All About Muppets

Martin Reinl is a German puppeteer, comedian, and writer who is perhaps best known for performing Elmo, Grover, and Wolf on the German co-production of Sesame Street, Sesamstrasse. He first joined the show in 2008 as an additional performer before gaining his characters later. Martin also dubs Elmo in all US scenes and projects since 2012. Reinl should be proud to perform an international version of such an iconic character, whether on the show, it's spinoff, etc. Outside of Sesamstrasse, he has his own production company known as bigSmile-Entertainment, producing various television puppetry shows and what-not. Some of the shows he performed on include Jan & Henry, Woozle Goozle, and Wiwaldi Show, just to name a few. In addition to performing, Martin Reinl also co-hosts the German language puppet podcast Puppkultur where they discuss Muppets, Dinosaurs, and many other puppet productions and characters, Henson-related or not. He also does voice acting like dubbing the title char...

Alex "Jurgen" Ferguson is a puppet and costume builder, set dresser, and puppeteer known for working on many Muppet projects, mostly recent ones. He also worked on Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock, and a few Creature Shop-effects films, like Where the Wild Things Are for example. Alex's work with the Muppets began with Muppets from Space before moving on to more recent projects such as Muppets Now and The Muppets Mayhem. Ferguson also served as a supporting Muppet performer on The Muppet Show (2026 special) in addition to being in the workshop. I'll bet he was very excited to be an additional performer on the 50th anniversary of such an iconic original series. Outside, he built the character costumes on Yo Gabba Gabba! and the puppets on Imagination Movers, Little Alvin and the Mini-Munks, and The Barbarian and the Troll. In addition to puppets, Alex "Jurgen" Ferguson was also a set dresser and/or swing crew on many films like The Night Flier, B...

Eka Vogelnik was a Slovene puppeteer, puppet maker, illustrator, designer, and director who was known for using of those qualities in her career. Throughout her career, she illustrated over 30 books, served as the artistic designer for over 30 theatre productions, and was the author of seven puppet shows and lots of film and TV productions. Eka should be one of those legendary puppeteers who made history, since it is very rare for a person to make history doing almost everything artistic in show business. Vogelnik has also made puppet animated films, mainly using stop-motion animation like Makalonca, A Tolar saved, Pearl Mountain, and The Forgotten Books of Our Grannies series. It's a shame there is no Slovenian co-production of Sesame Street, because she would've been perfect to be one of the performers. In the later years of her career, she mainly developed different types of puppets and teaching puppetry, something numerous masters of puppetry do. If only Eka Vogelnik would...

Galia Yishai was an Israeli actress and singer known for performing on stage, film, and television from 1971-2020. In 1986, she appeared as herself within the Israeli co-production of Sesame Street, Rechov Sumsum, where she interacted with Sarai Tzuriel and Gilles Ben-David. Wikipedia states that Galia was also a puppeteer, but it remains unknown what shows she puppeteered on. Yishai mostly acted on-stage within Israel's repertoire theatres such as Habima Theatre, the Bimot Theatre, the Cameri Theater, Haifa Theatre, and Bein Lessin Theater. She must have puppeteered in one of those theaters, you never know based on the types of roles she received in the shows. Some of the plays she did include Peer Gynt, All My Sons, Puss in Boots, Quo Vadis, and more. Galia Yishai also acted on television and film like Am Yisrael Hai, Parpar Nechmad, Hunting Elephants, Life is Not Everything, and many others. It's a shame she never puppeteered on that international co-production of Sesame Str...

Peter Mandell is a British little person actor who appeared on Labyrinth as one of the goblin corps, as well a masked dancer in the ballroom scene. He got to perform with other Creature Shop performers for that film including Richard Jones, Malcolm Dixon, David Showler, and Christine Glanville, to name a few. I wonder if Peter preferred appearing as a dancer or being in-suit as a goblin on Labyrinth. Some of the other films Mandell worked on include Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Xtro, Boobs in the Wood, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As for television, he performed on The 10th Kingdom (with Mike Edmonds), Through the Dragon's Eye, and Pigsty. Nobody seems to know whatever happened to him after Harry Potter for there isn't a lot of personal information about this performer. Peter Mandell seems to be yet another performer to vanish from the public after a certain year. Hopefully all the information brought up on Muppet Wiki and other sites will expand once more i...

Kenny Baker was a British dwarf actor and suit performer who was best known for performing R2-D2 in the Star Wars franchise (the first six films to be precise). Even though R2-D2 made appearances on both The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, he didn't perform the character. Kenny had however worked with Jim Henson in Labyrinth as one of the goblin corps, alongside other performers his size. Baker did R2-D2 alongside his performing partner Anthony Daniels who did C-3PO, which formed the legendary droid duo. I wonder if he had any difficulty seeing out of his droid like Daniels had with his droid, for working R2-D2 was complicated. In addition to Star Wars and Labyrinth, his other film credits include Time Bandits, The Elephant Man, Amadeus, The King and I, and many others. Kenny Baker also made appearances on many TV shows as different characters like on The Adventure Game, The Goodies, and Casualty, to name a few. But people always know him best for originating the role of R2-D2 and d...