Muppet

Lisa Simpson: Dad, what's a Muppet? Homer Simpson: Well, it's not quite a mop, and it's not quite a puppet, but maaaan! (laughs) So to answer your question, I don't know. —The Simpsons

Roxie: What's a Muppet? Barry Ween: Socks with attitude. God bless Jim Henson. —The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius

A character in a live-action series rendered by puppetry or animatronics. Usually used to create an Alien or other non-human character.

Technically, "Muppet" is The Walt Disney Company's trademark name (a coined name, not a portmanteau of "marionette" and "puppet" as is commonly believed) for the unique brand of puppets created by Jim Henson. This usage generally occurs in such things as television shows and movies. Other production shops have adapted Henson's techniques, which have revolutionized puppetry. For many people now, Muppet and puppet are practically synonymous.

Henson created a merging of puppetry (using the hands for the mouth movements) and marionettes (in their use of wires and how animated their movements are). Before television, puppetry was a fairly static art. Henson made the Muppets almost hyper-kinetic, putting a lot of energy into the performance. Furthermore, the way the puppets were operated, for example making them look directly at something (typically with a puppeteer's hand directly manipulating the head), gives them a remarkably lifelike appearance. In addition, while puppeteers in previous productions hid behind a structure on screen in keeping with tradition, Henson realized he could just stage his show using the TV screen frame itself in order to hide the operators and focus all attention on the puppets.

Animatronics was also improved by the Jim Henson shop. Animatronics employs a complex series of mechanics to create a creature with much more subtle movements and expressions than a standard puppet, such as blinking eyes or opening gills. A puppeteer may often wear a full body suit and an animatronic head.

Now common in children's shows, Muppets became widespread due to their surprising popularity in Sesame Street, a Henson co-production.

A common sub-type is the Hand Puppet. For CGI characters, see Serkis Folk.

In British slang, the word can be an insult, indicating someone who is clueless and incompetent.

Muppets have their own Wiki, which can be found here.

If you're looking for the Muppets series, you can find it here.

Examples of Muppet include:

Commercials

• Even before Sesame Street, early proto-Muppets appeared in ads for La Choy Noodles, and C&P Telephone, among others.
• Muppet Show and Sesame Street Muppets have continued to appear in commercials into the current century. Farmers Insurance even did a special series of commercials featuring the Sesame Muppets for the show's 50th anniversary.

Film

• The Muppets' feature films:
  • The Muppet Movie
  • The Great Muppet Caper
  • The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • A Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Muppet Treasure Island
  • Muppets from Space
  • The Muppets
  • Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird
• Parodied in the very adult film Meet the Feebles.
• In the movie The Dark Crystal, the entire world consisted of such aliens.
• Nearly all characters in Labyrinth, such as Hoggle, Sir Didymus, Ludo, and those really strange creatures who dismember themselves at will (and think Sarah can, too). Inside the labyrinth, the only characters that aren't Muppets or actors in some sort of Muppet-enhanced suit are are Sarah, Jareth and Toby.
• Yoda, of Star Wars fame.
  • Yoda is portrayed and voiced by veteran Muppeteer Frank Oz in the original trilogy and first film of the prequel trilogy, but due to the need for Yoda to be in elaborate fight sequences in Episodes 2 and 3, Yoda became CGI but was still voiced by Frank Oz.
    • Its more the other way around, according to the special features, they had Yoda CGI in a couple scene in Ep. 1 and by Episode 2 realized they had the technology to do Yoda convincingly as CGI so gave him the elaborate fight with Dooku, if it hadn't worked the fight would have been Mace Windu vs. Dooku.
  • The Rancor of episode VI was scary as hell and very realistic, but a muppet nontheless. Also other aliens form the Star Wars verse, including the Wampa, Max Rebo and Salacious Crumb.
• Most of the creatures in Hellboy II (bar the Elemental, the Stone Giant and titular Golden Army).
• The first three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films and the television show Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation.
• Audrey II in the 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors. Please note it was directed by the aforementioned Frank Oz.
• The Vogons in The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. All puppets in the film were designed and constructed by the Jim Henson Creature Shop.

Live-Action TV

• Most of Jim Henson's live works include The Muppets.
  • The Muppet Show, obviously.
  • Muppets Tonight
  • A Muppet Family Christmas
  • Little Muppet Monsters (which combined puppet and animated segments)
  • The Muppets (2015 series)
  • Muppets Now
  • Muppets Mayhem
  • Fraggle Rock (though the characters are no longer Muppets on paper, since they were not included in the Disney deal and are still owned by The Jim Henson Company)
  • Sesame Street
    • Parodied in Greg the Bunny.
    • Also parodied somewhat on Crank Yankers.
    • Wonder Showzen completely and utterly thrashes this show around in their yard.
  • Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas
  • Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree
  • The Christmas Toy and its spinoff The Secret Life of Toys
  • The Tale of the Bunny Picnic
  • The Animal Show
  • Some of the dinosaurs from Dinosaurs, at least the ones that aren't played by actors in costumes, that is.
• Not to mention such programs as The Jimmy Dean Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.
• And earliest of all, Sam and Friends, a locally-produced late '50s children's show on a Washington D.C. station, which featured Henson performing several Muppet characters, including an embryonic Kermit the Frog.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, the earliest episodes of Saturday Night Live had sketches with muppets (not The Muppets per se, but original characters). Sadly, the Animation Age Ghetto came into play and the Muppet sketches were withdrawn.
• A third of the cast of Farscape. (Pilot, Rygel)
  • That's just the main cast. A good number of alien extras and guest characters are Muppets as well.
  • Note well that these muppets were provided by the Jim Henson Workshop.
• Almost every actual alien species (not counting displaced human cultures) on Stargate SG-1, most notably the Goa'uld/Tok'Ra symbiotes and the Asgard. (The Re'tu and the Replicators are Serkis Folk.)
• N'Grath, the mantis-like crime lord from the first season of Babylon 5.
  • And was recycled as the She-Mantis in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Teacher's Pet".
• Joel Hodgson's Puppet Bots from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• During one Angel episode, the stars of the quality edutainment show Smile Time. And Angel himself.
  • Which adds double meaning to Spike's "You're a bloody puppet!" line.
• ALF.
• Pinwheel and its Spiritual Successor Eureeka's Castle, two staples of the early days of Nickelodeon. The latter in fact featured several Sesame Street performers.
• Most of the cast of LazyTown. Why, we may never know, because they're all Muppets of supposedly human characters (although it is a good way to make exceptionally silly characters without asking people to give up their dignity).
• Marcus of Mega 64. This is frequently lampshaded.
• Spitting Image.
• Pinch, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld's New York Times Correspondent. A copy of the NYT with cardboard eyes and a string attached. A regular "panelist" along with Bill Schulz, who are the token liberal butt monkeys.
• Mongrels, which tries to do "to puppetry what The Simpsons did to animation." Your Mileage May Vary on this statement
• Treinta Y Un Minutos

Comic Books

• In the mid-80's Marvel Comics made a 3-issue Comic Book Adaptation of The Muppets Take Manhattan, as well 20 issues of Muppet Babies. Harvey Comics got the Muppet babies license, and reprinted some of the Marvel stories.
• Boom Studios all-ages imprint, Boom Kids, acquired the license in 2009, and have been publishing an ongoing since 2010, as well as various miniseries which put the Muppets in the roles of various stars of literature and mythology.

Theatre

• Sesame Street is parodied, subverted, lampshaded and everything else in The Musical Avenue Q, which is not by Jim Henson. (Though several of the performers worked on the real Sesame Street and other Muppet or Henson Company productions, and the show's star, John Tartaglia, is the current maestro of the rebooted Fraggle Rock.)
  • • Although even earlier than this was their appearance in the "Land of Gorch" sketches on NBC's Saturday Night (Saturday Night Live), which parodied and subverted a few things as well.
    • And while not technically theater, there have been many stage shows (both touring and at Disney theme parks) featuring the Muppet Show and Sesame characters over the years, usually featuring performers in costume miming to voice tracks recorded by the actual puppeteers.

Video Games

• The actual Muppet characters have appeared in scores of video games, from the earliest days of Atari to smartphone apps.
  • Not surprisingly, given the franchise's appeal to kids, a great many of them have been targeted at preschool-aged children and meant to teach basic reading, math, etc. concepts, especially the nearly 90 Sesame Street games that have been released over the years. But there have been some others featuring the Muppet Show cast aimed at a more general audience. A few examples:
    • Jim Henson's Muppets for the Game Boy Color
    • Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival for the Nintendo Entertainment System
    • Muppet Monster Adventure
    • Muppet RaceMania, a Mario Kart-style racing title for the PlayStation
    • Muppet Treasure Island, a CD-ROM based on the movie
    • Muppets Party Cruise, a minigame "party" game a la Mario Party, also for the PlayStation
    • Pigs in Space for the Atari 2600, based on the popular Muppet Show skits

Web Original

• Since being dismissed from the Muppets in 2016, performer Steve Whitmire (originator of Rizzo the Rat, Bean Bunny, Lips, Wembley Fraggle and Sprocket, and second-generation performer of Kermit, Ernie and Beaker) has remained active on social media with his original character, Weldon the I,T. Guy.
• Transylvania Television, "The Retro Monster Comedy Show that's not for kids," contains examples of Muppet-style puppetry.
• The Dan Deacon music video for Paddling Ghost features a whole array of differently articulated muppets, evidently telling The Hero's Journey of a bedsheet ghost with an eyepatch.

Western Animation

• The Robinsons from The Amazing World of Gumball all resemble muppet characters and have Marionette Motion, though they're actually CGI.
• Animated versions of the actual Muppets appeared in Muppet Babies (traditional cel animation in the '80s/'90s series, then CGI in the 2010s/20s reboot), Little Muppet Monsters, and the short-lived animated Fraggle Rock. Oh, and Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.