I love seeing early AM inserts: some of those Season 1 inserts, with the out-of-focus eyes that make them look dead were pretty bad, yes, but from Season 2 and throughout the 70s, they're great. There was a particular lavendar AM in the early 70s that had highly visible seams (think Howie the bunny that Cookie Monster ate, or the alphabet alien): I love those inserts where the AMs are semi-blank like that, it brings to mind Kermit Love's mindset that less is more (and I agree), those inserts really put that into perspective.A long and drawn out one for sure. There is indeed nothing to compare them to previously, and everything that can be said is clearly in hindsight. However, that hindsight gives a nice history of how the puppets were perfected over the years. Clearly, classic AM's were sloppier out of necessity because they indeed had to stick the eyes and stuff on for every performance. Plus, first season. So yeah.
For sure, anytime a puppet is too stiff, too heavy, too cumbersome, that's going to affect the overall performance: it's like how the first Gary Gnu puppet on THE GREAT SPACE COASTER had too small a mouth and wasn't very expressive.I still think the one that bugs me is how stiff and inexpressive Gonzo looks. I get the feeling he's not that comfortable for Dave to puppeteer either, leading to stiffness of movement.