Fat Blue and Sam the Soundman

[SesameKermie]

Perhaps I'm mixing things up, but are Fat Blue and Sam the Soundman the same puppet? My fuzzy memory says they look the same, but I could be wrong.

Also, Did they both do 'restaurant' sketches with Grover?

Thanks for your help,

Jason

 

[minor muppetz]

Simon Soundman

Actually, the characters name is Simon Soundman, not sam the Soundman. and yes, I think they are the same puppet. many humanoid muppets on Sesame Street were used from puppets called Anything Muppets, which are basically blank-faced puppets who have facial features and clothing added to make a character. This is not only done for one-shot characters, but also regular ones. The few exceptions of humanoid muppets who are not made from Anything Muppets are Ernie (i think.... there have been some orange characters, like the old man at the laundry mat in Elmo In Grouchland or the King in Cinderelmo, who have heads shaped like ernies head), Bert (although some of his body parts, like his nose, have come off), kingston livingston III (i think) and bruno.

You may have noticed that most muppet humans of cartain colors normally have the same head shape. all blue muppets have round heads, all green muppets have pointy heads, all orange muppets have tall heads, and so on. I think that many of the anything muppet patterns have been duplicated, since many of the same types of anything muppets have been seen in the same shot before (for example, Chris and Big Jeffy, both blue anything muppets, were seen together in the song Go, Baby, Go, and The Count and Mumford can both be seen in the same shots in crowd scenes in bot Sesame Street: 20 and still Counting and Cinderelmo). I am not sure if any characters were eventually rebuilt as a permaneant puppet.

There have also been some scenes with ore of the same type of anything muppets that were not regular characters. In the song The Ten Commandments of health, the green anything muppet was used for bot Dr. Thad and one of the background singers. There are also examples where multiple copies of the same anything muppet are used for bot regular and non-regular characters. In the song telephone Rock, the green muppet is used for Little Jerry and the Operador, while the purple one is used for Rockin' Richard and the Cop.

here is a listing of the various types of anything muppets, and which characters are used from them:
blue anything muppets: fat blue, simon soundman, proffessor hastings, ferlingetti donnizetti (has live hands, though), big jeffy, hard head henry harris, and chris.
green anything muppets: sherlock hemlock, lefty the salesman, farley, little jerry, clementine,and one of the alphabeats.
skinny lavendar anything muppets: herbert birdsfoot, rockin' richard, smart tina, polly darton, and one of the alphabeats.
fatter purple anything muppets: the count, the amazing mumford, biff, rodeo rosie, and forgetful jones.
orange anything muppets: sully, chrissy, and dr. feel.
yellow anything muppets: guy smiley, prince charming, don music, vicnent twice vincent twice (has live hands), and monty (has live hands). (note: I think that guy smily might be a permaneant puppet, with facial features added to make other characters. don music looks like he could have been guy smiley with a wig and glasses, although don and guy have both been seen togetehr before. I have seen some bald muppets from this anythiing muppet design, but those ones had live hands).
small muppets: there are many small ones, that are usually pink, purple, and orange. these are used for characters such as rosevelt franklin, prarie dawn, andbetty lou.

Finally, to answer your other question, yes, they both appeared as grovers customers. fat Blue was a regular customer, and Sion Soundman appeared as a customer once.

 

[The Count]

A couple of corrections to what MinorMuppets said.

1 Rockin' Richard is the tall orange type of AM, and Chrissy is the small skinny lavender type. Not the other way around as posted above.
2 "Fat Blue" is the term for the type of Anything Muppet this character is made of. His real name is Mr. Johnson and differs from Simon the Sounds Man by the hair color. Mr. Johnson has brown hair and mustache, Simon the Sounds Man has black hair and mustache.
Also, there's another AM used from the "fat blue" type that has wilder black hair and eyebrows and mustache, who appeared in one of Harvey Kneeslapper's sketches.

Hope this helps.

 

[minor muppetz]

Rockin' Richard is the tall orange type of AM, and Chrissy is the small skinny lavender type. Not the other way around as posted above.

I thought it was the other way around. The only song with Little jerry and the Monotones that I have access to is Telephone Rock. When the Monotones pop up and start going ""Yeah!", the purple one sounds like a Richard hunt character. It is hard to hear the voice for the orange one, but he probably has the same voice as all of Christopher Cerfs other characters. The only way that chrissy could be the lavendar one and Rockin' Richard could be the orange one would be if either Richard Hunt and Christopher Cerf didn't perform the ones with their names, or if the puppeteers used the wrong puppets for the audio tracks.

 

[The Count]

Well... Don't have access to Telephone Rock or any other Little Jerry song in the few episodes I have on VCD. Might get something in some other deals I got going...
But then again, even if I did get something I wouldn't be the best person to ask regarding visuals given my blind batty eyes.

You can contact muppet_dk about this though. But he'll probably say the same thing.
The reason the members of Little Jerry and the Monotones have the names they have is due to their performers names matching up. On the one song I have on an album I researched to check the names...

Little Jerry, voiced by Jerry Nelson.
Big Jeffy, voiced by Jeffrey Moss.
Rockin' Richard, voiced by Richard Hunt.
Chrissy, voiced by Christopher Cerf.

Little Jerry, the pointy-headed green AM with wild shaggy orange hair.
Big Jeffy, the fat blue AM with shaggy brown beard and top hat.
Rockin' Richard, the tall orange AM with a mop of black hair on top.
Chrissy, the lavender AM with a small pink nose.
Hope this helps and have a good day.

 

[SesameKermie]

Anything Muppets

Thanks for clearing that up! I had noticed that certain characters looked similar, but it never clicked that that was how they did it. It makes sense because it would be horribly impractical to build unique puppets for a once-off part. How were the various parts attached? Were they velcro?

Thanks,

Jason

P.S. Does the green Anything Muppet resemble Kermit's head shape?

 

[The Count]

Not rully. Think more of like Sherlock Hemlock or Farley's head. It's sort of like a green pinecone.

 

[minor muppetz]

Does the green Anything Muppet resemble Kermit's head shape?

well, it is pointy, but the fact that the green head is pointy isn't very obvious unless the anything muppet is bald. If you have access to the song Fat cat (which is on the videos Getting ready To Read and Bert And Ernies Word Play, you can see a bald green anything muppet. I hear there is also a bald green anything muppet in the song Everyone Likes Ice cream.

 

[minor muppetz]

blue muppets

there are many other blue muppets who look like fat blue and simon soundman. quite a few characters are blue, have round heads, have hair around the back of their heads, have eyebrows and have mustaches, but the hair, eyebrows and mustaches are normally different colors.

besides the differences that The Count mentioned, simon soundman has a bigger nose and wears a small hat while fat blue doesn't.

other characters who look similar are Proffessor hastings (he has white hair and a green nose), Ferlingetti Donnizetti (he wears glasses, has a goatee, and I think he has beady eyes), some of harvey Kneeslappers victimes (one has black hair, but the other one looks like it could be fat Blue in a sweater), the patient from The Ten Commandments of Health (the only difference in appearance between the patient and fat blue is that he has a bigger nose), and the doctor in a sketch where Ernie has a doctor come over to check on Bert.

fat Blue has had quite a few names. Fat Blue is the name listed for him in the book Sesame Street Unpaved, he was called mr. johnson in one sketch, he was called fred in another sketch, and in A Celebration of me, grover!, Big Bird referred to him by the name Mr. Blue (although the credits referred to him as fat blue customer).

I have a theory on these names. Perhaps his name is really Fred Johnson but his nickname is fat Blue (or Fred "fat blue" Johnson, or "fat blue" johnson). perhaps when he was at the flyers club roost (in a celebration of me, grover!) Big Bird heard somebody refer to him by his nickname and assumed that Blue was his last name, with Fat being his first. Or maybe he got his last name legally changed to Blue.

 

[The Count]

All good theories. If "Fat Blue Customer" is how he appeared in the credits of A Celebration of Me, Grover then I'll talk about that with MuppetDude when he gets back from summer vacation and we start up the Season 36 Character Questions thread again with the new episodes of SS.

But for now, he'll stay listed as Mr. Johnson, since that was the name he acquiesced to at the end of the sketch where Grover was a singing telegram messenger and kept delivering the wrong message till the last one addressed to Mr. Johnson.
And I think his full name was Fred Johnson in that sketch, but since I don't have it... Again, it'd have to wait till MuppetDude gets back.