Miss Piggy made a guest appearance in Queens last Friday. So did Fozzie Bear, Bert, Animal, Grover, Cookie Monster and Yoda. Frank Oz, the man behind some of the world’s most beloved puppets, encompasses multitudes, his voice (or rather voices) familiar to anyone who has ever spent time on Sesame Street, at the Muppet theatre or in a galaxy a long time ago, far, far away. He rarely speaks in public and Muppet folk packed into the Museum of the Moving Image to see him—late-comers ended up sitting on the stairs.
Speaking with Victoria Lebaume, the co-producer of the soon-to-be-released documentary Muppet Guys Talking and also his wife, Oz talked about his life-long love of puppeteering, his time with the Jim Henson Company and his work as an actor and director. Their conversation was peppered with clips, as well as occasional contributions from Dave Goelz (the voice of Gonzo and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew among others) and Muppet designer Bonnie Erickson, who were both in the audience.
Most of all, Oz spoke about Jim Henson, his collaborator and friend and one of the biggest creative influences on his life. The photos below are from the magnificent Jim Henson Exhibition, a new, permanent addition to the Museum of the Moving Image’s collection dedicated to Henson’s life and work. The exhibition celebrates both the familiar (Kermit et al.) and the obscure (did you know Henson thought of opening a nightclub?) aspects of his career with warmth and respect. I saw it the day it opened, in July, and can’t wait to see it again.
And now, wock wocka wocka, five titbits from an evening with Frank Oz.
Bert’s origins are far from boring.
Bert and Ernie, Sesame Street’s resident bore and his practical-joker roommate, are the show’s iconic pairing, but Bert’s personality developed almost by accident. Jim Henson originally chose to play Bert, until he decided he preferred Ernie, leaving Oz with a puppet that seemed “just a stick” in comparison. Bert stubbornly resisted Oz’s attempts to make him playful or interesting or anything at all. “I couldn’t figure out the character. He was so boring, so I made him that,” Oz said. And so the bottle-cap collecting, pigeon-fancying pedant was born.
The great lady, in costume for ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan’.
When in doubt, chop.
Miss Piggy was originally Richard Hunt’s character, before Oz tried her out and asked to keep her. In one early sketch, she was supposed to slap Kermit; for reasons he doesn’t know himself, Oz decided she should karate chop the frog instead. “The karate chop created the character for me because she’s trying to get this frog,” Oz said. “It’s her one great obsession in life. But the tougher she is, the more she drives him away. So she has to be coy.”
Oz has a back story for all the Muppets he played.
Because of course he does. Miss Piggy’s involves her father dying in a tractor accident when she was a young piglet, leaving her alone on the farm with her mother. As Piggy grew older, she became quite a beauty, which caused a rift with her mother as Mrs. Piggy’s male friends started to pay more attention to her daughter than to her. Piggy left for New York and enrolled in charm school. But the bills weren’t cheap and she paid them by doing something she wasn’t proud of: a bacon commercial.
Jim Henson loved a challenge.
The Great Muppet Caper (1981), the Muppets’ second big-screen outing and the only one Henson directed, includes an extravagant, Esther Williams-style water fantasy for Miss Piggy that is a wonder to behold. “This was Jim. Jim did the impossible,” Oz said. They filmed it at Elstree Studios in the middle of winter: it was snowing outside; luckily the pool was inside and heated. Oz and Piggy were both underwater, with a TV monitor and speakers so he could see his performance and hear the soundtrack. He had bricks tied to his feet, so he wouldn’t float; a diver supplied him with air through a tube. Just before the cameras rolled, Oz would take a deep breath and the diver would take the tube away.
C is for Cookie Monster.
Oz’s favourite character is…
Grover, the bumbling, well-meaning blue Muppet on Sesame Street. Why? “He’s pure.”
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