All About Muppets

Alfonso Soto is a Mexican puppeteer, actor, singer, and voice actor who is best known for performing Pancho on Plaza Sesamo since 2010, taking over from Odin Dupeyron. He also dubbed Elmo when his appearance on The Kitchen premiered in Mexico. On Plaza Sesamo, Alfonso performed with numerous other performers like Maripaz Garcia (who assists him with Pancho), Verenice Callejo, Rocio Lara, Igor Cruz, and many more. I wonder how close Soto was with Dupeyron prior to the inheritance. According to Backstage, he also worked within the theater at Adriana Barraza Black Box, doing shows like Drops, Broken English musical, and Esperando el amanecer. A lot of those shows took place in Florida, which makes me wonder if he ever learned to speak English whenever he was in America. Alfonso Soto also puppeteered on Como dice el dicho and piiiQBO, the former being a series and the latter being a promo for television. But no matter what project or career he does, he will always be known by fans for doin...

Josh Martin is a voice actor and suit performer who is best known for working at FUNimation, dubbing various anime in English, most notably the Dragon Ball franchise. He is also known for performing the body of Barney for the Barney & Friends franchise, filling in for David Joyner for half the 4th season, a home video, and a live show. Josh also puppeteered a blue jay in another Barney home video and was in suit for two animals. Martin never worked with any actual puppeteers during his tenure with Barney as Brice Armstrong, Todd Duffey, and Earl Fisher were trained to do so. He also was a character wrangler for the franchise from 2008-2014, whenever he could. Besides Barney, FUNimation chose him to voice several characters in the English dubs of the Dragon Ball franchise, Majin Buu, Commander Red, and a bunch of others. Other anime Josh Martin dubbed have included Fairy Tail, Gonna Be the Twin Tail!!, Sengoku Basara, Fullmetal Alchemist, and more. He isn't really a puppeteer, b...

Damon Berry is a South African actor, puppeteer, voice actor, and filmmaker who performs Neno, the South African version of Elmo on Takalani Sesame. He spoke in nine languages on that show and got to perform with other South African puppeteers such as Nozizwe Zulu, Nyanga Tshabalala, and Boitumelo Betty Maretele. That was Damon's only puppetry credit in his career, but he still does wonderful as an international version of Elmo. Outside of Takalani Sesame, Berry has acted for television, theatre, and film too. The films he acted in were Black Butterflies, Zenon, and Starship Troopers Marauder while his television credits include The Alliance, Fallen, History of America, and To the Ends of the Earth. As for stage, he performed in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Amadeus, The Glass Menagerie, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, to name a few. In addition to acting on both screen and stage, Damon Berry is also a writer, director, and producer for films and plays. He wrote and direct...

Fergie L. Philippe is an actor, puppeteer, writer, and director who performed for both stage and screen for many years. His two most notable shows were the Broadway production of Hamilton and the 2023 Lincoln Center staging of Camelot. Fergie didn't really perform on Sesame Street, but he did appear as an extra in the 2025 Sesame Street special Cookie Monster's Bake Sale: Block Party. Philippe probably felt honored to make an appearance on the set of such an iconic show, as well as stand next to one of the performers, Sebastiano Ricci to be precise. His theatrical puppet work includes Anika's Elephants (that involved Martin P. Robinson, Pam Arciero, and Annie Evans) and the Muny's 2024 production of The Little Mermaid (performing Sebastian under the direction of John Tartaglia). As for television and film, he appeared on-screen in The Good Flight, The Gilded Age, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, so far, the only television projects he did in his career. Fergie...

Vanessa Whitney is a puppeteer, actress, and nanny who is a former performer of Henson's improv show Puppet Up from 2010-2023. That was the only known Henson production in which she puppeteered on while other performances were seen in YouTube videos (now deleted presumably). Vanessa got to meet other puppeteers while on Puppet Up, such as Grant Baciocco, Kathryn Molloy, Ben Schrader, Colleen Smith, and Raymond Carr, to name a few. Prior to doing Puppet Up, Whitney was an entertainer at The Walt Disney Company for one year and a special effects host at Universal Studios for eight years. All of that information came from her LinkedIn profile as seen online. It's a shame she never did any projects by the Henson Company besides that improv show, because then she would have met more performers and maybe meet more legends than ever before. Vanessa Whitney may not have done other productions besides Puppet Up, but at least she remained with them until deciding to leave. Since 2023, sh...

Kathryn Molloy is a puppeteer, fabricator, and wrangler of puppets/costumes/creatures and is known for doing numerous projects by the Henson Company. She puppeteered on Slumberkins, the Biutyful music video, and Puppet Up - Uncensored (since October 2022). Kathryn managed to be one of the performers by attending Henson's puppeteer training initiative in 2015 and 2021 which got her in. Molloy also got to work with several other new performers of the company such as Catrina Quintanilla, Stoph Scheer, Cat Rock, and Ben Schrader. Her outside puppetry work includes projects for several networks such as Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, Discovery, and numerous commercials. As for fabrication and wrangling, some of the projects she did over the years include Skeleton Crew, Crank Yankers (reboot), Conan, Doom Patrol, and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (upcoming). I bet Kathryn Molloy felt very excited when she became one of the main performers of Puppet Up, because she gets to work with the legends lik...

Terry Fator is a ventriloquist, impressionist, singer, and comedian who is known for combining all of his talents into one. He is perhaps best known for being the winner of America's Got Talent during the second season where he performed an act with Kermit the Frog himself. Terry also has his own Kermit puppet in which he uses in some of his shows, telling jokes and singing Rainbow Connection. Fator's career got boosted following his big win on America's Got Talent, for he headlined shows in Las Vegas, initially at Mirage Las Vegas and currently New York-New York Hotel and Casino. It must have been a dream come true for him to do a song with the real Kermit the Frog, even listing the latter's creator Jim Henson as his biggest hero, surpassing Edger Bergan, Shari Lewis, and others. In addition to his own Kermit puppet, he also has three dummies: Winston the Impersonating Turtle, Johnny Vegas, and Walter T. Airedale. It seems to me that America's Got Talent made Terry...

Carl Chadd is a British puppeteer and puppet maker who served as one of the additional puppeteers on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Otherwise, he's best known for collaborating with Phil Fletcher, assisting with the latter's puppet company, The Gluvets. Carl performed in the company's many shows as well as numerous guest appearances at puppet festivals, according to his archived site. Chadd later founded his own puppet company known as Stuffet's Puppets where he makes and sells his puppets for people to use. Apart from Fletcher, he got to perform with several Henson performers while working on Age of Resistance including Dave Chapman, Helena Smee, Warrick Brownlow-Pike, Katherine Smee, and numerous others. According to a link from The Free Library website, he once performed a Gluvets tribute to Jim Henson, which featured Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy that ultimately got cut out thanks to a threat from Disney in 2011. Let's hope that Carl Chadd wasn't too ...

Jim Jinkins is an animator, cartoonist, kids' author, and actor who is perhaps best known for founding the companies Jumbo Pictures and Cartoon Pizza. With the latter company, he produced a segment on Sesame Street called Global Thingy, in which he also voiced the title character. At Jumbo Pictures, Jim created the ever-popular series Doug (both versions) as well as creating Allegra's Window, PB&J Otter, and 101 Dalmatians: The Series. At Cartoon Pizza, Jinkins created JoJo's Circus, Stanley (series), and Pinky Dinky Doo (co-produced by Sesame Workshop). It's amazing how one animator can create all of those different shows for different broadcasting networks over the years. Not a lot of people know this, but before becoming an animator, he served as a puppeteer on Pinwheel where he performed Minus and assisted Brad Williams on the live-hand puppets. In addition to Williams, Jim Jinkins performed with Craig Marin and Olga Felgemacher, and years later, he worked with ...

Larissa Deak is an Australian puppeteer, artist, designer, and arts worker who worked with a bunch of Creature Shop puppeteers on Series 1 of The Wiggles. She got to work with Graeme Haddon, Melissa King, Gavin Sainsbury, and Mat McCoy on the puppet segments of that show. Larissa has also been one of the committee members of UNIMA Australia since 2021, according to her LinkedIn profile. Deak did lots of stuff as an arts worker over the years such as designing and delivering creative programs for lots of venues such as theatre companies. She is also one of those puppeteers to be experienced tour guides, where she gave Public Art walking tours at the Museum of Brisbane. She must have felt honored to be one of the puppeteers on a series starring The Wiggles back in 1997-1998 when production happened to take place. I wonder what other productions Larissa Deak puppeteered on throughout her career. Maybe she was uncredited on the Creature Shop series Farscape, you never know when that kind o...