Your Favorite SST Muppet Design Through the Years

CensoredAlso

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I agree. Though they aren't the best, I really have a soft spot for all of the season 1 puppets. I like the first orange Oscar (seen in episode 1) better than the second orange Oscar (seen in I Love Trash).
You know I kinda like the first orange Oscar; he had this odd combination of cute and slightly creepy. I mean he looked sort of fluffy and nice, but didn't seem to have any arms, so all you saw was this disembodied head and neck peeking out, lol.
 

Nick22

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You know I kinda like the first orange Oscar; he had this odd combination of cute and slightly creepy. I mean he looked sort of fluffy and nice, but didn't seem to have any arms, so all you saw was this disembodied head and neck peeking out, lol.
i agree. i prefer him in green, but the orange oscar wasn't too bad.
 

dwmckim

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Herry - the second puppet is the all time best. The first one with the blue nose didn't look that great (but far from the worst as i'll get to in a sec), but once they improved on him with the purple nose, the size, eye focus and shagginess, that is to me the ultimate Herry - the one i know and love

The worst Herry is the current one (though "current"'s kind of a funny word being how infrequent he's become) - since the 80's, every time the puppet has been rebuilt/modified, it looks worse than the one before...and that's been a steady trend without really any blips on the downward chart. The puppet's become smaller, the nose got smaller in proportion to the face (making it look for a time like he actually had a nose job)...Herry has really become the perfect example of rebuilds gone wrong - when a gorgeous puppet is rebuild and doesn't look as good as the one before it...and then the next one tries to copy the flawed one more than try to get back to what made the one before look better...making the next one look more flawed and the cycle continues. It was so bad on the 20th anniversary special when they showed a clip of Herry and John John counting and ended it with a close up of John John "today" (that is, 1989) finishing off with "20" and then the camera cuts back to modern Herry and John John talking about how he grew up...all the while Herry looks horrendous compared to what we just saw which is all the more unintentionally funny since the whole scene's about how John John changed and grew up yet even more jarring is the physical change of Herry...who looks more like he grew "down".

Then as if one didn't think they could possibly make Herry look worse, his eye placement got really bad - the last time i saw him, his eyes were focused in such a way that it gave him an expression like he dropped his barbells on his foot just before the camera started rolling!

Perhaps its best he's been MIA for awhile - we can all imagine that during his time offscreen, he's either been adopting a new fitness regimen and bulking back up to become more of the Herry we knew and loved and will one day come back on screen looking so much better or that his downward slide has continued even more and we've all been spared seeing the disgrace on our screens. I almost imagine a scene where the new smaller Zoe puppet realized that there's something in the monster drinking water that's making them shrink and the moment she voices this to someone she hears a voice saying "you're telling me" - and looks down to see Herry Monster the size of a Twiddlebug.

Some random thoughts on others...

Ernie - third (season)'s a charm - the third season Ernie looked like the perfect version of what it seemed like the builders wanted to acheive with him now reaching its peak. By contrast, given four decades of Ernie, it doesn't look as bad now and not among the ugliest or worst puppet but at the time i really didn't like how Ernie looked in late 70's/early 80's since the fabric he was made of changed and the way the dye took to the fabric and made him a darker orange. The older Ernie's looked so good and these "new" Ernie's looked so wrong...i really did not like it at the time though now in hindsight it's not so bad.

Bert took about another season to get perfected. The moving eyebrow helped but it took the second puppet with this change to really reach what it seemed like his peak. The eye focus/expression/overall look of Bert circa 75 was just really great.

Elmo - loved late 80's Elmo - the puppet looked great and this was also interestingly enough when the character was at its best...lovable, sweet, actually funny and a thrill to watch. Then by mid-90's the shaggier Elmo gave way to a puppet that had its fur matted way down ... and seemed to get worse via constant use of the puppet wearing it down further...i always think of it as "worn down fur" Elmo when i see it...then came the new Elmo puppet in time for the debut of Elmo's World which compared to the one before it made it look like Elmo took a few too many rides in the laundry dryer. I actually think that worn down fur Elmo now actually looks better in comparison.

Cookie Monster from mid70's was my fave...the first two seasons were a little rough (though i liked the look of them - especially the super shapeless mouth - i especially loved when Muppet illustrators would try to capture that look) ... and of course whenever a sketch would come on with that earlier Cookie, i loved it because it meant an "old film" was on which always seemed funnier (even to a little kid...in the mid 70's, you could tell the difference between a sketch done more recently and one from the first few years...and they were always a treat to see them! I had the same reaction to seeing a "real old" Ernie and Bert sketch! I loved those first season puppets when i was a kid just because they represented the sketches that were just wildly funny) Once they streamlined Cookie's look around late 80's/90's and he had a basically "normal" shaped puppet mouth, that was the end of an era for me...Cookie actually still looked good at times afterwards but it was such an essential part of what made Cookie Monster Cookie Monster that it was a little heartbreaking to finally see that aspect of the puppet "perfected" (and when was the last time an illustrator had drawn Cookie with that old classic mouth?)

In contrast to a lot of the others, Big Bird is one of those rare examples of someone who just continues to look better. I really didn't like the eye placement or kind of the roughness of a lot of the puppets from the 70's (something about the shape/angle of the lids actually kind of unnerved me around 76/77)...but the brighter and more fluffier Big Bird of later years really looks quite beautiful and classic to me.

Zoe - loved the original puppet. Then came the pink tutu which i did not think went well with the orange fur...made her look more like she was always wearing pajamas more than a tutu. Soon after that was introduced, the eye placement got really bad for a time as well. Finally they got the shading of the fur (and the tutu) better and the eye placement problems fixed where the puppet has looked really good the last few years (and when i saw it live, up close and in person last year...it was absolutely beautiful)...which makes me all the more depressed about it being replaced with "mini Zoe"

Characters like Count, Sherlock, Guy, Biff, Prairie, etc that are built from Anything Muppets change so much due to their nature, that it gets hard to comment on them... even though someone like say The Count probably doesn't have all his features pulled and rearranged as often as other AM's, you can still see him go under quite a few subtle changes season to season and even within a season. But i really did not like how The Count was looking for a large number of years in late 70's/early 80's...really thought he was really pretty ugly. (Looked like a puppet version of Liberache on a bad day). He finally started looking much better in mid80's.

Lulu - had to comment on Lulu since she underwent a major design change each season (and sometimes within a season) during her short time on the show...kind of ironic for someone whose original "hook" seemed to be that she tended to take a little time to accept anything "newwwww". I liked the lighter version of her with glasses (that was seen in the opening credits for a few years), but the darker one from the next years was too extreme...i felt sorry for her because it looked like she fell down an "ink" well.
 

Drtooth

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You know I kinda like the first orange Oscar; he had this odd combination of cute and slightly creepy. I mean he looked sort of fluffy and nice, but didn't seem to have any arms, so all you saw was this disembodied head and neck peeking out, lol.
Actually, I think the fact he looked fluffy, nice and had a very bright color wasn't a good look for the character. The desing was great... color didn't seem to fit him.

When it comes to Oscar, I think Grouch... and when I think Grouch I think... they love garbage, they're unfriendly, and they live in mild filth. Grouches, when we see other ones, usually have dull Earth tone colors (if not, just dull colors). So, I'd imagine the crayon colored monsters need to have a bigger contrast with the grouches, by giving the grouches a duller, muckier look. Oscar's pale pea soup green gives him the look of taking regular mud baths and eating Sardine, cookie dough, and liverwurst sandwiches (with butterscotch pudding and moldy bread). Plus, I tend to like what they did in the late 70's, 80's, and even today. Instead of giving him nice fluffy fuzzy fur, he has a very mangled, grouchy tangled wave of unkempt scuzzy fuzz... all the furry monsters seem to have their fur nice and neat and combed... Oscar looks like he went out of his way to look quite the opposite. I actually like drawing Oscar just because of his messy fur... all those little crinkly edges...
 

CensoredAlso

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Oh yeah I think green Oscar is ultimately the best look for the character. Orange Oscar is just an interesting historical note. Plus perhaps representative of its time when everything was being drenched in bright color, lol. :wink:
 

JLG

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I love this topic!

Big Bird
My favorite Bird is the one who seems to have been used in the mid to late 70s (including Christmas Eve), when the feathers on his head were shaped in a somewhat triangular way. In the 80s they rounded the feathers out into a more conventional round shape, and that's how he's stayed since. I think in the 70s he was also a little bit skinnier, i.e. a less thick coat of feathers.

Ernie
MF: Definitely the Season 3 (1971) puppet, no contest. I love his expression and his general head shape. It's hard for me to tell if the Season 4 Ernie had slight modifications---his body seems a bit thicker, but it could be my imagination---but in general I love the way he looked from '71 to whenever it was later in the decade that they premiered the puppet seen in Christmas Eve, which I really don't like. I like the faces of the puppets that followed in the 80s, but I don't like that they plumped him up a bit.
LF: And like some others here, I really dislike the newest one. He looks all wrong, like he's made out of candy. And his expression is altered, since they've placed his eyes further from his hair than usual. It makes a big difference.

Bert
MF: Season 3 and Season 4 are both my favorites (with Season 4 maybe having a slight edge because I think that's when they first gave him movable eyebrows). Ernie and Bert in 1972, to me, are at their most appealingly funny. However, when they began to make Bert less grumpy and a little more open, they new puppet seemed to reflect that in the later 70s, as in Christmas Eve. I don't dislike that puppet (though I hate its accompanying Ernie of the time), but its friendliness makes it less funny than the earlier ones.
LF: The one that showed up early in this decade. Yow! I don't know how they could have gotten him so wrong this time. Way worse than the current Ernie. His neck is much too thick and his mouth is too low---it really changes the character. I really am confused as to why, in general, they seem to be much less good at remodeling the characters faithfully than they were even during the 90s.

Oscar:
MF: I admit I have trouble telling Oscars apart as much as others. I can tell that after the two orange ones, they went through at least three green designs before settling on the current look in 1974. If indeed, as someone said, it IS the same puppet today, with only modifications over time, then I'll have to say I like him best in the early 80s. His eyes seem to have been opened up a little wider than before, which upped the cuteness quotient. And for a grouch to be lovable, it needs all the cuteness it can get. :smile:
I also liked it during he brief period when his fur seemed to be messier and more "spinachy" than usual. I'm not sure when this was. Sometime in the early 80s?

Cookie:
MF: The one seen in year 3 (1971) that was a duller blue and had a smaller back of the head than now. I don't dislike the fuller, more fleshed out versions that came later (it's hard to go wrong with Cookie!), but I think the first head was more interesting just because it looked a little "off".

Elmo:
MF: Definitely the one in the late 80s. I think it was an upgrade from the first one, making him a little bigger and less shaggy. And I think maybe that one was replaced once during the 90s before "Elmo's World" came along. That one was okay, but a little less interesting than the 80s one because it was more polished.
LF: It doesn't seem to be consistent lately (it's hard to tell because Elmo's World is always recycling itself), but I strongly dislike that "combed down" version, like some others have called it. It also has a somewhat duller expression than the others did, to my eye.

Prairie Dawn:
MF: She's harder to keep track of, but I love the way she looked in every appearance of hers I've seen that was from the 90s. It was a more developed version of her 70s self (or what I've seen of it).
LF: They slightly redesigned her recently, and I didn't care for it. Though, to be fair, I guess they finally figured her old dress was too dated. Changing her hair was unnecessary, though.

Hoots:
MF: First one. I don't exactly when they did this, but they replaced his original "sleepy" eyes with piercing, more birdlike eyes sometime in the early 90s. I never liked those as much as the droopy ones, but they were all right.
LF: The totally unecessary and odd-looking redesign that dampered my initial excitement at seeing him return. 2005, was it?

Count:
Also hard to keep track of. All I know is that I could always tell when it was an earlier one. Just subtle differences I have trouble describing. I don't see much difference between his mid to late '80s self compared to now. (Though maybe his eyes are slightly bigger---not sure).

Snuffy:
After the 70s, I have trouble spotting differences on him. I don't think he's changed noticeably for about 25 years. He's defintely more expressive than his 70s incarnation.

Herry:
MF: 1972 (Jon-Jon) and his 90s selves.
LF: As someone else mentioned, the version that appeared alongside grown-up Jon-Jon in '89.
I'm not sure what he looks like now....

Grover:
MF: The version seen around 1978 or so, from what I can make out. I'm thinking for example of the sketch where he was trying to push the number 2 and no one was cooperating. (and where Kermit turned the tables on his "Hey, froggy babeeeeeee!" routine).
LF: It seems like there are two different puppets being trotted out lately. There's a strange, small-headed, overly shaggy version that's a lighter blue than usual (and whose eyes seem to be somewhat off), and another version whose face looks better but is a much more saturated blue than any other has been. The second one's okay except for that blue, but the small-headed version is all wrong.

Kermit:
MF: I like the Kermit that was being used around 1971. They fixed his eyes from that strange cross-eyed look he had the first year. I also like the puppet seen in the later 70s (Christmas Eve, the Grover "2" sketch I mentioned above).
LF: There seems to have been another version seen in the earlier 70s. One place you can find it is the immortal "A-B-C-D-E-F-Cookie Monster" sketch that everyone loves. I just don't like the head shape on that Kermit.

I saw something somewhere where Henson said there were always three or four Kermits in existence at one time, I think.

BTW----Drtooth, I just wanted to say that I agree with every single word you said in that post that talked about things getting too overperfected in general, and where you touch on the utter blandness of the 70s/early 80s Looney Tunes merchandise (limited animation watered-down Friz Freleng* look----yep!). In the Looney Tunes' case, it's interesting to me how the current favored look is almost the total opposite of that, yet it's replaced one kind of blandness with another. Now I would call it "corporate" blandness---cartooniness and energy with no real personality behind it. No point of view. Ya know what I mean?

*as opposed to what Freleng's stuff looked like in the middle '40s, which included what happens to be my favorite Bugs Bunny design.
 

Muppet Frog

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Ernie- I like the 1983-1994 version. I don't know if I'd like the original Ernie with that purple and yellow sweater. Zoe-The reason that I like wearing Zoe wearing her tutu is that it makers her 100 percent cuter. I don't like that mini Zoe from season 40 too much especiially that noodly arms. Prairie Dawn- I loved the dress she wore from 1998-2005 it looked so cute on her and I even love the plain turquoise dress she's wearing today. I dislike the Prairie puppet from the 70's her hair was way too messed up.
 

minor muppetz

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I saw something somewhere where Henson said there were always three or four Kermits in existence at one time, I think.
I noticed that in the first season of The Muppet Show there were a few different puppets... Seems like multiples were used even in the same episodes. But there's one particular Kermit puppet used a lot, at least early in the first season, I can't quite pinpoint it, but I don't think I've ever seen that version of the puppet used on Sesame Street.

And the second Old School set listed the "Weather Salesman" sketch as beign from season 7. Before that I expected that sketch to have been from season 3 or 4. I don't know if they were just using an older worn-out-looking puppet in addition to other puppets or if the sketch was actually made earlier and just not broadcast until season 7 or if the people working on the DVD were wrong.
 

MeepMeepBork

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Big Bird
I like the late 80's Big Bird, where his neck is skinnier and his feathers don't look as disheveled.

Ernie
MF: I second 1971 Ernie as my favorite. I like his expression and the shape of his head.
LF: Do the new "Great Adventures" clay-mation figures count? Yuck!

Bert
MF: The first puppet with the movable eyebrow. That was 1971 as well, I do believe?
LF: Again with the clay figures. I do not like Bert and Ernie as clay figures. But in terms of puppets, I am not a fan of the late 90's-early 2000's Bert. His eyes are too close together and look too small for his head.

Elmo
MF: Am I the only one who absolutely loves 80's Shaggy Elmo? I think Shaggy Elmo is just the cutest thing.
LF: Another vote for Combed Down Elmo as least favorite.

Herry
MF: Late 80's, with the slightly shorter purple nose.
LF: Early Furry Blue Nose Herry, in my opinion, was hideous.

Grover
MF: The first puppet officially known as Grover, from 1972-ish.
LF: Aside from first-season green "Fuzzyface", I'm not a fan of Grover circa 2004. I don't mind the bright blue, but the eyes are all wrong.

Kermit
MF: What year is the "Grover the Earmuff Salesman" sketch from? I like the Kermit used in that sketch.
LF: 1969 cross-eyed Kermit. Ew.
 
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