THE MUPPETS

The Muppets are a group of puppets and costume characters, and the company created by Jim Henson. Individually, a Muppet is properly one of the puppets made by Jim Henson or his Creature Shop – though the term is often used erroneously to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark linked to the characters created by The Jim Henson Company.

The word "Muppet" itself was said by Henson to have been created by combining the words "marionette" and "puppet"; however, Henson was also known to have stated that it was just something he liked the sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet" story while talking to a journalist because it sounded plausible.

Muppets are distinguished from ventriloquist "dummies", which are typically animated only in the head and face, in that their arms or other features are also mobile and expressive. Muppets are typically made of softer materials. They are also presented as being independent of the puppeteer, who is usually not visible, hidden behind a set or outside of the camera frame.

Appearance
The most common design for a Jim Henson Muppet is a character with a very wide mouth and large protruding eyes. The puppets are often molded or carved out of foam rubber, and then covered with fleece. Yarn, nylon string, or (most commonly) ostrich feathers are used to create hair. Muppet eyes are often made (as in the case of the original Kermit) from ping-pong balls, from fishing floats, or from a hemispherical toy called a Wacky Stax. Muppets may represent humans, anthropomorphic animals, realistic animals, robots or anthropomorphic objects, extra-terrestrial creatures, mythical beings or other unidentified, newly imagined creatures.

Operation
The puppeteer typically holds the puppet above his head or in front of his body, with one hand operating the head and mouth and the other manipulating the hands and arms, either with two separate control rods or by "wearing" the hands like gloves. One consequence of this design is that most Muppets are left handed as the puppeteer uses his right hand to operate the head while operating the arm rod with his left hand. There are many other common designs and means of operation. In advanced puppets, several puppeteers may control a single character; the performer who controls the mouth usually provides the voice for the character. As technology has evolved, the Jim Henson team and other puppeteers have developed an enormous variety of means to operate puppets for film and television, including the use of suspended rigs, internal motors, remote radio control, and computer enhanced and superimposed images. Creative use of a mix of technologies has allowed for scenes in which Muppets appear to be riding a bicycle, rowing a boat, and even dancing onstage with no puppeteer in sight.

Famous Muppets
Famous Muppets include Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rowlf the Dog, Beaker, Scooter, Statler & Waldorf, and Animal. The most widely known television shows featuring Muppets are Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and The Muppet Show. A recurring adult-oriented cast of Muppets (in a setting known as The Land of Gorch) were part of the first season of Saturday Night Live. Other less-popular series have included The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight. The puppet characters of Farscape, The Storyteller, The Hoobs, and Dinosaurs, as well as from the films Labyrinth, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Dark Crystal, are not considered Muppets, although they were also made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. For a history of Jim Henson's Muppets, see Jim Henson.

After earlier unsuccessful attempts, The Walt Disney Company finally bought the Muppets in 2004. Exceptions include characters appearing on Sesame Street (as they were previously sold to Sesame Workshop), the Fraggles of Fraggle Rock, along with the above-mentioned non-"Muppet"-brand characters.

The Muppets' popularity has been so expansive that Muppet characters have been treated as celebrities in their own right, including presenting at the Academy Awards, making cameos in Rocky III and An American Werewolf in London, and being interviewed on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes. Kermit the Frog was interviewed early on in Jon Stewart's run on The Daily Show. and has served as Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade. Michael Parkinson once famously interviewed Miss Piggy on his UK chatshow.

Muppet-like and Muppet-inspired puppets star in the 2004 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q (which disavows any relationship with Sesame Workshop or the Jim Henson Company).