Comments | kniedzw: Favorite Underrepresented Muppet?

kniedzw

Favorite Underrepresented Muppet?

Apr 19, 2006 14:37

I'm sort of in an odd mood, so here's an odd sort of question.

Everyone thinks of a particular muppet when they think of Jim Henson. Generally, it's someone like Kermit, Miss Piggy, Oscar the Grouch, or Bert (or Ernie). ...but most of us who grew up with them have a particular oddball favorite. Perhaps it's the Honkers from Sesame Street. ( Read more... )

movies, television, meme

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d_c_m April 19 2006, 19:27:50 UTC

Oscar the Grouch!!! "I love trash!"

And

Animal!!! :)

BTW Sesame Street rocks hard core all the time. I LOVE that show.

kniedzw April 19 2006, 19:31:58 UTC

Both are great, to be sure, but were either really underrepresented? I mean, Oscar was pretty central on Sesame Street, and Animal was in pretty much all of the movies and such....

I was looking for stuff like The Salzburg Sauerkraut Singers or Crazy Harry. :)

d_c_m April 19 2006, 19:45:54 UTC

I see your point. However I used to work for Public Television and did children's out reach and everybody was about Elmo and Zoey and Big Bird. So me, I stuck to Oscar and Animal.

How about Snuffelupagus? Or even Oscar's Mom? She was on a few times. Oh what that good!! And the retelling of "Cinderella" as "Grochella"? BRilliant!!!

kniedzw April 19 2006, 19:47:22 UTC

I'd forgotten about Oscar's Mom. She was the bomb. :)

sarcastibich April 19 2006, 19:57:31 UTC

Snuffleupagus' name is "Aloysius P. Snuffleupagus." I know this because my father's middle name is Aloysius.

robotnik April 19 2006, 19:51:09 UTC

Man, you and I are twins when it comes to muppet love. The first ones that come to mind are Lew Zealand, Crazy Harry, and Dr. Teeth (and has there EVER been a better band name than "Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem"?).

As a kid I really liked Scooter, which is odd because he's pretty generic in retrospect, but maybe I read him as the only "kid" in a theater of grownups. I love Janice, but she's on the cusp of being an appreciated character. I think she gets more screen time in the movies than on the original show. Going deep into the vault, I heart the scary blue Vincent Price-y 'Phantom of the Muppet Show' monster and the living xylophone type balls that the guy played 'My friend the Witch Doctor' on.

Followup question: most over-rated / over-exposed muppet? Some people are gonna say Miss Piggy, I expect, but I got no beef with her. I say the rat (Rizzo?). Why does he get such a big part in all the post-1980s movies?

kniedzw April 19 2006, 19:57:29 UTC

Rizzo definitely, though if you also consider Sesame Street, I'm going to say Elmo, hands-down. I mean, I know that it's mostly because he was introduced when I was much older, and I don't have the rose-colored glasses with him, but he's always been far too irritating for my taste.

...and you're right about Scooter. I always identified with him because he was the geeky shy one who always got things done in the background, though he got a lot more play in Muppet Babies.

dbfclark April 19 2006, 20:05:33 UTC

Best guess on Rizzo: he's a Steve Whitmire character, and we always have to use lots of him, both because he's very good and because he now does Ernie and Kermit so he's already being paid...

I've always been a big Gonzo fan, but that might be too popular to count here. Wembly the Fraggle? And there's a big letter U in this one Sesame Street sketch that a celebrity kept trying to get out of the grasp of which rocked.

kniedzw April 19 2006, 21:34:23 UTC

I'm of the opinion that it's almost impossible to give Gonzo enough love, so I think you're good.

Which one was Wembly again?

dr_whom April 19 2006, 22:08:15 UTC

Yellow with a Hawaiian shirt. The nervous and shy one: if Boober is the Fraggles' Eeyore, Wembley is the Fraggles' Piglet.

dbfclark April 20 2006, 00:27:26 UTC

Not the one with the hat -- the yellow boy one who was kind of dorky. Inevitable choice, I know...

shadesong April 19 2006, 22:27:51 UTC

Crazy Harry's one of mine! Also Sweetums.

I love Beaker, who's mentioned above, but I don't think he's underrepresented.

And I'm also a fan of Lew Zealand.

And Mahna Mahna.

kniedzw April 19 2006, 23:19:43 UTC

I figure that everything is relative. If, in my mind, Elmo is overrepresented, then someone like Rowlf or Beaker or the Chamberlain from Dark Crystal can be underrepresented.

shadesong April 20 2006, 00:47:03 UTC

Oooh. I love the Chamberlain...

Oh, here's one! Sir Didymus from Labyrinth.

kniedzw April 20 2006, 04:22:09 UTC

Yeah. I can never really read Don Quixote without seeing a fox on a dog.

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