All About Muppets

Chris Palmieri is a puppeteer, entertainer, voice actor, and puppet builder who's only done one Henson Company project which was the first national tour of Dinosaur Train Live, under the direction of John Tartaglia. He is mostly well known for performing on television and theatre for over a decade, and also was a regular at Lucky Duck Puppets. Some highlights of Chris include performing Tigger in Disney's Winnie the Pooh, performing Snug on Snug's House, and operating the Mighty T-Rex at an educational theme park called Field Station: Dinosaurs. It appears that Palmieri is very popular all across NYC and North America performing on television, theater, and even film. His TV credits include Celebrity Wife Swap, Today, Cake Boss, MTV's Story Pig, and more. He got to perform alongside numerous famous people such as Dolly Parton, Jimmy Fallon, and even The Wiggles. Chris Palmieri also designed and built puppets for several film and stage productions like Mysterious Science ...

Ailsa Berk is a British actress and choreographer who specializes in prosthetic and costumed roles. She did both the adolescent and adult versions of Grovelhog on an episode of The Storyteller. Alisa has also served as performance coordinator for the Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels. Berk got to work on a show that featured Brian Henson, but I personally think she should have done more Creature Shop shows besides The Storyteller and Gulliver's Travels. Outside, she did both a tiger and a panda in Fierce Creatures, a wheeler in Return to Oz, Ammanaman in Return of the Jedi, and many characters on Under the Same Sun. In addition to acting, she also served as a choreographer on Doctor Who, Da Vinci's Demons, and Carnival Row, where she guided monsters and actors. Ailsa Berk was shown to do prosthetic work on Little Shop of Horrors and The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. This technically counts as operating a puppet since prosthetics in these cases were used to operate complic...

Kiran Shah is a Kenyan actor, suit performer, and stunt man who performed as a suit performer within several Muppet/Creature Shop projects. He has served as the stunt double for Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper, doing her in scenes that require her to be in action. Kiran has also worked on The Dark Crystal, doing certain stunt scenes for Jen and The Chamberlain. Shah seems to mostly do doubles for characters performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. However, in the Hallmark TV version of Alice in Wonderland by the Creature Shop, he was the sole body performer for The White Rabbit, his only time doing so. Outside of the Muppets/Creature Shop, he did several films involving fantasies. Kiran Shah did several Star Wars films, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and he had the prominent role of Grinarrbik in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He's even worked as a stand in for most of the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings film series. Appears he has done more film work...

Tom Fisher is a puppeteer and suit performer who mainly did the latter on a number of Creature Shop projects over the years. His most notable work was on Dinosaurs where he did several Unisaurs (the Needlenose type) and occasionally filled in as Earl Sinclair's body. Tom has also done Jack Frost, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, The Country Bears, and more. Fisher has worked alongside other suit performers such as Michelan Sisti, Leif Tilden, and Tony Sabin Prince; as well as puppeteers like Bruce Lanoil and Allan Trautman. His non-Creature Shop credits include Monkey Bone, Theodore Rex, and Phantoms, appears that his outside work is smaller than his Creature Shop work. I wonder if he's ever tired out from wearing hot, smelly costumes a lot and if he ever has difficulty moving around. I should guess that Tom Fisher does because it's always hot wearing a full-bodied suit and difficult to see with an animatronic head over you. Still, he did wonderful on Dinosaurs and those...

Mark Dean is a British puppeteer, design assistant, and builder who is perhaps best known for being the original operator of Noo Noo on Teletubbies. He also worked on a couple other Ragdoll Productions shows, being the boat wrangler on Rosie & Jim and design assistant on Tots TV. On Teletubbies, Mark not only operated Noo Noo, but also built props and did special effects. Other shows Dean puppeteered on include Big Garage, The Shiny Show, Fimbles, and Conan. It's a shame though he never worked on any Henson Company projects. He would have been great assisting on The Hoobs, Mopatop's Shop, or That Puppet Game Show. At least Mark Dean got to work with several Muppet performers like Brian Herring, Rebecca Nagan, Robin Stevens, and Mark Jefferis, to name a few. I only wish he would work on a project by the Henson Company or the Muppets. It's unknown as of now what he's doing, since he got replaced by Victoria Jane and Olly Taylor alternating Noo Noo on the reboot of Tel...

Brian Knatchbull is a Canadian puppeteer who only worked on the second episode of The Jim Henson Hour as a lobster and additional Muppets. He has however posted a picture of Jerry Nelson with The Count on the ToughPigs website as a tribute to his death. Brian was also seen as an illustration cameo in a book called The Bat Can Bat: A Book of True Homonyms; with several other performers. Knatchbull is probably one of the many puppeteers to not have a lot of info about himself. He performed additional Muppets with Bob Stutt, Trish Leeper, and Karen Valleau on that one Jim Henson Hour episode, and who knows, maybe in other episodes too (just uncredited in them). At least he's still keeping himself busy after 1989; for example, he has his own Twitter account. I should say Brian Knatchbull provides great info about the Muppets and that is why I think he should have done more with them. It's unknown as of now what other projects he's done outside of The Jim Henson Hour. Maybe some...

Latoryah Alexander is a puppeteer, actress, and teaching artist who is one of the newest performers on Sesame Street. She serves as the performer of Tamir's mother Kayla starting with the 53rd season of the show. I have read that Latoryah began her acting career at New Stage Theatre within her home state of Mississippi. Alexander later became one of the company members at Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre, working there for over a decade. She has done numerous shows and workshops as an actress, puppeteer, and facilitator. Like Jimmica Collins, she is also a black performer like her and performs a member of Tamir and Gabrielle's family. Other than Sesame Street, Latoryah Alexander has acted on only two productions, Ticktock Minutes and Ace the Zombie: The Motion Picture. She worked with other performers such as Megan Piphus, Michael Earl, and Bradley Freeman Jr., to name a few. She was also a credited performer in the YouTube special Elmo's Mindfulness Spectacular. I rea...

Jimmica Collins is a puppeteer and actress who has been a Muppet performer on Sesame Street since its 53rd season. In her debut season, she was cast as Grandma Nell and has performed her since. I've read that Jimmica has always dreamed of working on Sesame Street and that dream came true when she trained with Matt Vogel, Martin P. Robinson, and Peter Linz at Sesame Workshop in 2021. Outside of Sesame Street, Collins has puppeteered in several theater shows such as Harold and the Purple Crayon, Space! The Musical, and at the Center for Puppetry Arts, just to name a few. As for her TV work, she puppeteered on Helpsters, Donkey Hodie, Wondermore, and more. She also briefly worked with the Henson Company on Puppet Up where she was trained by Brian Henson and others. Jimmica Collins has been experienced with puppet projects designed for both kids and adults. I've read she also worked in many departments as Teaching Artist, Assistant Director, and Associate Producer, all happened in ...

Michael Yuro is (or was) a puppeteer, school teacher, and publicist who worked in public relations for Muppets Inc. starting in 1967. For promotional tours of Hey Cinderella and The Frog Prince he's made numerous public appearances to the press as Splurge and Sweetums, respectively. Michael started out as a school teacher in New York and also worked as a publicist for RJR Foods during 1971. Yuro has even operated the much larger characters to delight his three kids, as stated in journals. I wonder how he got selected to perform those full-bodied characters in public appearances before and after the premieres of those two specials. And also, why doesn't he have an image of himself outside the costumes? According to the picture above, Michael Yuro is inside the Splurge suit for this shot. He must have been popular in the newspapers back in the early years, but it's unknown whatever happened to him way after The Frog Prince aired. I'm going to assume he's long gone by ...