Here it is for your viewing pleasure!

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They spent some time joking around with the Today Show cast as well:

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Disney’s acquisition of the Muppets caused a great deal of stir among Muppet fans. The company was immensely adept at using synergy to promote its various properties:  Promoting their movies and TV shows in the Disney parks, the theme parks in various TV specials and parades, and cross-promoting their characters across all forms of media from TV and movies to music, books, and toys/gifts. There was excitement in the air. Muppet fans eagerly awaited the ambush of Disney promoted Muppet releases. They had to wait a little while.

As with any major acquisition, the Muppets were tied up in existing contracts when Disney purchased them. Disney had to wait a bit, to allow those contracts to run their course, before doing anything extensive with the properties. In addition, the Disney company had another problem. The Muppets were no longer relevant to today’s culture. They had been absent long enough that newer, younger generations were not as familiar with the characters, or as interested in getting to know them. Older generations of fans remembered the Muppets with nostalgia, but could Disney recapture that fandom AND gain new fans at the same time in a culture that grew up with CGI rather than puppetry? Disney attempted as early as 2005 to rejuvenate the Muppet brand, but the company had not yet figured out how best to do so, and instead most projects either died on the drawing board or were lost among the flotsam and jetsam of entertainment promotion.

In 2008, Disney stepped up efforts to reintroduce the Muppets. It’s taken nearly a year to do so, but it really seems as if their efforts this time were successful. Take a look at the recent YouTube video of the Muppets performing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The video quickly went viral, and now has over 7 million (yes, that’s MILLION) hits, with nearly 40,000 reviews and a five-star average rating. It was a trending topic on Twitter for a couple of days, and has been the subject of many a blog post (including on this blog!). The Muppets have a history of over-the-top parody and just plain fun. This video brings us back to those days of Muppet humor and Muppet glory.

Now we’re beginning to see the true value of Disney synergy. Kermit the Frog performed a duet with Disney Channel star Tiffany Thornton during the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Macy’s Boston Tree Lighting ceremony. Last year’s Christmas special, “Muppets: Letters to Santa” has recently been released on DVD and the music is available in MP3 format from Amazon.com. (The special re-airs this Friday on NBC as well)

In the theme parks, the Muppets are also getting some much needed attention. Rumor has it that Muppet Vision 3*D is due for a makeover to Disney Digital 3D in the near future. Updates to the pre-show and queue areas of the attraction in both Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida and Disney’s California Adventure in California are also rumored. David Gumpel, who directed the original pre-show, has posted in his blog that he directed a new pre-show for the updated attraction in November of 2008, but he had no further information on when it would debut. In October of 2009, the queue area of the attraction received new movie parody posters. With titles like “Beak-e” and “Hammah Montana”  the new posters are representative of what happens when Muppet humor meets Disney humor face on!

One can only hope that the current excitement over the Muppets will lead to bigger and better things. Updates to the existing theme park attractions, future performance videos and guest appearances, and an untitled movie in the works for some time around 2012 appear to be in the Muppet’s future. If they continue with the same quality as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” they should snowball into a return to popularity for the Muppets. After all, everything old is new again. Although computer animation is popular, Disney has returned to the good-old-days with hand-drawn animation in “The Princess and the Frog” and 20th Century Fox has returned to old-fashioned Claymation (puppetmation) with “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” both to critical acclaim and audience approval, so perhaps the time is right to return to good, old-fashioned puppetry as well. I certainly hope so!

You can view the Parody posters here:

In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few days, you may have missed this terrific video of the Muppets performing the classic Queen song, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

This YouTube video went positively viral via Twitter and other social networking feeds yesterday. There’s a reason:  It truly brings us back to the days of classic Muppet mayhem! It has everything – the classic characters intermixed with the newer and lesser known Muppets. It has clucking chickens, Beauregard playing air guitar on a mop, and the Mahna-Mahna guys singing backup. Who couldn’t love that!

I also love the fact that, as they did historically, the Muppets have taken a song with lyrics that might be questionable for their characters (or at least not necessarily appropriate for all ages) and changed them to suit their needs. For example, the entire, “Mama, just killed a man” sequence features Animal simply shouting “Mama!” over and over again (ending in a very Muppetesque and Animal-appropriate punchline). Brilliant!

Watch the end of the video carefully, too. Note that Kermit and Scooter are using a computer that combines Windows 7 and Mac OS, running a program that appears to be a hybrid of FireFox and Adobe programs as well. It’s that kind of smart, subtle humor that the Muppets have been missing lately. Kudos to them for bringing it back (in HD no less!).

In case you don’t know some of the Muppets included in the video, Muppet Wiki has identified them all.

Prepare to LOL!

Today we honor that show. So, happy birthday to all the Sesame Street gang. Happy birthday to Big Bird and Ernie and Bert, to Grover and Oscar, to the Count and Cookie Monster. Happy birthday to Elmo and Zoe and Abby, the relatively new Muppets, and to Prairie Dawn and Herry Monster, the older ones. Happy birthday to Kermit the Frog and happy birthday to Bob, and Susan, and Luis, and Maria, and Gordon, and Linda, and Buffy, the grown-ups.

Happy birthday to those who will be missed:  Will Lee, Richard Hunt, Northern Calloway, Michael Jeter, and of course Jim Henson.

Happy birthday to Kevin Clash, and Caroll Spinney, and Frank Oz, and Jerry Nelson, and Marty Robinson, and Brian Muehl, and Fran Brill, and Michael Earl, and Eric Jacobson, and Steve Whitmire, who labor all day hidden behind foam and feathers, sometimes in bird legs.

Happy birthday to Bob McGrath, and Loretta Long, and Matt Robinson, and Emilio Delgado, and Sonia Manzano, and Linda Bove, and Buffy Saint-Marie, and Roscoe Orman, and Hal Miller.

Happy birthday to Mr. Noodle and his brother, and to Miss Noodle. Happy birthday to Bill Irwin, and to Micahel Jeter, and to Kristin Chenoweth.

Happy birthday to the poor baker who couldn’t seem to hold onto those cakes as he came down the stairs, to the counting pinball machine, and the King of Eight. Happy birthday to water skiing hippos, and ladybugs on a picnic. Happy birthday to worms in space, imaginary Snuffulupuguses (and real ones), and Grouchkateers.

Happy birthday to John John, and Erik, and Hunter, and Maya, and all the kids who grew up on the street, or who live there now.

Happy birthday to Amazing Mumford and his magic, to Don Music and his piano, and to those aliens who like the sound of a telephone ringing.

Happy birthday to Joan Ganz Cooney, and Edward Palmer, and Gerald S. Lesser, who started it all.

Happy birthday to anyone I missed. We all have our favorite memories, and there were so many people involved in the show, it’s impossible to remember them all by name. We appreciate them all the same.

Most importantly, happy birthday to all of us; the viewers who grew up on Sesame Street and who now share it with our children, and our children’s children.

It’s been 40 wonderful years, Sesame Street. We’ll help you count out 40 more, and 40 more after that. We can, you know…You taught us how!

First of all, it is a common misconception that Elmo is somehow “new.” He was first introduced to the Street in the early ‘7os. Elmo was originally puppeteered by Caroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch) and then later by Richard Hunt until Hunt’s death in 1984. So the story goes, someone tossed the little red monster Muppet to puppeteer Kevin Clash, saying “see what you can do with this.” Clash played around with the character, and made him what he is today. Prior to Clash’s involvement, Elmo had never really developed a notable character or personality, but Elmo has been a minor part of the show since almost the beginning. It was Elmo who helped hold Snuffy in place (by grabbing him by the trunk!) so the adults could finally see him for example.

One of the reasons for controversy is Elmo’s way of speaking. Elmo always refers to himself in the third person:  “Elmo play now!” rather than using correct grammar. Critics chastise the character, and the program, for “teaching” this incorrectness. Sesame Workshop defends this decision. “Elmo mimics the behavior of many preschoolers. Like 3-year-olds, he doesn’t always have the skills or knowledge to speak proper English. Cast members and many of the other Muppets, however, do demonstrate proper usage of the English language.” You know what? They’re correct.

The show has historically portrayed characters as realistic, even if flawed. Big Bird is naive. Ernie is sometimes annoying, and Bert is boring (he collects bottle caps for goodness sake!). Grover is persistent and frequently a little dim. Even the adults on Sesame Street make mistakes. They say things they don’t mean. They take things for granted. Kids relate to the show for precisely this reason. They see themselves in it somewhere, and they see the adults and children they interact with in real life in there too.

The other controversy surrounding Elmo is his prominence. Other characters, favorites of my generation, have taken a backseat to the little red furry monster. Where is Cookie Monster, or Grover? Why are the animated shorts we so loved reduced to make room for “Elmo’s World?” Why is Elmo basically the ONLY Muppet from the Street to appear on talk shows and news programs? What about Big Bird? Didn’t the show used to focus on him? Wasn’t HE the one we were teaching as a surrogate for the viewing audience?

Well, yes. Those are all good questions. But the truth is, things change. Children change. Schools change. Educational philosophies and curriculum change. Times change. Elmo speaks more to today’s kids. They have numerous resources for learning numbers and letters. Their attention spans are shorter now that they have media overload. Longer segments help build their attention spans and more emphasis on imagination, art, music, and play fill voids that kids miss out on in today’s highly academic schools. Elmo’s younger than Big Bird (Elmo’s 3 1/2 according to him, and Big Bird is usually considered to be around 6), so his development is more in line with the ages of the children watching the show.

Big Bird and his fellow Muppet characters have not been replaced. As times change, so does the show. Even within the past few years, Elmo’s hold on the show has lessened. He no longer holds reign as the central character, even though he is still prominently featured. He’s popular, and when educating children, popularity is key. Kids learn better when they love and trust the teacher. Right now, they love and trust Elmo.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

One of my favorite non-Muppet characters as a child was Mr. Hooper, who ran the corner store. As played by actor Will Lee, Mr. Hooper was gruff but not unfriendly. According to Joan Ganz Cooney, president of the Children’s Television Workshop, “He gave millions of children the message that the old and the young have a lot to say to each other.”

That was especially true of Mr. Hooper and Big Bird. Since Big Bird was aged at around 6-years-old, his relationship with Mr. Hooper was exactly what Cooney was speaking about. Big Bird never managed to get Mr. Hooper’s name right, calling him “Mr. Looper,” or “Mr. Dooper,” and other humorous similar sounding names. This always brought an exasperated and exaggerated “It’s HOOPER!” from Mr. Hooper. I suspect that it’s just this running joke that made Mr. Hooper the most recognizable human character on the show according to a survey done during his time on the air. Children would run up to him on the street, wanting to know how he got out of the television set or whispering “I love you.”

Lee himself spoke of the longevity of playing a character like Mr. Hooper in a 1970 article in Time Magazine. “I was delighted to take the role of Mr. Hooper, the gruff grocer with the warm heart. It’s a big part, and it allows a lot of latitude. But the show has something extra, ­that sense you sometimes get from great theater, the feeling that its influence never stops.”

Although I remember bits and pieces of Mr. Hooper’s appearances on Sesame Street from my childhood, the episode I remember the most is the one he’s not in. When Lee passed away in 1982 from a heart attack/cancer, Sesame Street was faced with a challenge. It was not uncommon for shows to deal with the death of an actor by either replacing them with another actor in the same role, or simply writing them out. Many a character had suddenly “moved away” after the actor portraying them had died.

But Sesame Street was an educational program, and it took this role seriously. They decided to deal with Lee’s death in a straightforward and honest manner, by dealing with Mr. Hooper’s death as well. Episode 1839 aired on Thanksgiving Day (November 23) 1983, a year after Lee’s death. Parents were encouraged to watch the episode with their children to answer any questions they might have. Episode 1839 was quickly chosen by the Daytime Emmys as one of the 10 most influential moments in daytime television. The original script was so intense, the cast shot the episode in one take so they wouldn’t have to do it again.

The episode begins with Big Bird entering with a funny walk. When asked why, he answers “just because.” Later, Big Bird has drawn pictures of the people on Sesame Street, and he is handing them out. Left with only the picture of Mr. Hooper (actually drawn by Big Bird’s puppeteer Caroll Spinney), Big Bird begins searching for him to present his artwork. Sadly, the human characters remind him that Mr. Hooper has died. He won’t be coming back. The episode is brilliant in its simplicity. There’s no attempt to gloss over death. The group’s explanation of death doesn’t invoke, or rule out, any religious or scientific beliefs. The answer to why someone dies is simple:  “Because. Just because.” Nothing more needs to be said.

The episode ends with Big Bird and the gang hanging the picture of Mr. Hooper behind Big Bird’s nest, where it still hangs today. The way to deal with death, whether you’re an adult or child, is to embrace your memories of the deceased. We love Mr. Hooper and remember him fondly.

Here is the segment from episode 1839. Make sure you have a box of tissues handy when you watch it!

This article is dedicated to the memory of Will Lee (August 6, 1908 – December 7, 1982). We’re sure gonna miss you, Mr. Hooper!

The anniversary has prompted me to consider some of my favorite episodes and sequences from the show. There are a lot to choose from, and sesamestreet.org has a treasure trove of classic and new video clips to watch. For those of you who, like me, haven’t watched the show for awhile, it’s a great way to catch up. For those with younguns of your own who watch Sesame Street, or have recently, it’s wonderful fun to go back and enjoy those classics WE grew up with!

My memory for today is not of Cookie Monster, but of Grover. I always loved Grover, and Frank Oz’s performance of him. One of the notable elements of Sesame Street was the uncertainty of working with very young children. They don’t always do what you intended them to do. It’s hard enough to operate a Muppet on a busy TV set, while watching monitors and keeping lights and cameras aimed correctly. Add the element of a child who isn’t entirely sure he knows what’s going on, and you have an improvisational challenge.

That’s what happened when Grover and a youngster named Erik played a rhyming game. Grover suggested to Erik that they rhyme, and Erik looks dubious if not downright confused. Grover throws out a word to rhyme:  “Boy.”

Silence.

“What rhymes with boy?” Grover asks.

A shrug.

“Do you know what rhyming is?”

A nod, another shrug, then a shake of the head. Nope, Erik doesn’t remember what rhyming is!

Only stymied for a moment, Grover comes up with a definition. Rhyming is two words that sound alike: Like “boy” and “toy.” Changing tack, Grover suggests that Erik give a word and Grover will rhyme it.

“Boy,” Erik suggests helpfully.

“Toy,” says Grover.

“Monster.”

Silence!

Realizing he’s been had, Grover goes for humor.

“Watermelon!” he suggests to giggles from Erik. Then “Sassafras.”

“Clonster,” suggests Erik.

Why not? Grover loves the idea. Who says rhyming words have to mean anything?

The skit ends in a hug between Erik and Grover, with Grover chanting “Clonster, Monster” in a soft voice.

Frank Oz is my hero!