Book and Lyrics by Jerry Juhl

[D'Snowth]

I've been both intrigued by and curious about Jerry Juhl's writing credit on some of the earlier Muppet specials, as sometimes, instead of saying "Written by", they say, "Book and Lyrics by".

I can understand the lyrics part, if he wrote the lyrics to the songs that are featured in the specials, but what's up with the book part? Were there supposed to be storybook adaptations of those specials that he wrote as well? Otherwise, I know that most of the specials themselves were Muppet adaptations of already-existing stories, and I doubt Jerry was the one who wrote said stories.

 

[Oscarfan]

"Book" tends to be the script itself.

 

[Collgoff]

I never heard that before!

 

[D'Snowth]

Neither have I. Screenplay/teleplay, perhaps, but not "book" in regards to the script.

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

That phrase typically pertains to musical theater or musical film. It just means script/blocking/so on and so forth.

(On a side note, I just wanted to say that Jerry Juhl is one of the guys in the Henson Company that doesn't get enough love. That guy was a pure genius and a bad pun writing machine.)

 

[D'Snowth]

I don't know about Jerry Juhl not getting enough love... maybe as far as the general public goes, but in the Muppet fandom, he's certainly very celebrated, because you have to admit, his feat is impressive, nearly writing or co-writing almost every Muppet/Henson production from his induction into the company, up until the time of MFS... for that many stories and ideas to come from just one mind, that's nothing to sneeze at! It certainly is a gift, I admired it. My jaw has dropped at some people's WIPs, I remember one time a fews ago, a friend of mine had outlines for like 20+ different stories she was working on... at the same time, which blew my mind.

But yeah, Jerry certainly gets a lot of well-deserved respect from us Muppet Freaks, maybe not quite to the extent of, say, Jim, or Frank, but he certainly gets it. Same with others, like Don Sahlin, Kermit Love, et al.

 

[Hubert]

I feel like, though, we're really losing the love for Jerry. No offense to anyone here, but it seems like more recently Jerry has been getting forgotten. I mean, Jerry Juhl Day, the day that was established to be silly on his birthday, seemed to be completely forgotten on MC to the point where I had to mention it two days late, and even that only got about three people who even seemed to give a care.