When you were little...

[SSLFan]

Okay, lets say when you first started watching SS or whatever, back when you still had no common sense, did you ever wonder why most of the muppets (besides Big Bird, Snuffy, Barkley, etc.), that their upper body was only shown & not their full body? I remember repeadedly asking my mom this question(" Mommy why is everybody 'short' except Big Bird?" [that was my way of asking why the others never appeared in full body, lol]), and she gave me the same response: they're puppets. I still would have no idea what she meant by that until I was around like 5, heh. I think that was one of the advantages of seeing SSL is that you saw everyone & what their bottom half looked like, heh-heh. But anyways, did this kind of annoy anyone?

Espicially if there was a human cast member who would appear on screen, & the camera would then adjust to fit them & thus making someone like Elmo look even smaller!

I guess that was one of my early 'pet peeves' while watching SS as a child. Anyone else?

 

[dwmckim]

I had quite the opposite experience when i was a kid. I was obsessed with Sesame since i was a baby and my parents noticed the odd effect it had on me so i had a lot of merchandise early on including the hand puppets. Every now and then there would be a scene when you might see their feet - Kermit sitting on a wall, Grover often got to show his feet, Bert dancing Doin' the Pigeon...so in my little kid logic mind i figured the puppets i played with in my room were puppets. The Muppets on Sesame Street weren't just puppets - they looked like puppets but they were alive because they had feet instead of ending at the waist...and especially in a scene like Doin the Pigeon which to a little kid totally looked like a puppet full bodied with no puppeteer moving him, that was my proof that a Muppet was a special brand of creature that looked like a puppet but were real, alive beings that could be your friend. The fact that they could do other things that puppets "can't" do like eat cookies, raise their eyebrows, drink through straws and things like that would always solidify this theory of mine!

But when did befuddle/fascinate me was these odd little pieces of string that some of the characters had hanging from their arms. There was just something about those little strings, the fact that Muppets usually had only four fingers (made apparent when they would teach counting using their fingers!) and the shape/design of their hands that made me just intrigued by Muppet hands.

And oh yes, i was also just as intrigued/fascinated by the "hearts" they had in their mouths.

 

[RedPiggy]

LOL ... me too! I also felt Muppets were "real". I grasped what puppets were, but the Muppets were just too cool to be regular puppets. They were most definitely alive.





Heck, I still have that opinion ... LOL ...

 

[animalrescuer]

It's true that Muppets aren't like regular puppets. They had a lot of life and energy more so than other puppets. I guess people love them so much because they're very much like humans, except they're made of rubber foam. We can easily relate to them and have fun with them. Sometimes, we learn what they're learning in the show.

 

[Krazedmuppet]

no never thought about that, but when I was 5 I came to the conclusion that Yoda sounded just like Grover!

 

[JanicesMainDude]

by the time I noticed, I was old enuff to understand, lol..heck, those dudes were my best friends, practically..

 

[minor muppetz]

I always noticed that most Muppets were normally only shown from the waste up, but I didn't really wonder why. I also didn't wonder why the characters were bigger in Sesame Street Live or the openign scene from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. And it took me awhile to notice the arm wires... I noticed them on Bert first, and then I slowly started noticing them on other characters, but I didn't really wonder about those, either.

 

[Fluffets]

I always noticed that most Muppets were normally only shown from the waste up, but I didn't really wonder why. I also didn't wonder why the characters were bigger in Sesame Street Live or the openign scene from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. And it took me awhile to notice the arm wires... I noticed them on Bert first, and then I slowly started noticing them on other characters, but I didn't really wonder about those, either.

Sometimes maybe its best to live in ignorance.

 

[JanicesMainDude]

Sometimes maybe its best to live in ignorance.

it has served me well for 41 years...

 

[ssetta]

It's interesting you bring this up. I actually remember I actually got pretty upset at like age 7 or so when I found out that the Muppets weren't really alive. I just figured they were like a different species or something, but then a friend of mine taught me how someone was moving them from below, and I actually got pretty sad.