minor muppetz
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With Muppet Wiki having complete guides past season 20 (and I'm not really sure whether a few particular episodes are complete as aired in the states, but at least episode 2806 has a guide now), I've decided to look at the various Muppet Wiki sketch guides and determine how often Frank Oz performed in seasons 20 and beyond. I was going to do all of Frank's work from seasons 20-43, but after season 30 it seems a little tricky, even with a "return performances by Frank Oz" page. I was going to use that as my reference to how many he did per season, but it seems to just list all Letter of the Day and Muppet/kid moments together as one. It also says that Jacobson started performing Bert and Grover that season but doesn't really list any of Oz's performances that year, and I'm pretty sure Oz did perform his characters in all of the new sketches they appeared in.
Of course this is just going by the number of sketches he did each year. I don't know how many days he actually spent on the Sesame Street set, don't know how often he just did his characters voices (if that.... though the Wiki notes that Oz just dubbed Cookie's voice in a season 30 episode). There might be some things I'm overlooking, and as I was counting I might have miscounted or been off (there were times when I was wondering if I was remembering the current number right). Since he rarely did other characters besides Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover that decade, I could primarily look at all the appropriate sketch guide pages for those characters. I have counted each individual installment of a multi-part sketch, and didn't really count variants of sketches. So I didn't count Monsterpiece Theater segments with re-shot Alistair Cookie scenes (they were probably all re-shot in season 23... and currently I only know that four segments had this treatment), or the celebrity version of Monster in the Mirror (which does have a new shot of Grover, not sure if that part was shot in season 21 or 22, and since Grover is silent there, it's possible somebody else performed him there), or both endings of "please take a number, sir!" I also can't remember if I counted AlphaQuest: S (nor can I remember if Grover talks there), I did count Adventure with En Vogue, even though I don't think Grover talks there (but I didn't count the "GO!" segment edited from this), and I counted Tito Puente's "El Timbalo" - even though Frank's characters don't get their own dialogue, they can all clearly be heard among the crowd.
But now, the numbers....
So it looks like at the end of the 1980s, Oz was doing around 16 segments a year (in An Evening with Jim Henson and Frank Oz, he pointed out that he hadn't done much Sesame Street in the past year, so this is more than I really expected - I can't wait until the season 18-19 guides are complete so I can see if there's significantly more, less, or around the same as season 20 (though the wiki probably notes the first appearances of all Oz's sketches in those seasons already). He seems to really pick up in season 24 and then more in season 25, doing around 20-30 segments a season from seasons 24-29 (except for season 26). I was a bit surprised by this, I would have thought he'd have done more in seasons 22-24 than 25-29. I had thought Frank did a bit more in season 22 to pick up the slack from the loss of Jim Henson, and also thought he did some solo Bert segments that year, it looks like he didn't do any solo Bert bits in season 22 (and the segments I thought came from this season came later). And I remember, either in a Toughpigs forum post or a Facebook post after the Toughpigs article on season 24, somebody thought that was the last year when Frank was heavily available (and it looks like it is the only time in the '90s that he performed other characters on Sesame Street beyond Cookie, Bert, and Grover), so I was surprised to see that he actually did do quite a bit in some of the seasons after.
I'll have to try to do some research later to determine all of his post-season 30 performances. After all of the season 14-19 guides are completed I'll have to research and see how many segments a year he did in those, see if there was a big drop or increase (though again, I think all of the sketch guides list all of the firsts from that period). Maybe I could try to see how many segments he did in seasons 10, 11, 12, and 13. It'd probably be too much work to determine how many segments he did in the 1970s.
And I just counted and noted the number of sketches per season, I might show my work later by listing all his segments from the seasons.
Of course this is just going by the number of sketches he did each year. I don't know how many days he actually spent on the Sesame Street set, don't know how often he just did his characters voices (if that.... though the Wiki notes that Oz just dubbed Cookie's voice in a season 30 episode). There might be some things I'm overlooking, and as I was counting I might have miscounted or been off (there were times when I was wondering if I was remembering the current number right). Since he rarely did other characters besides Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover that decade, I could primarily look at all the appropriate sketch guide pages for those characters. I have counted each individual installment of a multi-part sketch, and didn't really count variants of sketches. So I didn't count Monsterpiece Theater segments with re-shot Alistair Cookie scenes (they were probably all re-shot in season 23... and currently I only know that four segments had this treatment), or the celebrity version of Monster in the Mirror (which does have a new shot of Grover, not sure if that part was shot in season 21 or 22, and since Grover is silent there, it's possible somebody else performed him there), or both endings of "please take a number, sir!" I also can't remember if I counted AlphaQuest: S (nor can I remember if Grover talks there), I did count Adventure with En Vogue, even though I don't think Grover talks there (but I didn't count the "GO!" segment edited from this), and I counted Tito Puente's "El Timbalo" - even though Frank's characters don't get their own dialogue, they can all clearly be heard among the crowd.
But now, the numbers....
- Season 20 - 16
- Season 21 - 14
- Season 22 - 9
- Season 23 - 13
- Season 24 - 20
- Season 25 - 31
- Season 26 - 4 (though all are clearly holdovers from season 25.... so 0 here and 35 in season 25)
- Season 27 - 21
- Season 28 - 29
- Season 29 - 20
- Season 30 - 10
So it looks like at the end of the 1980s, Oz was doing around 16 segments a year (in An Evening with Jim Henson and Frank Oz, he pointed out that he hadn't done much Sesame Street in the past year, so this is more than I really expected - I can't wait until the season 18-19 guides are complete so I can see if there's significantly more, less, or around the same as season 20 (though the wiki probably notes the first appearances of all Oz's sketches in those seasons already). He seems to really pick up in season 24 and then more in season 25, doing around 20-30 segments a season from seasons 24-29 (except for season 26). I was a bit surprised by this, I would have thought he'd have done more in seasons 22-24 than 25-29. I had thought Frank did a bit more in season 22 to pick up the slack from the loss of Jim Henson, and also thought he did some solo Bert segments that year, it looks like he didn't do any solo Bert bits in season 22 (and the segments I thought came from this season came later). And I remember, either in a Toughpigs forum post or a Facebook post after the Toughpigs article on season 24, somebody thought that was the last year when Frank was heavily available (and it looks like it is the only time in the '90s that he performed other characters on Sesame Street beyond Cookie, Bert, and Grover), so I was surprised to see that he actually did do quite a bit in some of the seasons after.
I'll have to try to do some research later to determine all of his post-season 30 performances. After all of the season 14-19 guides are completed I'll have to research and see how many segments a year he did in those, see if there was a big drop or increase (though again, I think all of the sketch guides list all of the firsts from that period). Maybe I could try to see how many segments he did in seasons 10, 11, 12, and 13. It'd probably be too much work to determine how many segments he did in the 1970s.
And I just counted and noted the number of sketches per season, I might show my work later by listing all his segments from the seasons.