#MuppetFest

[muppet-facts]

A fact that I hope you haven’t covered~

In last episode, Change of Address, Doc tells Gobo that his real name is “Jerome Crystal”.

Which makes his name actually “Doc Jerome Crystal” or “Doc Crystal” which sounds a lot like “Dark Crystal”

As in Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal

You learn somethin’ new everyday!

Muppet Fact #985

In the last episode of Fraggle Rock, it was revealed that Doc's name is Jerome Crystal. At the 2001 MuppetFest on the second day, Associate Creative Director and Staff Writer Craig Shemin asked during trivia, "On Fraggle Rock, what's Doc's last name?" No one could respond so he said, "I'm ashamed of you people!" Although not officially stated, the name Doc Crystal is a pun/reference to The Dark Crystal.

Sources:

Fraggle Rock. Episode 513: "Change of Address." March 30, 1987.

MuppetFest Memories: Day Two. Hosted on the Muppet Wiki.

[dailypepe]

🤪 silly please!

Alright, silly headcanon time! Though this one's also kind of fluffy. It's based on a quote from Bill Barretta at MuppetFest in 2001, where he said that they first considered making Pepe a mouse:

Pepe, obviously, has no idea that he was almost fated to be a mouse. However, in a moment of sensing it on some unconscious level, he does the "would you still love me if I was a worm?" thing with Seymour, except he asks "would you still love me if I was a mouse?" Seymour has no idea what Pepe is talking about, but since he's used to Pepe blurting out whatever nonsensical questions pop into his head, Seymour just says yes. (Though he's glad that Pepe is a prawn. And so is Pepe.)

[salo-30]

just something from my new sketchbook (thanks to @feltycartoons to gave me some inspiration for drawing dr phil and the other characters from the muppets like bunsen and beaker, i really love you're art and i'm trying to be such a good artist like you ^^)

(postscript: the drawing of bunsen and phil refers to what happened at Muppetfest 2001, it's not a ship)

[jimhenson-themuppetmaster]

Chicken Liver is a character from Sam and Friends. He is an abstract humanoid character with a tall head and a big nose. A feature in the August 15, 1959 edition of The Northern Virginia Sun, in which the Hensons were in the midst of creating a new Muppet, refers to the character as Theodore (the same article calls Harry the Hipster, "Arry").

According to Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles, Chicken Liver "was a dramatic storyteller who believed that Sam and Friends lacked culture (much like Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show). He promised to enrich the show with classical literature, including such epic stories as The Three Little Pigs."

Chicken Liver's appearances include the Sam and Friends segments "Powder-Burn," "The Westerners," and "Poison to Poison." He also appeared on The Today Show on April 10, 1961 lipsynching to "Yes! We Have No Bananas" with Kermit.

Jane Henson said at MuppetFest that Chicken Liver was one of her favorite characters. When Sam and Friends ended, she and Jim kept the puppet in their home, and it had to be significantly repaired before being donated to The Smithsonian Institution.

[themuppetmasterencyclopedia]

Chicken Liver

PERFORMER Jim Henson

DESIGN/BUILDER Jane Henson

Chicken Liver is a character from Sam and Friends. He is an abstract humanoid character with a tall head and a big nose. A feature in the August 15, 1959 edition of The Northern Virginia Sun, in which the Hensons were in the midst of creating a new Muppet, refers to the character as Theodore (the same article calls Harry the Hipster, "Arry").

According to Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles, Chicken Liver "was a dramatic storyteller who believed that Sam and Friends lacked culture (much like Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show). He promised to enrich the show with classical literature, including such epic stories as The Three Little Pigs."Chicken Liver's appearances include the Sam and Friends segments Powder-Burn, The Westerners, and Poison to Poison. He also appeared on The Today Show on April 10, 1961 lipsynching to "Yes! We Have No Bananas" with Kermit.

Jane Henson said at MuppetFest that Chicken Liver was one of her favorite characters. When Sam and Friends ended, she and Jim kept the puppet in their home, and it had to be significantly repaired before being donated to The Smithsonian Institution.

[wrightfamilyagency]

Behind the Scenes: Chapter 212

(Current Queue: 10.2 / 8 )

Turnabout Succession’s Investigation segment for Day 2 isn’t very long, so it’s actually done, but I’m gonna wait a couple more days before it goes up just to give myself time to complete more of Day 3′s trial. Nearly done with AJAA! :D

(All BtS here)

Chapter 212: The Real Names Club

And now that Turnabout Trump's storyline had finally come to a stop, it was time to catch up with the fanclub after their IRL meet-up.

The idea of a 'real name club', and that the fanclub would use it after meeting up in person, is inspired by the messageboard attached to ToughPigs, a Muppets fansite. From what I've read, there was a con, 'MuppetFest', in 2001 that most of the members of the time attended, and they began to use real names instead of usernames online. It's now in fact a tradition, that new people with usernames displayed will be offered to join the "Real Name Club" and thus the community. I also thought, realisticly, it would be a bit strange to start using real names after meeting in person and then switch back to usernames online. Their username displays changing after they first post was also inspired by a role-playing forum I used to be a part of called Unicorns Visions, where everyone's characters would be displayed between their avatar and username.

Maggey's story of how she met Phoenix was going to set the tone for how I had everyone else outline their stories, so I took my time working out exactly how much detail she would be going into and how much time she'd take up. She doesn't want people going "tl;dr" on her post after all! I thought about taking out any mention of her second trial, but decided she'd keep it as it was the second time Phoenix defended her, and I even threw in a reference to her name being oddly spelled from her first trial.

Penny again references the offscreen event where her nosey friends dug up her semi-celebrity status. She also goes into how she was talked into joining the fanclub despite not being a fan, and why she's stuck around so long.

Aria also summarises how she first hired Luke and ended up attending Apollo and Artemis' debut performance together.

Max's emotional thank you to everyone hints at a troubled life I decided not to elaborate on. I'm sure I've mentioned it, but he is trans and probably has faced discrimination for it. On a similar note, Drewby takes their first steps to not being so openly hostile with everyone.

For the various OCs the Wrights weren't previously familiar with, I tried to strengthen the idea here of how they would be recognisable to Apollo; Thus, Knox has met them after the show, and Drewby has been on stage (even making themself memorable by trying to steal Apollo's hat).

Adrian's story, unlike Maggey's, is very short and to-the-point, more in-keeping with her character... and also because that first trial in particular was especially hard on her and she prefers not to go into vivid detail even now.

Liz completely skips any 'how I met the Wrights' story, instead replying to everyone else's and mentioning offhand she has been in the Wonder Bar audience.

Naturally, Apollo and Pearl are the last to post in this thread, having spent the day with each other and their family. Pearl very briefly touches on how she met Phoenix, then waxes lyrical about her 'cousins'. Apollo goes into how he came to join the Wrights in slightly more detail, and his story is another I put a lot of work into to keep both in-character and reasonably concise - Even if these people are his friends, Apollo's still a little wary about revealing too much, especially if it's personal details about his siblings. Also, looking back on my own story, he's misremembering the detail of Maya 'telling him' the fanclub still existed: Actually, he himself mentioned people were exchanging contacts to keep in touch and Maya suggested he might be able to talk to some of them again through Maggey, with no idea herself if he would have any luck or not.

Apollo also says here "For the first time in my life, I had a family"... While you could argue this is false given the SOJ retcon, AU-Apollo in particular doesn't count the Sahdmadhis as his family. I'm hoping I can go into that in more detail once Turnabout Succession wraps up.

If I remember correctly, just the 'real names club' thread had run too short to be its own chapter, thus I came up with the Wrights using the fanclub as a testing ground for their new advertising campaign, and wrote the absolute cheesiest thing I could for Luke and Trucy to have put together. People seemed to like it, at least. :D

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #649

Kevin Clash prefers Clifford with his sunglasses and said he would refuse to reprise the role if Clifford's shades were removed.

Sources:

Muppet Q&A Panel at MuppetFest with Kevin Clash. MuppetFest Memories.

"A Video Interview with Kevin Clash." Ryan Roe. Tough Pigs. November 1, 2011.

[dailypepe]

At MuppetFest in 2001, Pepe claimed to be 21 years old, though Gonzo indicates that Pepe is lying. Pepe's real age is still a mystery.

[dailypepe]

In the 2001 live Muppet show, Pepe uses Bunsen and Beaker's X-ray glasses to see the audience naked and overcome his stage fright. While on stage, Pepe says to a woman in the audience, "you ever feel the need to peel a hot and spicy prawn?"

However, this is different from the line that was written in the script for the live show. The original line was... a bit more risque:

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #103

Originally, in The Muppets Valentine Show, Crazy Harry was called Crazy Donald. But his name was changed to Crazy Harry in his second appearance in the other pilot episode, The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence.

The name Crazy Donald was meant to be a reference to puppet builder Don Sahlin, who loved to rig explosions at other's desks.

Sources:

The Muppets Valentine Show. January 30, 1974.

The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. March 19, 1975.

MuppetFest Memories: Day Two. MuppetFest. Dave Goelz.

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #134

Gonzo's avant garde and weird acts were the brain child of writer Jack Burns. Although Jerry Juhl came up with the idea of a character who performs terrible acts and thinks they are amazing, Dave Goelz says the reason he is a mainstay is thanks to Burns.

During an early meeting for The Muppet Show, Burns suggested Gonzo perform "these crazy acts like eating a tire to 'Flight of the Bumblebee!'" And so, Gonzo's first act on The Muppet Show was exactly that. Burns also came up with his name.

Sources:

Muppet Central Interview with Dave Goelz. Ken Plume.

MuppetFest. Creating the Classic Muppets Panel. Dave Goelz. MuppetFest Memories.

[dailypepe]

Today I'm going to talk about Seymour lore! Because this is something that makes me insane. Whenever someone asks Pepe about what happened to Seymour after Muppets Tonight, Pepe gives a completely different explanation every single time. There's even a whole list of them on Muppet Wiki.

Are they all true? Are none of them true? I'm inclined to think that Pepe doesn't actually know and is just making stuff up whenever he's asked, but it could be anything. I put together as much as I could find about the list on the Wiki, and here it is, with my thoughts (cut because it got long):

The first instance was at MuppetFest in 2001, when an audience member asked Pepe about Seymour:

(Hard disagree about Seymour not being as funny as Pepe btw, pretty much all my favorite moments in Muppets Tonight have Seymour delivering the punchline in some way.)

Then in 2008, while Pepe is promoting his book (in which he talks about Muppets Tonight but doesn't mention Seymour once), an interviewer asks him about Seymour, and Pepe says that Seymour was deported to India. (Which always struck me as an... un-Muppety choice? Not that the Muppets can't have dark or sad moments, but it's usually not in a real-world systemic injustice kind of way like that.)

Then this interview from 2011 (which I actually found myself and added to the Wiki):

I have no idea what Pepe meant by "gondolier," since aren't those the people on gondolas in Venice? So I just assume he meant some kind of juggler? And "sidekick" is funny to me, since the Muppets Tonight style guide describes Pepe as the sidekick. Also shoutout to the reporter for implying that whatever happened might be too painful for Pepe to talk about, they know what's up.

I read Pepe's "I wonder if they're hiring" as a lowkey dig at the reporter, since he said they needed to get some hobbies (and apparently so do I). I don't think Pepe was asking for himself, since that doesn't sound like something he would say, but now I have the mental image of them performing in the circus together and Pepe himself being juggled. Which he deserves after some of these answers, honestly.

But I wish I had audio or video of some of these so I could at least hear his tone. Which brings me to the next interview, from 2012:

I've searched everywhere for this video, and it seems to just simply not exist anymore. So this bullet point from the Wiki is all I have to go off of. I'm so curious what other details there might've been in the interview, especially since Pepe interviews tend to be unhinged.

And that same day in 2012, Pepe gave this answer in an AskPepe Q&A:

Excuse me while I clutch my heart at "I don't want to be alone." This, plus the 2011 interview where he said Seymour was the one who decided to go solo, is why I've never bought the idea that Pepe ditched him. (Not to mention it just doesn't make sense logistically, how can Pepe have ditched him when he's the one who stayed with the Muppets and Seymour was gone? And when you watch them in Muppets Tonight, Pepe phrases everything as "we" and always talks about them like they're a team. BUT I DIGRESS.)

In 2014, the Muppets Character Encyclopedia came out, saying that Seymour returned to the elevator business (I love everything about his page, there's been so little info about him so I cling to anything we can get):

Then in 2015, Pepe made the coldest tweet of his life:

Though he did later say that he remembers him.

And finally, the 2015 San Diego Comic Con, when Pepe was asked about Seymour during a panel for the upcoming Muppets ABC series:

The "elephant farm" guy is Bill Prady, writer for the ABC sitcom (and inspiration for Chip). Bear in mind that Bill Prady also tried to make Sam/Janice a thing, so if we as a fandom can collectively disregard that, I'm going to go ahead and disregard what he says here too. There's no way I'm going to accept Seymour being dead as canon.

But that's the most recent answer we've gotten. Pepe has tweeted a couple times since then that he isn't sure where Seymour is, and I don't know if we'll be hearing about any more random Seymour adventures in the future, but I hope this isn't it!

Idk, I just wish we were given something more than this. I know characters get dropped all the time, but I can't think of any other instance in the Muppets where two characters debut as a duo and are portrayed as totally joined at the hip, then one just disappears and is literally never seen again, not even in the background, barely even mentioned unless someone asks, while the other goes on to be huge enough to be part of the main cast. Muppets Tonight is such an interesting part of Pepe's arc - it's so fun to see him hungry for fame before he gets it, uncool before he was too cool - and Seymour is an undeniable part of his story. So it just kinda makes me sad how he's been treated since, I guess. Or I just have too many feelings about a fictional elephant who hasn't been seen since 1997.

[muppet-facts]

Muppet Fact #77

Pepé the King Prawn was based off of puppeteer Bill Barretta's wife's aunt. Originally, he was meant to be a mouse, opposite Seymour, but Barretta said they "... Decided an elephant and a mouse was too easy."

When discussing his wife's aunt with Kirk Thatcher, Bill Barretta accidentally said she was "a little shellfish" instead of "selfish." This slip of the tongue is what lead Pepé to become a crustacean.

Sources:

Creating the Classic Muppets Panel at MuppetFest. MuppetFest Memories. 2001. Fanzine republished on the Muppet Wiki.

"One on One with Bill Barretta: Origin of Pepe the King Prawn | Disney Files On Demand." Disney Parks. YouTube. March 6, 2020.