All About Muppets

Taylor Bibat is a puppeteer and producer who worked on a project by The Jim Henson Company and also with Heather Henson. She worked on two Henson Company projects, Splash and Bubbles and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance while her other work was on films and TV series. For puppetry, Taylor performed on Wizard School Dropout (also producer and set decorator), If Birds Fly, videos made by her, and more. As a producer, Bibat has produced many short films like Monsters & Fables, ReWrite, At the End of the World, and Rock Inn. Although she only did some Henson performance, she has met a lot of Muppet performers such as Raymond Carr, Dan Garza, and Elizabeth Hara, who are all gonna be in her future project, as stated on her website. Her website states that, in addition to Henson, she also worked on projects with Universal, Warner Bros, and MGM, to name a few. Taylor Bibat must be proud since she made a life sized puppet replica of herself and operated a 30-foot whale for a concert. Man...

Nick Powell is a champion swordsman and stunt performer who is known for training many Hollywood actors such as Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson. He served as stunt coordinator for Muppet Treasure Island and did the right hand of Kermit the Frog (in his Smollett character) during his swordfight scene. Nick has to be lucky to assist Steve Whitmire with the battle scene of the film. Powell has done many other stunt performances, as seen in Batman, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and Judge Dredd. As for stunt coordinator or swordsmaster credits, his projects include Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Braveheart, and 28 Days Later, just to name a few. He also served as a second unit director for several feature films, not to mention TV movies. It's a shame that Nick Powell only coordinated stunts for one project featuring the Muppets, since they don't usually do a lot of stunts. Other stunt performers that did Creature Shop or Henson projects include Kenn Troum, Ernie Reyes Jr, David Forman, and...

Robin Kingsland is a British actor, writer, puppeteer, and director who served as an additional Muppet performer on Muppet Treasure Island. I don't know why he only assisted the Muppets in the one feature film, he could have done more projects like The Muppets Christmas Carol. Robin has also puppeteered on Spitting Image, Spacevets, and Fimbles, while most of his other credits were writing. Kingsland has written for Thomas & Friends, The Koala Brothers, Playdays, and many more. IMDb claimed that he wrote in projects featuring Mickey Mouse but there should be real proof of him writing for the famous mouse. Other puppeteers he worked with include Simon Buckley, Michael Bayliss, Iestyn Evans, and Neil Sterenberg, to name a few. On stage, Robin Kingsland has acted in many productions such as The Secret Garden, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, and more. If his website was accessible, then people would know what projects he directed. He must have been more popular on stage ...

David Skelly is a puppeteer, puppet designer/builder, writer, and director who has worked with The Jim Henson Company, the Muppets, and Sesame Street for years. He designed and built puppets for Sesame Street, Dinosaurs, The Animal Show, and The Muppets Christmas Carol. David got trained in puppetry from Jane Henson and Brian Henson and did puppet improv workshops at Henson Company. Skelly has served as an additional Muppet performer for The Muppets (2011), Lady Gaga & the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular, and Muppets Most Wanted. Lots of other Muppet designers and builders are performers too such as Rollie Krewson, Faz Fazakas, Ed Christie, and Ben Durocher. As a writer, he wrote a film that got cancelled, numerous episodes of Zevo-3, and a Batman comic strip for DC Comics. According to Muppet Wiki, David Skelly spent 8 years with Pixar in the story development department, where he helped develop many Pixar films. He even served as a series director for The High Fructose Adventure...

Geir Borresen was a Norwegian actor and puppeteer who performed Max Mekker on the Norwegian co-production of Sesame Street, Sesam Stasjon. An article stated that he was way too tall to work the puppet, so he had to walk around with bent knees when doing Max. Geir must have had a difficult time moving with bent knees, but that effort must have been worth it to fit inside the costume. Borresen got to work alongside other puppeteers on Sesam Stasjon, Hanne Dahle, Christine Stoesen, and Asmund Huser. When Max Mekker (with his co-stars) appeared on the crossover Sesame Street special Sesame Street Stays Up Late, his voice was dubbed into English by Jim Martin. Other accomplishments of his include three song albums featuring The Smurfs and one with Winnie the Pooh, not to mention, radio and television across Norway. Geir Borresen has also dubbed in two Disney movies; Robin Hood and The Fox and the Hound. Nothing on his Muppet Wiki page states that he's also a singer. It's probably so...

Erja Alander is a Finnish puppeteer, writer, and actress who performed Alfa (from Sesam Stasjon) on the Finnish co-production of Sesame Street, Seesamtie. While Hanne Dahle performed Alfa in Norway, she was her performer in Finland, which gives an interesting change in character. Erja has also written puppet theater plays, like Pippuridino, and was a regular performer for three puppet series. Alander has performed regular characters on Papu, Bonny ja Heikki, and Jusu & Josefiina (as Josefiina), all three of those shows featured puppetry by her and other performers. But Muppet Wiki states only one performer she has worked with and that's Janna Palve-Karppanen who did Alfa's right hand. Erja Alander must've performed with other Finnish puppeteers outside of Seesamtie, but there aren't any that have pages on Muppet Wiki yet. As for acting, she acted in Kill City, Secret Lives, and Who Will Comfort Toffle? in which all of them were movies/series. Nobody seems to know wh...

Zandile Tlale is a South African puppeteer who was the original performer of Kami on Takalani Sesame from 2002-2003 before Nozizwe Zulu took over. It's a pity she doesn't have a page on the Muppet Wiki as this info about her being on the show was discovered recently. There's no page of Zandile performing Kami either, at least not yet, hopefully someone will search throughout the media to find it. But at least Tlale got to work with other South African puppeteers on that show like Nyanga Tshabalala, Boitumelo Betty Maretele, and Lindani Obed Nkosi. I wonder if she ever spoke English on that show in addition to the many South African languages used on that show too. Too bad she doesn't have a picture of herself doing puppetry, I'm not even sure that the picture above is the person I'm talking about. Zandile Tlale should have her own page on the Muppet Wiki soon, you never know when people would like to know about her and what she does. Perhaps she'll run into ...

Shani Cohen is an Israeli puppeteer and actress who was the first performer of Abigail in the Israeli co-production of Sesame Street, Rechov Sumsum before Gony Paz took over. It's a shame she only did it for two years, because then she would have done Shalom Sesame too. Shani shared a comment on the Wiki about "entering a world of innocence and escaping into solutions from the war outside." Cohen worked with other performers on Sumsum, mainly Yousef Sweid, Avi Yakir, and Gilles Ben-David as those three were the only ones there. In a Muppet Wiki category it states that another performer has the same last name as her and that's Emma Cohen, but they are definitely not related. Apart from Rechov Sumsum, she mostly acted on TV series like Mummy, Only in Israel, and A Wonderful Country, all of which she was a regular on. Other than that, Shani Cohen's page doesn't have enough information about her as there's not enough information on her career. It would appear ...

Chase Woolner is a puppeteer and puppet builder from Chicago who served as an additional puppeteer on The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted as well as an intern with Puppet Heap. At a young age, his puppetry interest began, performing publicity for his elementary school classes. Chase later joined the San Francisco Bay Area Puppet Guild and became one of the youngest members, during his time in California that is. Woolner must have been very lucky to be a member of a puppet company in his childhood. He has even trained with many of the top puppeteers and builders in the world. Since 2008, after finishing his education, he participated several times at the National Puppetry Conference and worked professionally with Puppet Heap, the Creature Shop, and even a concept designer with Walt Disney Imagineering. Other puppeteers Chase Woolner worked with include, Len Levitt, Tanya Haden,  BJ Guyer, and Tim Blaney, just to name a few. In 2011, he made his own, original story puppet shor...

Jordan Brownlee is a puppeteer, actor, writer, and impressionist who has recently performed with the Muppets on The Muppets Mayhem as a supporting performer. He has also performed with the Henson Company on 2 projects Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (stage show) and Slumberkins. Jordan was trained to puppeteer by the Muppet Performers of Sesame Street and has since trained other actors to operate puppets as his company Bike City Theatre Company. Brownlee has been one of the company members of Bike City since 2018 when he was randomly selected to perform open mic, must have been his lucky day. As an impressionist, he lent his voice to numerous short films, award ceremonies, & The Empty Iris on Amazon Prime Video. His Bike City acting debut was in a show called Light The Way: a Bike Safety Musical and has since both acted and written Bike City sketches and radio plays, it says it all on his page of the Bike City website. Bike City selecting Jordan Brownlee in 2018 was an excelle...

Yinan Shentu is a puppeteer, anime dub actor, and stiltwalker who started working for Sesame Street in 2022, beginning with assisting roles for digital projects. In 2023 he was given his own Muppet named TJ, who is the very first Filipino Muppet on Sesame Street. Yinan must have been very excited to get a character of his own, as well as become one of the performers of Sesame Street. Shentu worked as a character performer, such as stiltwalker and puppeteer, for numerous attractions at Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World (including The Muppets Present... Great Moments in American History). He has even performed with the Puppet Up! troupe at Knott's Scary Farm in October 2021. Other performers for that time included Stoph Scheer and Brian Jones, as well as others. Besides Yinan Shentu, a lot of puppeteers have been joining Sesame Street such as Latoryah Alexander, Jimmica Collins, Andrew A. Cano, and Aymee Garcia. I've read that he received puppetry training from The Muppets ...