Happy Birthday, Jim Henson

[filkertom]

Sigh. drzarron reminds us that Jim Henson would've been 72 today. Sigh.

Which is your favorite Muppet? Any source. Mine would be Kermit, of course, followed pretty closely by Rolph, but most of the cast of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street would be on there as well. And Yoda, and the turncoat Skeksis minister, and you could even make a case for the Vogons....

ETA: And jcw_da_dmg reminds us it's also the birthday of Kermit's current translator, Steve Whitmire. Happy B-Day, Steve!

Comments

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Oscar the Grouch.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

SO many....Animal ("Eat Drums!"), Fozzie, and Kermit...Statler and Waldorf...Gonzo...Uncle Travelin Matt...Junior Gorg...Oscar the Grouch...and, though not officially a Muppet (but created by a veteran of the studio), Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q (as seen in the usericon).

And yeah, this is definitely a volatile market :-)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Only one safe investment!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Precisely ;-D

[jss]

Well, nearly. "Stable." But I agree.

Me have to go home... Now!

[huskiebear.livejournal.com]

Ernie was always my favorite Sesame Street denizen when I was a kid. Followed closely by Grover (mostly because of The Monster At The End Of This Book). Kermie, of course, and Robin from the Muppet Show. And Fizzgig!

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

It's also the birthday of the current voice of Kermit, Steve Whitmire.

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

Miss Piggy, love the karate chop!
jgaleckas and I will have to play "Love Led Us Here" from Muppet Treasure Island - it's our song. (getting mushy)

[mtgat]

Gonzo, keepin' it real for the weirdos.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

My favorite muppet? Miss Piggy. She's portrayed so comically my sides hurt from laughing at her.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Miss Piggy. I am all about the Pig. Style, self-confidence, and a disinclination to take BS from anyone.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Wow.. They are all splinters of my personality...

Kermit.. Wembly.. Gonzo.. Piggy.. Bunson and Beaker..

For me, always Rolf

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I saw him first, as host for an obscure summer replacement series called "Our Place". He plays off people very well. And I've always been a dog person, (and a musician whose 1st and 2nd instruments were the piano and the uke).

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

After Kermit and Ernie, my favorite is Kantus the Fraggle.

Tom, if you're up for a Florida trip any time from February 6th through May 3rd, the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando will be hosting an exhibit on Jim Henson and his work.

http://thehistorycenter.org/exhibits/?art=upcoming

[sdelmonte]

Kermit in many was IS Henson, and thus embodies the Muppets.

Beyond him, though, I have a soft spot for Dominar Rygel from Farscape, Wembely from Fraggle Rock, Gonzo, Bert and Ernie, and Grover.

And beyond that, you would have to search long and hard for a Muppet I don't like. Maybe a few of the lesser lights from the first season of the Muppet Show. Maybe Elmo, but then he came along so long after Henson died and Sesame Street changed that I can't fault the millions of kids who love him the way I loved Kermit.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

Beaker.

And Statler and Waldorf.

Sesame Street, Oscar and Grover.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Oscar...Rolph...Statler & WaldropWaldorf (that would have been an interesting duo), Snuffleupagus (until others could see him).

I remember when the Count was introduced.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Rizzo the Rat, of course, followed by Beaker.

Has anyone else caught the recent re-use by American Express Card of the ad that Jim Henson shot for them many years ago? The footage was combined with other past celebrities who had shot similar ads (the only other one I'm recalling at the moment is Robert DeNiro).

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You mean this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyvgsQYYscU)? :)

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[sdelmonte]

There's a part of me that saw that and felt, "how can you use HIM to sell anything?" I needed to be reminded that he was quite happy to be in that now-classic ad, and that he had no problem with (tastefully) merchandising the Muppets. It's just it somehow now seems a bit tacky to use him to sell things now. (I doesn't help that the ads the Muppets have been in the last few years don't work for me.)

At the same time, though, given what the ad is doing, it's meant entirely as an honor.

And of course, you see him again, alive and young and surrounded by his creations, and you feel just a bit sad all over again. And just a bit proud that sometimes, humanity can mke something good and enduring.

[musicmutt.livejournal.com]

I have always liked Sweedums. Their version of The Frog Prince sold me on him. Also, whoever was in there was one very consumate dancer to be able to move like that inside that costume.

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

I can't answer this question - I like them all - so instead I'll share that I was invited to Skippy (http://skippyslist.com/)'s wedding a couple of years ago, and his mother/son dance was to "The Rainbow Connection".

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

I'll have to listen to A Boy and His Frog tonight when I get home. I do have it available to me here at work, but since even after all these years it still makes me cry excessively I think I'd best wait.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

"You are all weirdos!"

I can barely even watch the scene in "Muppets Take Manhattan" when Kermit meets the frogs at the ad agency - one of them is voiced by Steve Whitmire, using the exact same Kermit voice he replaced Jim with.

My favorite character? I love 'em all (except the new ones like Pepe - yeccch), but if I have to choose one, then HANDS DOWN the Swedish Chef. There's not a single damn thing about the guy - design, voice, mannerisms - that isn't stroke-inducingly hilarious every friggin time.

[fmh.livejournal.com]

Always been partial to Dr.Teeth.

Golden teeth and golden tones, welcome to my presence.

[saganth.livejournal.com]

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker from Muppet Labs, where the future is being made today! This is our latest invention: Insta-Grow Pills, and *this* is a FOUR FOOT PRUNE!!

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

My own faves, by a very long shot, were the ones on the first season of Saturday Night Live. Too bad their d*mn writers thought they were too good to "write for felt," as they put it...*grumble*

The better-known Muppets leave me pretty cold---I was too old for Sesame Street, and that meant I was much too old for The Muppet Show.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, King Ploobis, the Mighty Favog, et al, known collectively as "The Land of Gorch".

That was one of Frank Oz's first assignments as a Muppet performer and where he got a lot of inspiration for the voice of Fozzie.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I was much too old for The Muppet Show

Excuse me? It was written for adults; is there too old for that?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, Gonzo is not my favorite Muppet. I just use this icon because it combines two of my favorite things.

Mine would be a toss-up between Animal and Sweetums.

Last GenCon I played a game of "Muppet Heroes" and was given Rizzo the Rat, and everyone agreed my impression was dead-on! I wish you were there, Tom, you'd have been so proud!

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Dude, you should absolutely send a copy of your voice reel to Muppet Labs The Henson Workshop. The worst that could happen is nothing at all, the best is that you get to voice a Muppet and be part of the story.

Life is a movie, write your own ending...

[lukeski.livejournal.com]

the great Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Cookie Monster, Boober Fraggle, Digit, and Pepe the King Prawn.

(Performed by Dave Goelz, Digit was an android character who appeared on The Jim Henson Hour. He always tries to help Kermit run MuppeTelevision as smoothly as possible - though the problems in that TV station were just as likely to be a result of his crossed wires as anything else. Digit was also the keyboard player for the show's resident band, Solid Foam. Digit originally appeared, with a different voice, in the "Inner Tube" pilot. He joined other Jim Henson Hour characters in The Cosby Show episode "Cliff's Nightmare." His most recent appearance was a vocal cameo in the Muppets Party Cruise Playstation 2 game. Here's a picture: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/d/d3/JHH-Digit.jpg)

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

1. Cookie Monster
2. Oscar the Grouch
3. The Count
4. Kermit
5. Beaker
6. The Swedish chef

[jenrose]

My first thought was, "how could he not be that old?"

[jenrose]

And my favorite seseme street, not sure how much he had to do with the specific muppets, is the Yip Yip martians.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

My favorites include:

Bert and Ernie, _Sesame Street's_ gay couple back before that became a Really Big Deal.

Jen and Kira from _The Dark Crystal_.

Re: Thoughts

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Hey, we started that rumor back in the 'eighties!

And since it was after the invention of the internet, as a rumor it traveled a lot farther and longer than the one we had started before:

Elvis is still alive, and bagging groceries at a Meijer's strore.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... I'm relatively sure that I started watching Sesame Street in the early 70s. Also, I didn't hear it as a rumor: I figured it out by observation.

Romantic couples typically live together. So do Bert & Ernie.

Romantic couples typically sleep in the same room. In the early 70s, they were generally shown sleeping in twin beds, side by side, just like Bert & Ernie.

Bert & Ernie fight like a couple more than like platonic roommates.

Bert & Ernie shop, eat, cook, and do pretty much everything together just like any other couple.

Of course they didn't do anything explicit. It was Sesame Street. Neither did the heterosexual couples. But there WAS this one episode where Bert was ragging on Ernie for eating cookies in (at first, Ernie's) bed, because it would leave crumbs and they'd itch. So Ernie said, "You're right, Bert" -- and climbed into Bert's bed, cookies and all. Bert said, "What are you DOING?" Ernie said, "I'm eating cookies in YOUR bed!" And Bert was mad about the cookie crumbs, not about Ernie snuggling into his bed.

Yeah. They're gay. They act like gay people I know, and knew when I was little.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

One of the best tributes I've seen to Jim is here (http://www.mostlymuppet.com/muppets-overtime/).

I love every Muppet, from the smallest Henson vermin to the biggest Gorg.

Happy birthday, Jim. We miss you.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

For me it was always The Great Gonzo. Reason being is that, from him, I figured out that not only was it cool to be a weirdo but that it was, in fact, the only way to truly live. :)

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

In a show of how small the world is, Steve went to high school with my sister in the 70s (Berkmar High, near Atlanta, GA). He signed her yearbook and drew a Kermit head next to it. From what she said, he had a job offer from Jim before he graduated ... that was contingent upon him actually going ahead and graduating.

Favorite? Gonzo the Great, no question. Gods bless the little oddball; he stands for the weirdness in us all.

[johnpatrickmcp.livejournal.com]

Well of course Statler and Waldorf followed closely by Crazy Harry and the Swedish Chef. To this day I still remember the When Harry Belefonte was the host:

Harry: "I heard some of the muppets say, Don't go into that dressing room Crazy Harry is in there.

Scooter: "Oh no Mr. Belefonte Crazy Harry is one of the Muppets... Wait a minute Crazy Harry is in here!

BOOOOOOMB

Crazy Harry: Hehehehehehehehehe

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Grover. First, foremost and always.:)

Mr. Snuffalupagus, Big Bird, Little Bird, Bert, Ernie and the Tweedlebugs.

Gonzo, Beaker, Kermit, Piggy & Fozzie.

Everyone else is a close second though. *grin*

[fiawol.livejournal.com]

It was probably just happenstance, but just yesterday I saw an American Express commercial celebrating an anniversary of the company that featured clips from commercials from the past 20+ years, and the opening and closing clips were of Jim Henson (and the muppets) promoting the virtues of American Express. Strange feeling coming across that, sort of like Orville Redenbacher Popcorn trotting out their founder to promote the brand again from the grave. Zombie popcorn?