More Muppets
In honor of the previous item and the Smithsonian exhibit, I thought I would take this opportunity to show you more of my unpublished photos from Sesame Street. On the far left, in the foreground, you can see the pedestal extension to make the camera high enough to be eye level with the puppets. In the center is Jim Henson with Guy Smiley.
Guy is one of the earliest examples of a Muppet with movable eyebrows. There is a string attached inside, which runs the length of the puppet and comes out the bottom. On the left, you can see Jim had to drop the arm rod and reach inside for the control to make the eyebrows move.
Of course, on the right in the top picture is Frank Oz as Grover. Oz was one of the most versatile and funniest Muppeteers. His other characters included Bert, Cookie Monster, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy, as well as Yoda in the Star Wars movies.
For those not familiar with how television puppetry works, in the top picture, you can see Jim and Frank watching themselves on a monitor. This way, they see exactly what the camera is seeing, rather than trying to crane their necks to watch the performance over their heads.
I’ve always thought it was kind of funny that every picture I’ve ever seen of Jim and Frank, they were wearing long sleeve shirts that they had to roll up to operate the puppets. Mind you, the photos on this page were taken in August in New York. Maybe there was some kind of story behind their choice of outerwear, but I’ve never heard it!