A Mime falls in the forest…..
Posted By Kathleen David on September 24, 2007
I heard over the weekend that Marcel Marceau shuffled off this mortal coil.
I can’t remember the first time I saw a performance of his but I do remember I was pretty young. He was one of the first names of a performer that I recognized and kept an eye out for. I always loved watching him perform. He had a glee about it even when he was playing sad. He was a master of his art and beloved globally. He talked about the universal appeal of mime and how it was a form of performance that had no borders or language.
I want to see “Silent Movie” now.
I am grateful that Caroline saw him perform on an old Sesame Street segment when she was younger. He made her laugh which made me happy.
On another note, today would is Jim’s Henson’s 71st birthday.
So who is/are your favorite muppet(s)?
I have so many but Bean Bunny, Bøøbër (from Fraggle Rock) and Kermit hold a special place in my heart.
Mna-Mna, Uncle Dudly, Gonzo, Emmet Otter…
To be honest, it’s more a case of “Are there any Muppets that don’t give you a warm glow and/or tug at your heart strings when you think of them?”
(And the answer of course is no, not really.)
I like most all of them – I’ve got the entire run of the Palisades figures on display in my living room, and I wish they’d been able to get even more characters done before they went under…
Of course, I’ll always have one heck of a fond spot for the main four (Kermit, Fozzie, PIggy, and Gonzo), but some of the newer ones really grew on me, like Bobo the Bear, and the Johnny Fiama/Sal Minella duo…
Beaker (and Bunsen, but Beaker wins that one). Both Lisa and I have spent far too many years around (or as) mad scientists not to appreciate the pair of them.
Animal, for the sheer unbridled id of it all.
Kermit, of course, and not just b/c that was my grandfather’s name.
Rowlf. (The Kermit/Rowlf duet in the first movie is one of my all-time favorite moments.) I think Rowlf as Dr. Bob may be the peak of Rowlf’s characters, but Rowlf is pretty much uniformly awesome — he keeps everyone on such an even keel.
The Muppet likenesses of Henson, Oz, and Nelson (?) that showed up a few times early in the Muppet Show’s run. (Henson’s in particular was awesome.)
Link Hogthrob, if only for “you forgot to push the stoppy-thiiiing!” in the Star Wars-themed episode.
The four African-masked Muppets who sang w/ Harry Belafonte in “Turn the World Around.”
Ernie.
The Swedish (bork) Chef, especially when I got a little older and realized that it was Henson and Oz doing everything they could to mess with each other’s heads.
Countless others. And with the exception of Elmo, I’ll second David’s last two sentences.
TWL
There’s a kids’ show that Henson does called The Hoobs. In England it’s broadcast on Channel 4, but the only place I’m aware of in the USA that broadcasts it is PBS Kids Sprout, PBS’s preschool channel that is usually only available on digital services. (I don’t think the regular PBS stations broadcast it.)
It follows a trio of vaguely Sesame-Street-monster-looking aliens who have come to Earth to explore our culture to add it to the knowledge of their own society back in Hoobland. Each episode revolves around a question the Hoobs are trying to answer–Why does ice melt?, How do you catch a falling star?, Why do people give presents to each other?–with the help of their “tiddlypeep” (human children) friends.
And it’s great. We started watching because our 17-month-old son would come running into the room whenever he heard the theme music and just sit enraptured throughout the entire episode, but it’s so intelligent and has so much going on that it’s sucked in my wife and me too–we’ll actually sit and watch it even if our son’s not around. Apparently in England it comes on at six o’clock in the morning and has something of a cult following of college students who have stayed up all night and watch it–and I can absolutely see why. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a chance to watch it.
The Hoobs
Meant to include a link to their website, but I guess the html didn’t take for whatever reason:
http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/H/hoobs/index.jsp
Kermit, hands down, though I always liked Bunsen Honeydew because he looked exactly like my middle-school music teacher. I was 4 in 1969, the original target audience for Sesame Street, so I will always have a soft spot for Ernie, too. And Prairie Dawn, because she’s so underrated. The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains my favorite Muppet Movie.
The mention of “monster-looking aliens” makes me remember one I forgot: the YipYips! Who can resist them, I ask you?
Top Ten Muppets of all time
10- Gonzo – For all the suicidal mainacs in all of us.
9. Rizzo the Rat… Especially in “Christmas carol” when he forgot his peanuts… hilarious!
8. Fozzie- for all of us who can’t tell a joke, but still imagine we’re funny
7. Clifford – Great latter-day host and the first black comedian that cracked me up without swearing every third word.
6. Sam the Eagle… for the bit when he realized that everybody was stark nekkid under all their clothes…. SHOCKING!
5. Animal – We all wanna be this cool when we loose control….!
4. ALL the Brian Froud work on both “Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth”….. Ground-breaking.
3. STATLER AND WALDORF…. You just can’t pick one over the other.
2. Piggy. Enough said. Makes Paris Hilton seem like a wanna be. Watching it in her childhood, do you think she said “That’s Me!”
And the Number One Muppet… Jim’s Pride and Joy…
1. Kermit. The classic every-frog… uhh man. We all want to be like him and the women wish we WERE him. Loved him best as Captain Smollet in “Treasure Island”
Bob Ahrens
Oh…before i was able to understand that he wasn’t a living breathing thing i had a crush on Rowlf:) (I think that was back when he was on the Jimmy Dean Show? I hope i have that right..i WAS pretty young).
When i was older (i was a bit old to be the ‘target’ audience, but young enough to get a kick out of it and loved the French words) i’d watch Sesame Street (on Detroit and Toledo stations where you got the French…when i moved to NJ i realized instead of French they got Spanish!)i really liked Ernie.Who can’t appreciate a guy who enjoys a nice soak in the tub?
COOKIE MONSTER!
The “Casey Cookie” routinew is one of the all-time great muppet routines.
And his attempts to write to Santa on the “Sesame Street Christmas “all those years ago: “Where phone? … uh-oh…”
And the Martians (or whatever) “Yep yep yep yep yep!” Somebody – Bernie Willinger and his wife? – did them as costumes at RiverCon one year…
Regarding Ernie, BTW – one of the most touching tributes to Jim Henson after his death was a four-panel strip showing Bert waking up:
“Ernie?”
Ernie’s bed is empty.
Bert walks to the bathroom.
The rubber duckie is sitting on the edge of the tub.
Bert sits down on the edge of the tub and just sits there quietly, head bowed, holding the duckie in his lap…