fur and a reddish-orange
nose. He didn't have a name then, but by the second season he
transformed into the Grover we know today, more or less -- electric
blue fur and a pink nose. The original green Grover was reincarnated as
Grover's Mommy for a few episodes. In Latin America and Puerto Rico
Grover is known as Archibaldo, in Spain he is Coco, in Portugal he is
Gualter and in Norway he is Gunnar.
17. Sweetums is one
of a handful of full-body Muppets. He showed up in 1971 on the TV
special "The Frog Prince." This is where he got his name -- when Sir
Robin the Brave is about to defeat the ogre, a witch shows up and
changes him into a frog (who later becomes Robin, Kermit's nephew).
Apparently smitten with the ogre, the witch tells her darling
"Sweetums" that he can have the frog for breakfast. Bigger fame
awaited Sweetums, though -- in 1975, he appeared on Cher's variety show
to do a duet with her to "That Old Black Magic". He officially joined
"The Muppet Show" cast in 1976.
18. Rizzo the Rat might
sound familiar to you, especially if you've seen "Midnight Cowboy" --
he is named for Dustin Hoffman's character, Ratso Rizzo. He was created
after puppeteer Steve Whitmire was inspired by rat puppets made from
bottles. He first showed up on "The Muppet Show" as one of a group of
rats following Christopher Reeve around -- he's easy to spot because he
hams it up more than any of the other rats. He occasionally performs
with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
19. Pepe the King Prawn'sfull name is Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales. I heart Pepe. He was a
chef in Madrid before going Hollywood on "Muppets Tonight" in 1996. He
was paired with Seymour the Elephant (Pepe was originally going to be a
mouse) on the show, but Seymour never developed quite the same
following and was only in two episodes. He rarely gets names right --
some of his mispronunciations include "muffins" instead of Muppets,
"Kermin" instead of Kermit and "Scooper" instead of Scooter. He's quite
full of himself -- in addition to thinking that he's quite the ladies'
man, he also fully expects to win several Oscars.
20. Herry Monster from Sesame Streetwas the Big Bad Wolf in his original incarnation, which you can kind of
tell by looking at his fur. It's pretty wolf-like (if wolves were blue,
I mean). He became a Sesame monster in 1970 to replace the Beautiful
Day Monster, who looked kind of like Sam the Eagle and existed to cause
destruction wherever he went, thus ruining the beautiful day people had
been having before he showed up. Herry used to have a furry nose but
got upgraded to his non-furry, purple nose in 1971.