The Muppets - Ma Nu Ma Num (Du Du Du Du Du)
The Muppets are a group of puppet characters created by Jim Henson. Individually, a Muppet is properly one of the puppets made by Jim Henson or his company’s workshop.
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.
Muppets are distinguished from ventriloquist “dummies”, 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.
The most 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 foam rubber, and then covered with fleece. Muppet eyes are often made (as in the case of the original Kermit) from ping-pong balls, from fishing floats, or from a hemispherical toy called a Wacky Stax. Muppets may represent humans, anthropomorphic animals, realistic animals, robots or anthropomorphic objects, extra-terrestrial creatures, mythical beings or other unidentified, newly imagined creatures, or monsters.
Famous Muppets include Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rowlf the Dog, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, Scooter, Statler & Waldorf, the Swedish Chef, Sam the Eagle and Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem. The most widely known television shows featuring Muppets are Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and The Muppet Show.
The Star Wars character Yoda was voiced by Frank Oz, one of Henson’s regular voice actors, and was initially presented in the Star Wars films as a Muppet-like puppet and is often referred to as such 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, including presenting at the Academy Awards, making cameos in Rocky III and An American Werewolf in London, and being 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 and an April Fool’s Day edition of Larry King Live, and has served as Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade. Michael Parkinson once famously interviewed Miss Piggy on his UK chatshow. They also appeared on such sit-coms and dramas as The Cosby Show, The West Wing and The Torkelsons.
In 2005 the Muppets launched the award-winning webseries Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony. The biweekly webshow ran for 15-months on movies.com and starred Statler and Waldorf along with many other popular Muppet characters. Each episode featured the duo as they discuss upcoming films, watch movie trailers and share the week’s “balconism”.
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. 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). On September 28, 2005, the United States Postal Service released a Jim Henson and the Muppets postage stamp series. The Simpsons, Family Guy and hundreds of other TV shows and movies have made many references to The Muppets.
Author: DandBProductionsInc
Keywords: Muppets Jim Henson
Added: December 27, 2007
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