i’m losing my mind
STOP REBLOGGING THIS my phone is glitching an astronomical amount and I immediately knew the culprit was one of my tumblr posts gaining traction
oh
Happy 80th Birthday, Frank Oz!
Episode 0575
Sesame Street
Air date January 11, 1974
Season Season 5 (1973-1974)
Lena Horne and the Anything Muppets sing an upbeat version of “The Alphabet Song.”
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Episode 0574 Episode 0576
jim henson, frank oz & don sahlin showing off how to make various characters with a “whatnot/anything” muppet, 1969
It always amazes me that you can have the puppeteers right there, clearly operating the muppet and your brain just edits that fact out and the muppet comes alive in front of your eyes.
i’m losing my mind
STOP REBLOGGING THIS my phone is glitching an astronomical amount and I immediately knew the culprit was one of my tumblr posts gaining traction
oh
Lefty the Salesman - Sesame Street (1970)
The almighty Feed placed this in my lap, and it's kind of amazing — Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog are talking with Frank Oz and Michael Frith about Kermit's design and character, with some clips; it seems to have been made around 1990 for an internal audience at Henson, and has a lot of good details on how to depict Kermit, and the other Muppets more generally, in non-puppet media. One thing they particularly call out is that, due to the underlying armature being a puppeteer's hand and arm, Kermit is always tilted forward, at about a 45° angle — and if he's drawn or sculpted with his head completely back, it really does look unnatural.
A Rare Photo of Frank Oz with Fozzie Bear From John Denver & the Muppets: A Christmas Together.
A Christmas Together is a television special starring John Denver and the Muppets. Based on the album of the same name, this one hour Christmas special was originally produced for ABC and aired on December 5, 1979.
i’m losing my mind
bert was always my favorite muppet as a kid and TBH I stand by this as an adult.
anyways its been like four days and I have yet to stop laughing even slightly less at ‘OH GROOVE WITH ME BABY’ (THUNK THUNK THUNK) so
im starting to suspect bert and ernie sketches were just the basis of my sense of humor
this makes me want to throw up and cry and scream and punch a wall
Frank Oz and Jim Henson ad-lib as Fozzie and Kermit in this test footage for the first Muppet movie, and honestly it's pure gold.
jim henson, frank oz & don sahlin showing off how to make various characters with a “whatnot/anything” muppet, 1969
As I grow older I feel my capacity to understand that Miss Piggy is not a real person reached a peak in my adolescence and is now on a steady decline. I watched a Wendy Williams interview and there's this part that's like "can we get a ring cam!" and Miss Piggy shows her bling and I'm just like fuck she's so iconic. Miss Piggy who are you wearing? Miss Piggy have you ever considered running for office??
Like literally every time I see Miss Piggy there's a period where I need to readjust to the fact that it's not a person, and I feel that period is getting longer and longer with every instance
now all my Youtube recommendations are filled with Miss Piggy interviews. I’m not complaining. Miss Piggy what’s your secret to ageing so graciously
It's not just the audience; professional journalists, hosts, and actors report it is legitimately difficult to not see the Muppet as a person, and it is, in fact, incredibly easy to interview or act with them once the performer gets properly set up.
Like that one time they couldn't figure out why Kermit's audio was so garbage... then realized they'd put the mic on him instead of the performer.
this has been a very longstanding issue - before the muppet show was even a thing some muppets appeared in commercials, such as rolf the dog they had a continual problem where when people directing/shooting the dogfood commercial would give dirrection to rolf that they would be speaking to the muppet, to which rolf REPEATEDLY had to tell them ‘i cant hear you, you have to talk to him’ and point at the performer underneath him rolf is one of the most embarrassing muppets to need this direction as the performer is this, damn, obvious when not on camera
‘sir, i am a bathroom mat, the man you need to talk to is back there’
