Michael Yuro

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 now since he was last seen in 1971 as Sweetums. I hope Michael's page will have more info about himself soon since people might be interested by those facts and will want to know more about him. Maybe the sources of Yuro might come in handy to people reading his page on the Muppet Wiki. Any kind of source on the Muppet Wiki can provide fascinating info about anything on all different pages created for the Wiki. If he's dead now, he still did a Muppet of a great job from 1967-1971. Michael Yuro, you've done well in public appearances as both Splurge and Sweetums respectively in the early Muppet years. I hope someone will find more info about you, so that people will know if you're alive or not. Until then, you'll still be considered a mystery by some people, but not by me on this post. You make a monster out of your characters Michael. TTFN to you Yuro!