All About Muppets

Jerry Nelson was a puppeteer, singer, and musician who was best known for performing with The Muppets, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock. Over a thousand puppets were performed by him, but his best known characters were Count von Count, Gobo Fraggle, and Floyd Pepper. Jerry performed his characters for many specials, appearances, and even films. Nelson has also performed on other shows such as The Secret Life of Toys, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, and Dog City. He also wrote songs on some of the shows he worked on. I'm amazed he was able to puppeteer in other places such as New York, Canada, Los Angeles, Germany, and England. I've read that before meeting Jim Henson, Jerry Nelson began puppeteering with Bil Baird on many marionette shows. In the mid 2000's, he stopped puppeteering his Muppet characters from health problems. However he continued to voice his Sesame Street characters up until 2012 when Season 44 was produced. That year, Jerry died after previous years of ...

Caroll Spinney was a puppeteer, cartoonist, and speaker who was best known for performing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street for almost 50 years. He started out on Bozo's Big Top where he played various characters and puppets. In 1969, Caroll met Jim Henson and got an invitation to work on Sesame Street which he accepted. While on the show, Spinney created a new puppeteering technique, doing it while inside a character costume. This technique was used for some of his other characters like Bruno the Trashman and Shivers the Penguin. In 1967, he created and performed two puppet cats called Picklepuss and Pop which were rebuilt as Muppets in 1988 in their only appearance with the Muppets, in a home video. How did Caroll Spinney make the mouth of the Pop costume move and how did he puppeteer Picklepuss when he couldn't see out? I learned that he had dystonia in 2015 which stopped him from puppeteering but was still able to voice his characters. It was sad to hear that...