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A&E BIO OPENS ‘SESAME’

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BIOGRAPHY CLOSE-UP: SESAME STREET. Sunday night at 8, A&E. 3 Stars. The expanded “Close-Up” editions of “Biography,” like all other installments of the ubiquitous A&E series, are hit-or-miss affairs. Because they come from different production companies and film makers, some are fabulous, others are filler. Sunday’s “Biography Close-Up: Sesame Street” (at 8) is much closer to the former than the latter. Host Harry Smith conducts some of the interviews himself, including one where Carol Spinney, the puppeteer behind Oscar and Big Bird, calls himself “a lucky man” and another in which Jim Henson’s daughter, Cheryl, recounts his amazing Muppet legacy. Writer-producer-director Jonathan Talmadge covers all the bases here: sociologically, artistically, technologically, historically. Clips from the disastrous early test version of “Sesame Street” – the one without most of the Muppets, and with fantasy characters segregated from human cast members – are included, as are samples of Henson’s clever, pre-PBS commercial work. But nothing’s as beautiful as watching little kids react to Kermit as only kids can: kissing, hugging, giggling and totally accepting the reality of a big talking frog. Watch this “Close-Up” and you’ll fall under that spell all over again – and, for the first time on “Sesame Street,” peek behind the scenes to see how these particular Muppets work. And the whole two-hour documentary, in this case, is brought to you by the letters A&E.

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• Cast & crew

Close-Up: Sesame Street

• Episode aired 2001

a look behind the scenes at the long-running children's show. a look behind the scenes at the long-running children's show. a look behind the scenes at the long-running children's show.

• Caroll Spinney
• Kevin Clash

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Don’t Call the Muppet Performers Voice Actors

“Why are they so impressed with the voice? The voice is nothing. I didn’t create a voice, I created a character, and the voice came afterwards.” -Frank Oz (A&E’s Biography: Sesame Street )

Last Friday, March 16, the documentary called Muppet Guys Talking was released online. The stars of the film are show business veterans, but they’re not usually in the spotlight – it’s the characters, not the puppeteers, who get all the glory. In the days leading up to the film’s release, they’ve been getting a lot of press, which must be nice for them to see, except for one phrase that frequently pops up in the coverage – a phrase that might just make their skin crawl every time they see it.

That phrase is “voice actors.”

For example, when the trailer went live, The Digital Fix went with the headline “The Original Voice Actors Reveal Their Stories!” And when  Good Morning America  posted their interview with the performers online, the description started with “The voices behind the characters…”

It’s an easy mistake to make. With extremely rare exceptions, the Muppet people do, in fact, provide the voices of their characters. But to call them “voice actors” is simply not accurate. And you know, if you can’t turn to the internet for accuracy, where can you turn?

Of course, voice actors are talented people. They stand in front of a microphone and create a performance using nothing but the sounds that come out of their mouths. That’s a great skill, and the best voice actors deserve the long, prolific careers they’re often blessed with.

But Muppet performers are… not that. They’re another species entirely. Muppet performers work with microphones, sure, and they come up with funny voices for wacky characters, but those microphones are attached to them while they hold their arms up in the air, run around soundstages, squeeze into uncomfortable positions, and get squished against their colleagues all day, all while staring at monitors. And acting.

Just look at veteran Muppet performer Dave Goelz’s performance as Gonzo singing “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” in The Muppet Movie:

Did you cry? I bet you cried. There’s so much emotion emanating from that scruffy little puppet. He subtly sways to the music, he casts his eyes sadly to the ground and hopefully up to the sky. Dave’s voice sells the emotion of the song, sure, but it’s his puppetry that really gives the scene its weight. Meanwhile, the other Muppet performers speak volumes with their characters without uttering a word. Including Dave’s colleague Jerry Nelson, who is playing a chicken.

That’s not voice acting.

As a life-long, dyed-in-the-fleece Muppet fan, when I hear a less-nerdy consumer of Muppet media refer to Frank Oz as “the voice of Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show ,” I always wonder whether that viewer even noticed that Miss Piggy is a tangible, physical puppet. Did they notice that she’s constantly moving, whether she’s snuggling up to Christopher Reeve, dancing with Elton John, or karate-chopping Kermit? And did they think a stagehand did all that moving while Frank Oz sat in a recording booth drinking coffee?

Or take the “Rainbow Connection” sequence in The Muppet Movie . Everyone loves that number, but the majority of folks who have enjoyed it probably have no idea how it was achieved. Muppet fans are familiar with the crazy story, which is retold in Muppet Guys Talking : As seen in the wide shots, Kermit the Frog is sitting on a log in what is essentially a real, swampy pond built on a studio backlot. Unlike the classic Sesame Street sketches, there was no fake brick wall for Jim Henson to simply hide behind. He was under the surface of the water in a tiny, cramped, airtight diving bell, with an oxygen line so he could breathe and his arm in a rubber sleeve that went above the surface and allowed him to perform the Kermit puppet. And he had to do that for five days. And Jim was 6’3″.

Those are extreme examples. But even the seemingly simple gig of a Muppet appearing on a talk show can be demanding for the performers. For example, look at this image from a 2015 Kermit and Piggy appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live:

Where the heck are the puppeteers?! They’re not, as YouTube commenter LanceTV suggested, “wearing the cloak of invisibility.” No, they’re stuffed inside those chairs with their arms sticking through into the puppets. But even when you understand this fact, it’s like… How? How can two full-grown adult men (Steve Whitmire and Eric Jacobson, in this case) fit themselves in that space… and then wiggle those puppets for the duration of the interview? It would be reasonable to expect that their arms would fall off.

How long can YOU hold your arms straight up in the air? I can do it for just a couple of minutes before they start to get tired. And fortunately, I can put them down. But these guys have to hold theirs up for several minutes at a time, all day long. In the A&E Biography special on Sesame Street in 2001, Caroll Spinney talked about traveling to Melbourne, Australia to perform Big Bird in a parade that lasted an hour and 45 minutes. That’s almost two hours inside a bulky costume, holding up a 4.5-pound bird head!

That’s another extreme example, but still… That’s not voice acting.

Not to mention those moments when the Muppet performers have to get uncomfortably close to each other. Just look at this image, often circulated on the internet :

When people who are not Muppet geeks see this image, they often comment on the fact that the guy on the left has his face in Jim Henson’s armpit. That guy, of course, is Richard Hunt. He was one of the most prominent Muppet performers from the 1970s to his death in 1992. He played Don Music, Forgetful Jones, and Placido Flamingo on Sesame Street; Scooter, Beaker, Janice and Statler on The Muppet Show; and Junior Gorg and dozens of others on Fraggle Rock . He was a big deal in the Muppets. And yet, sometimes his job was to stick his face in his boss’s armpit.

In the Muppet Guys Talking documentary, the titular Muppet guys talk about performing while perched precariously on a forklift, riding a makeshift elevator, and buried in a hole in the woods. They do whatever it takes to make the scene work. The work they do is often strenuous, often exhausting, and always very physical. And it’s not voice acting.

So the next time you hear someone call these guys “voice actors,” try politely but firmly correcting them. It’s the least you can do for the Muppet performers after all they’ve gone through to entertain you.

For more on this subject, head over to the amazing Muppet Wiki and take a look at the collections of behind the scenes photos to see lots of full-grown adults squeezed into odd positions with their arms over their heads!

P.S. “Muppet performer” is the preferred terminology. You could call them “Muppeteers,” but Jim Henson reportedly hated that word. But that’s a topic for another time!

Click here to hang out inside a chair on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – [email protected]

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A&E Biography Video on Sesame Street

• Thread starter timmylogue
• Start date Jun 6, 2007

Well-Known Member

Haw, I taped this when it aired on A&E awhile back... though it said I was supposed to erase or destroy it six months ago. I didn't do that though, I love it, and besides, it's not like I'm going to be sharing it with anyone.  

minor muppetz

D'Snowth said: Haw, I taped this when it aired on A&E awhile back... though it said I was supposed to erase or destroy it six months ago. I didn't do that though, I love it, and besides, it's not like I'm going to be sharing it with anyone. Click to expand...

This same behind-the-scenes special was AIRED on A&E three times (that I can remember); the first time was in the spring of 2001 but I missed half of it, it aired again in the fall of that same years but once again I missed half of it, then in the winter of 2004 it aired again but I managed to tape it this time, but at the beginning of the special there's a disclaimer that says "Today's presentation of A&E may be taped solely for instructional use, and may be retained until December 31, 2006. Thereafter you must erase or destroy the recording. No other use is authorized by A&E". I didn't erase or destroy, and I don't plan to!  

The first airing of that documentary was on March 21, 2001. I remember it well because I had taped it. Great material.  

zns said: Great material. Click to expand...

it says "part 1"... is there more to it?  

D'Snowth said: This same behind-the-scenes special was AIRED on A&E three times (that I can remember); the first time was in the spring of 2001 but I missed half of it, it aired again in the fall of that same years but once again I missed half of it, then in the winter of 2004 it aired again but I managed to tape it this time, but at the beginning of the special there's a disclaimer that says "Today's presentation of A&E may be taped solely for instructional use, and may be retained until December 31, 2006. Thereafter you must erase or destroy the recording. No other use is authorized by A&E". I didn't erase or destroy, and I don't plan to! Click to expand...

CoOKiE said: it says "part 1"... is there more to it? Click to expand...

minor muppetz said: I believe that this special was later split into two-parts. Click to expand...

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Stephanie D'Abruzzo

• View history

D'Abruzzo with Prairie Dawn at the 2015 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade .

D'Abruzzo performing Carrie Underworm .

D'Abruzzo presents Lulu to the writer's room as seen in A&E Biography: Sesame Street (with Steve Whitmire right-handing).

Stephanie D'Abruzzo (b. December 7, 1971) has been a Sesame Street puppeteer since 1993. In that time, she has performed a myriad of background and one-shot characters, and recorded vocals for a number of songs, including an animated version of " Sing " and " Brothers and Sisters ." Her major characters of note have included Elizabeth , a loud but cheerful little girl; Lulu , a curious monster (whom D'Abruzzo helped to develop [1] ); Baby Bear 's little sister Curly Bear ; and Prairie Dawn beginning with season 46 .

D'Abruzzo first made contact with the Muppets through David Rudman . Rudman informed D'Abruzzo that The Jim Henson Company was having a huge casting call for female performers. She went to New York to audition, made all the cuts, but was only placed in a talent pool that would not necessarily guarantee her future work. A few months later, she went back to participate in a month-long workshop in New York and slowly started becoming a Muppet Performer on Sesame Street . Her first day of performing was November 3, 1993, in Episode 3162 where she played Monster #3. [2]

D'Abruzzo has performed and voiced nearly 200 characters for various projects including Oobi (playing Uma and Inka), Bear in the Big Blue House , Donna's Day , The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss , Binyah Binyah! , The Puzzle Place , Rory's Place (for which she co-wrote a pair of episodes with husband Craig Shemin ), Sheep in the Big City and The Book of Pooh (playing the inquisitive bird Kessie).

Despite her extensive work with the Muppets , D'Abruzzo first gained greater recognition as an original cast member of the puppet musical Avenue Q where she originated the characters of Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut. Her performance garnered her a 2004 Tony nomination, a Theatre World Award, a special Outer Critics Circle Award (for Outstanding Ensemble and Puppet Artistry), as well as a 2003 Drama Desk nomination for the show's Off-Broadway run. In December 2005, D'Abruzzo ended her run with the project after more than two and a half years to pursue roles in I Love You Because , and worked with Bobby Lopez again on the studio album for the Walt Disney World stage show Finding Nemo: the Musical (as Sheldon and Deb). Her previous stage credits include Skitch Henderson's New Faces of 2004 at Carnegie Hall, Carnival and Chess .

D'Abruzzo's television credits outside of her work as a puppeteer include an appearance on the musical episode of Scrubs and as a commentator on I Love the 70s: Volume 2 . As a voice actress, she was heard in the Mo Willems animated series Sheep in the Big City (as Lady Richington, Swanky, and Lisa Rental). In 2013, she performed in the direct-to-DVD release Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map (as puppeteer and voice of Velma and Shirley).

• 1 Muppet/Henson credits
• 2 Voice roles
• 5 External links

Muppet/Henson credits [ ]

• Sesame Street : Prairie Dawn (2016-present), Elizabeth , Lulu , Curly Bear , and others...
• The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss : Little Cat B , Jane Kangaroo , Sarah Hall-Small , Max , and others...
• Sesame Street Jam: A Musical Celebration : Oinker Sisters (uncredited puppeteer only in the big finale number)
• Let's Eat!: Funny Food Songs : Cinderella , Dish , Little Miss Muffet
• The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland : Grizzy , Pesties
• Bear in the Big Blue House : Juner
• Telling the Truth : Leo's Mother
• Elmopalooza : Amphibean Band Member (" Caribbean Amphibian "), Zoe (" Songs ", puppetry only), [3] various
• CinderElmo : Queen, Mouse
• Sesame Street Goes to the Doctor : Additional Puppeteer
• Elmo's Magic Cookbook : Jean the Genie
• Elmo's World: Wild Wild West!
• Elmo's World: Happy Holidays! : Lavender Caroler
• Talk, Read, Write : Dalia
• Bert and Ernie's Word Play : Flo , The Frosty Four
• Kids' Favorite Country Songs : Monica the Harmonica , Mousey
• Dinosaurs! : The Fairy Information Operator
• MasterCard commercial
• Carnival : Puppeteer
• The Muppets Take Over Today : Ann Curry Muppet, Pokey
• A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa
• Families Stand Together : Flea Market Lady Monster
• Food for Thought : Cheese
• When Families Grieve : Aunt Jill
• Scrubs : Ex Ray
• Elmo's Shape Adventure : Circle, Square
• Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me
• Kinect Sesame Street TV
• Little Children, Big Challenges : Jane
• Words Are Here, There, and Everywhere
• The Cookie Thief : Muncha Lisa , Cookie Patrol
• Julie's Greenroom : Peri
• When You Wish Upon a Pickle : Gale Warning
• Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration
• Elmo's Playdate
• The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo : Cookie Monster's niece
• My Sesame Street Friends
• The Muppets Mayhem : Tina Teeth

Voice roles [ ]

• " Sing " and " One Fine Face " animations
• " Brothers and Sisters "
• Journey to Ernie : Flying Clown
• Cookie's Crumby Pictures : "Ladyfinger" and "Cookiefall" vocals for " The Spy Who Loved Cookies "
• Orange is the New Snack theme vocals
• Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures : Ostrich Lady , Heidi , Bertina , others
• Abby's Flying Fairy School : Super Fairy
• Elmo's Monster Maker iPhone game: various monsters
• The Monster at the End of This Story : Grover's Mommy
• Furry Friends Forever: Elmo Gets a Puppy : Mae
• see Stephanie D'Abruzzo cameos

Sources [ ]

• ↑ A&E Biography: Sesame Street
• ↑ Stephanie D'Abruzzo's Official Website (archive link)
• ↑ Stephanie D'Abruzzo (Puppeteer/Actress) || Ep. 31

External links [ ]

• Official Website
• YouTube demo - puppeteer, voice, and acting reel
• 1 Season 54 (2023-2024)
• 2 Episode 5427
• 3 Elmo's World episodes