Jerry Nelson the "Mel Blanc" of the muppets?

[ferrell]

I've been watching a bunch of jim henson stuff,sesame street,the muppets,fraggle rock etc and it seems that jerry nelson has done more voices than any one else.richard hunt comes in second,the cool thing about jerry Nelson is that his characters sound different from one another although some are similar,so who else thinks that Jerry Nelson is the "mel blanc" of the muppets?

 

[MelissaY1]

Jerry Nelson is amazing....

 

[CBPuppets]

I thought so too. Jerry Nelson's Voice is heard more times then any other performer. but Jim Henson was kinda like that back in the 50's and 60's before Jerry actively voiced for the muppets.

 

[D'Snowth]

Hmm, yeah, Jerry Nelson does A LOT of Muppet voices, but I'm not sure if he's the "Mel Blanc" of Muppets... Mel Blanc was "A Man of a Thousand Voices", and after a while, Jerry's voices all start to sound a little similar, as does Jim's, Frank's, and even Kevin's.

Now as for Steve Whitmire, that's a different story in my opinion...

 

[wwfpooh]

Well, we all know Jim is the father of all Muppetdom, Frank is his right hand man, and Jerry the man of a thousand voices, whilst Steve is the young buck of the bunch.

 

[Fragglemuppet]

Oh, I don't know... Certainly what you said about Jim being the father of all muppets and Frank being his right hand man is true, but more because it was them who started the muppets. Both of them were very good with voices, (I still marvel whenever I hear Miss Piggy!) And yes, even when Steve's 92, he'll still be "the young buck of the bunch," and even though I love him as we all do, he just doesn't seem to have the vocal flexibility of Jerry, if that makes sense.
I was kind of surprised though when you said Richard was second, (I might have said Jim), but on second thought, it probably is Richard.

So in short, they're all good, but I would definately agree that Jerry Nelson might just be called, "the muppetman of a thousand voices"! Heck, at one point while watching MTI, I actually felt sorry fer the guy, he was working so hard!

 

[Skye]

This is a very cool comparison!

Sometimes when I've been watching a Muppet-related thing, there would be a character who, even when I would listen and watch so hard, I still wouldn't be able to tell for the life of me who was performing the character. Later, when I would look it up, it always turned out to be Jerry who performed the character.

Jerry has so many interesting and unique voices. He blows me away! As with many of the other Muppeteers, he does have some characters who sound similar, but I also think he is one the most versatile performers I've ever seen. He's so fun to listen to!

 

[CensoredAlso]

I can't remember where it was, but I distinctly recall an article that referred to Jerry as the "Mel Blanc" of the group. I'm not sure it was necessarily because all his voices were different. But the fact that he could be relied upon to do a variety of characters (particuarly since he didn't have a "main" character on the Muppet Show).

I hesitate to ponder who had the most vocal flexibility. I think with many groups of that kind, the perfomers tend to get stuck with, or identified with one or two different character types, becaues they do them so well. As a result, they don't always get a chance to show that they can do anything else. I feel like we didn't get to hear too much of Steve's versatility in his early years with the Muppets. As he said in the Season 1 DVD when he was working on Wembley voice, "I don't know Jim, it sounds just like everything else I'm doing." But you can actually hear a couple different vocal types from him on Fraggle Rock (particularly with the Doozers).

Also, Richard Hunt clearly preferred playing loud, crazy, assertive characters. But that doesn't mean he was incapable of playing quieter characters (obviously Scooter isn't particularly loud and crazy. Same with Belmont from The Christmas Toy). When I first heard the the very sweet and calm "Let it Fly" song the Spider fly sings in Fraggle Rock, I didn't realize it was Richard until I looked it up.

 

[anytimepally]

if I can't tell right away which muppeteer is performing a voice, I always assume it's Jerry

 

[wwfpooh]

But for the most part, one can usually tell if one is doing a voice, considering that--as Steve noted--some of the characters sound the same.