Kermit the Frog is arguably the most iconic of all of Muppets, and maintains popular culture relevancy, despite having been introduced over 60 years ago. He is commonly the focus of Muppet properties and merchandise — he's even a popular image in memes! The character is down-to-earth, endlessly likable, and surprisingly relatable for a puppet frog. Puppeteer, filmmaker, and Muppets creator Jim Henson who also breathed life into other famous Muppet Show characters like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and more created the first Kermit puppets in — made out of coat material and ping pong balls — while he was a college freshman.
A local Washington D. And this is where Kermit first received his big break via the program Sam and Friends. Though it's largely forgotten today, it's an important part of Muppets history. By the time Sam and Friends ended in , Jim Henson was moving onto bigger and better things — and he took Kermit along with him. He founded his own small studio, Muppets Inc. Crucially, he acted as a guide who eased viewers into the chaotic world of the Muppets.
Kermit would play this role in the unsold pilot Tales of the Tinkerdee and the Tales from Muppetland series of specials. The first of them, Hey, Cinderella! He plays a more active part in The Frog Prince , which introduces his nephew Robin — only in this version, Robin's a cursed prince who turns into a live actor in the end!
But by the time that aired, Kermit had found his big break out on the street. In , Joan Ganz Cooney's team of idealistic young producers and educators realized how much potential there was to, in her words , "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them.
Their involvement goes back even before the first episode aired: Henson helped create a pitch reel starring Kermit in to sell Sesame Street to schools and TV stations. That pitch is a perfect example of the earnest kindness Kermit would bring to the series. When Rowlf the Dog despairs over his failure to come up with a title his producers' suggestions include Hey, Stupid!
In the early years, Kermit was a core member of the cast, teaching lessons in reading and counting through his shenanigans with Grover, Cookie Monster, and the show's cast of real kids, including one memorable sketch where a little girl sabotages his attempts to run through the alphabet. Kermit was downgraded to a "guest star" as Henson, who retained full ownership of him, began shopping the frog around for his own show.
But Kermit continued to be an active participant, taking on the role of Sesame Street's roving reporter or singing his trademark song, "Being Green. Sesame Street produced some of Henson's finest work, but he was disappointed with how it pigeonholed him as a children's entertainer. He firmly believed puppetry was capable of much more, so he decided to prove it with a prime-time show that would appeal to all ages. The formula was already in place, but with one key difference: Kermit was only a supporting character, and the shows were hosted by nondescript Muppets named Wally and Nigel.
When The Muppet Show was finally picked up for syndication in after years of rejections, Henson wisely realized that Kermit was the only Muppet with the star power to lead the show. It was the perfect outlet for Kermit's charm and gave him a cast of weirdos to push him to, and past, his breaking point.
He was no longer literally an exasperated adult trying to wrangle a group of children, but the Muppet Show cast was, if anything, even more immature and unruly. But through it all, his deep love for them held the show together.
In the show's five seasons, Kermit had all kinds of adventures behind the scenes and onstage at the Muppet Theater, from going into space to interview the Koozebanian Spooble to vampire-biting horror legend Vincent Price. By , Kermit was so popular that Jim Henson got the chance to take him to the big screen. Henson had appropriately big ideas for The Muppet Movie , transitioning from simple hand puppetry to a special effects spectacular.
It opens with a shot from high overhead as Kermit strums his banjo in the swamp, as if to challenge audiences to guess where Henson could possibly be hiding. He squeezed himself into a tiny diving bell.
And it doesn't let up from there — Kermit and Fozzie drive a car with the help of a human driver hidden in the trunk. And Kermit rides a bike, with Henson controlling him marionette-style from a crane high above the action.
The Muppet Movie brought the Muppets out of the studio and into the world for the first time, and it gets a special kind of magic out of the contrast between these fantastical characters and the real, gritty locations. It tells the story of what Kermit calls "pretty much, approximately how the Muppets got together," from Kermit's humble beginnings in the swamp to a "standard rich and famous contract" in Hollywood.
Even though the first movie gave us Kermit's life story and showed how he met the other Muppets, the series is about as interested in consistency as Gonzo is in personal safety.
A lot of sequels give filmmakers a chance to coast on their past success, but Henson and his crew went out of their way to top themselves. Kermit wowed audiences by riding a bike, so in The Great Muppet Caper , Henson used remote control technology for a scene of all the Muppets biking at once!
The Muppets Take Manhattan returns to the emotional earnestness of The Muppet Movie , with the gang splitting up after they fail to sell their Broadway show and Kermit continuing to chase his dream while working in a diner to make ends meet. But it all ends happily, and the show premieres with a big finale featuring the casts of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock where Kermit and Miss Piggy play a bride and groom He was full of new ideas, and all through his career, he tried as many as he could.
Henson even expanded into animation in with Muppet Babies. The show provided yet another version of how the Muppets met, depicting their childhood with the watchful but never-seen Nanny, and showed Henson's creativity by combining animation with live action cut and pasted from classic movies.
While the live-action Muppet Show ended in , Kermit appeared in an even more ambitious follow-up eight years later: The Jim Henson Hour. Archive All posts by date. Advertise With Us. Great Recordings T. All rights reserved. Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman. Open Culture openculture. Please click below to consent to the use of this technology while browsing our site.
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