All About Muppets

Chuck Fawcett is a puppet builder, puppeteer, director, producer, and founder of the puppet workshop in Tennessee known as Animax Designs. Before founding the company in 1989, his career started out as a freelancer working with Kermit Love on international co-productions of Sesame Street with his notable co-production being Sesamstraat in the Netherlands. Chuck built puppets on that show from 1987-1994 including Pino, Ieniemienie, and Tommie, all were mostly through his company. Fawcett was also the builder for Bad Andy on a Domino's Pizza ad campaign in 2000 which didn't last very long, only a few commercials. Animax Designs did work for other international Sesame projects too like Sesam Stasjon, Rechov Sumsum, Sesamstrasse, and many more. As for his puppetry skills, he also trained puppeteers for co-productions around the world from Spain to France to China. Since 2001, Chuck Fawcett works on the actual Sesame Street characters for Sesame Place and other theme parks like Busc

James Wojtal is a puppet designer, builder, and performer who has worked within the Henson Company from 1998-2002 and then returning in 2016. His projects included Bear in the Big Blue House, Animal Jam, Mopatop's Shop, and international co-productions of Sesame Street. Outside, James has designed, built, and performed puppets on various productions over the years for both screen and stage. Wojtal did Avenue Q, ImaginOcean, and Wicked for stage while TV credits include Crank Yankers, Saturday Night Live, CollegeHumor skits, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Other puppet designers & builders he has worked with include Paul Hartis, Rollie Krewson, Ed Christie, Heather Asch, and more. What in the world could have made him want to leave Henson for a while after 2002? Since 2016, James Wojtal has returned to the Henson Company and has been in the workshop for projects such as The Happytime Murders, Sesame Street (since 2018), and Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (Season 1). I wo

Kevin Yamada is an actor and puppeteer who is most well known for being one of the original hosts on the PBS Kids Sprout block (now Universal Kids). He originally hosted The Sunny Side Up Show while paired with Chica, while Forrest Harding and Brendon Gawel alternated with the puppetry. Kevin also performed Ricky, one of the puppet hosts on The Sprout Sharing Show, working with Gawel, Harding, and Kelly Vrooman. While on Sunny Side Up, Yamada interacted with characters (and performers) from Sesame Street whenever they made guest appearances. I saw in an interview that he even visited the set of Sesame Street itself one time, which must have been exciting for him. Apart from Sprout, he acted in several films and TV series over the years since 2004. Some of the films Kevin Yamada did include Old Dogs, The Winter Butterfly, How to Be Single, and Press Play, to name a few. As for television, he did Street Fighter: The Later Years, Hawaii Five-0, and guest appearances on various other shows

Rachelle Beinart is a British actress, suit performer, and stunt person who is well known for performing stunts for many films. Her suit performance credits placed her on ZingZillas (as Drum) and the reboot of Teletubbies (as Po) while the rest of her roles involved on-screen acting. Rachelle may not have done any Muppet projects, but she has performed with Muppet puppeteers, such as Josh Elwell, Olly Taylor, William Banyard, and Nick Kellington. For acting credits, Beinart mostly did uncredited roles in films such as Below Her Mouth, Fences, Game of Thrones, and Before I Fall, to name a few. She did receive credit for doing stunts on numerous films and series however, such as The Irregulars, The Batman, The Marvels, Cats, and more. It's amazing how a stunt performer can work well for both adults and children too. Other performers that worked with Rachelle Beinart on Teletubbies (besides Nick Kellington) have included Rebecca Hyland, Jeremiah Kage, and Victoria Jane. She's stil

Dorothy James is a puppeteer, educator, and artist who is more of a theatre performer than a TV person since she never did a Muppet project. She puppeteered for various productions like Basil Twist, Radio City, BBC, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and some streaming services. Some of the shows Dorothy did include Moon and Me, Snow Child, Patriot, Bill's 44th, and tons more theatre shows. Although James never worked with actual Muppet performers, she has met a few Henson ones on Moon and Me, mostly Raymond Carr and Robin Stevens, not the others. As creator, she used tabletop, shadow, rod, and paper cut puppetry techniques to create otherworldly narratives to express the characters. Maybe someday she will be trained to do Muppet-style puppetry, those companies could always use some more puppeteers to help out when needed. Of course, it could be hard for Dorothy James because that technique requires a puppeteer to look at a monitor while performing the character. In addition to puppets, she

Annie Evans is a writer and the wife of Muppet performer Martin P. Robinson who was best known for being on the Sesame Street writing staff from 1995-2016. On the show, she wrote episodes, song lyrics, videos, and segments (and co-developed the Elmo's World and Elmo the Musical segments). Annie also wrote on The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss (1 episode with Will Ryan), Big Bag, and Panwapa, and she was also story editor for several International Sesame Street co-productions. Evans isn't a puppeteer, though she did assist her husband in performing Telly Monster in a web video, as well as voice Telly's mother. I wonder if she assisted Telly during 2020 when everything was shot from her home. Outside of Sesame Street, she scripted episodes of Gullah Gullah Island, Oswald, Out of the Box, and Jojo's Circus which were all considered great shows. Annie Evans not only scripted for television, but she also wrote for theatre too like Ghost Stories and several monologues. She even