Kermit the Frog is a Muppet character created in 1955 and originally performed by Jim Henson. An anthropomorphic green frog, Kermit is the pragmatic everyman protagonist of numerous Muppet productions, most notably as the showrunner and host of the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show and a featured role on Sesame Street. He has appeared in other television series, feature films, specials, and public service announcements through the years. He also served as a mascot of The Jim Henson Company and appeared in various Henson projects until 2004.
The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an absurdist, surrealist, burlesque, and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they have become a media franchise encompassing films, television, music, and other media associated with the characters. Owned by the Jim Henson Company for nearly five decades, the characters of the Muppets franchise were acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2004.
The Muppet Show is a variety sketch comedy television series created by Jim Henson and starring the Muppets. It is presented as a variety show, featuring recurring sketches and musical numbers interspersed with ongoing plot-lines with running gags taking place backstage and in other areas of the venue.
Fozzie Bear is a Muppet character from the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show, best known as the insecure and comedically fruitless stand-up comic. Fozzie is an orange-brown bear who often wears a brown pork pie hat and a pink and white polka dot necktie. The character debuted on The Muppet Show, as the series' resident comedian, a role where he uses the catchphrase "Wocka wocka!" to indicate that he had completed a joke. He was often the target of ridicule, particularly from balcony hecklers Statler and Waldorf. Fozzie was performed by Frank Oz until 2001, after which Eric Jacobson became the character's principal performer.
Steven Lawrence Whitmire is an American puppeteer, known primarily for his work on The Muppets and Sesame Street. Beginning his involvement with the Muppets in 1978, Whitmire inherited the roles of Ernie and Kermit the Frog after Jim Henson's death in 1990; he performed the characters until 2014 and 2016, respectively. As part of the Muppet cast, he has appeared in multiple feature films and television series, performing a variety of characters on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock and during such occupations has been employed by The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop, and The Muppets Studio.
The Muppet Movie is a 1979 musical road comedy film directed by James Frawley and produced by Jim Henson, and the first theatrical film to feature the Muppets. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film was written by The Muppet Show writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. Produced during the third season of The Muppet Show, the film tells the origin story of the Muppets, as Kermit the Frog embarks on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, encountering several of the Muppets—who all share the same ambition of finding success in professional show business—along the way while being pursued by Doc Hopper, a greedy restaurateur with intentions of employing Kermit as a spokesperson for his frog legs business.
The Muppets Take Manhattan is a 1984 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Frank Oz and the third theatrical film featuring the Muppets. The film stars Muppet performers Jim Henson, Oz, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, as well as special appearances by Art Carney, James Coco, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, and Brooke Shields. Filmed in New York City during the prior summer, it was released theatrically on July 13, 1984, by TriStar Pictures. A fantasy sequence in the film introduced the Muppet Babies, toddler versions of the lead Muppet characters.
The Great Muppet Caper is a 1981 musical heist comedy film directed by Jim Henson and the second theatrical film featuring the Muppets. The film stars Muppet performers Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Steve Whitmire, as well as Charles Grodin and Diana Rigg, with special cameo appearances by John Cleese, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov, and Jack Warden. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company and distributed by Universal Pictures. In the plot, the Muppets are caught up in a jewel heist while investigating a robbery in London.
Muppets from Space is a 1999 American science fiction comedy film directed by Tim Hill, written by Jerry Juhl, Joseph Mazzarino, and Ken Kaufman, produced by Brian Henson and Martin G. Baker, and the sixth theatrical film featuring the Muppets. The film stars Muppet performers Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, Bill Barretta, and Frank Oz, as well as Jeffrey Tambor, F. Murray Abraham, David Arquette, Josh Charles, Hollywood Hogan, Ray Liotta, Rob Schneider and Andie MacDowell. In the film, Gonzo attempts to discover his origins. After he and Rizzo the Rat are captured by government officials during his search, Kermit the Frog and the rest of the Muppets set out to rescue them.
Matthew James Vogel is an American puppeteer, actor and director known for his work with Sesame Workshop and The Muppets Studio. He has been the performer of Kermit the Frog since 2017 and the full-time performer of Big Bird since 2018.
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real-time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
Space Fury is a multidirectional shooter arcade game developed by Gremlin. Sega/Gremlin released the game in North America in June 1981, and then Sega released it in Japan the following month. It is the first game with color vector graphics, and was Sega's second game to use speech synthesis. Coleco published a ColecoVision version with raster graphics in 1983.
The Muppet CD-ROM: Muppets Inside is a 1996 video game based on The Muppets franchise produced by Starwave for Windows. The title is a play on Intel's advertising slogan, "Intel Inside". The game's plot consists of several Muppets characters getting trapped inside a computer, and Bunsen sending Kermit and Fozzie Bear into the computer to rescue them.
Hey, Cinderella! is a 1969 television special adaptation of the fairy tale Cinderella, produced by Muppets, Inc. in the United States and Robert Lawrence Productions in Canada, and featuring The Muppets created by Jim Henson, who also directed the special. It was written by Jon Stone and Tom Whedon, and scored by the music composer of Sesame Street, Joe Raposo. It featured Kermit in his first appearance as a frog, as well as Goshposh and Rufus and Splurge.
Rocky Mountain Holiday is a television special and a soundtrack album of songs from the special, performed by American singer-songwriter John Denver and The Muppets. The show has Denver playing host to the extended Muppet family; he takes them up into the scenic Rockies for an excursion that includes fishing, hiking, and camping. The soundtrack album was released in November 1982, and the special itself aired May 12, 1983, on ABC. In 1984, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Album for Children, but lost to Michael Jackson's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook.
The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years is a one-hour special starring Jim Henson's Muppets. It was shot in Toronto, Ontario in 1985 and aired January 21, 1986 on CBS.
Gonzo is a Muppet character from the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show, known for his eccentric passion for stunt performance. Aside from his trademark enthusiasm for performance art, another defining trait of Gonzo is the ambiguity of his species, which has become a running gag in the franchise. He has been considered to be of various origins, including a Frackle in his debut appearance in The Great Santa Claus Switch, an extraterrestrial in Muppets from Space or an avian creature.
Muppet Babies is an American animated television series featuring toddler versions of the Muppets characters that began airing on Disney Jr. on March 23, 2018 and is aimed at a target audience of children from aged 4–7. It is a reboot of the original 1984 animated series of the same name. 71 episodes were produced.
Muppets Now is an American television series produced by The Muppets Studio for Disney+. Directed by Kirk Thatcher, the series is an improvisational comedy based on The Muppets franchise by Jim Henson. It premiered on July 31, 2020.
