Muppets

A show I worked on in New York for two years sublet office space in Lincoln Center from Children’s Television Workshop. Sesame Street, in other words. The office space included the in-house feed from the studios where the master tenant’s show taped, including a live channel from the old Reeve’s studio down on 52^nd street, where the Muppets segments were produced. So I watched hours of work by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and a couple of times went down to Reeves myself to hang around. 

It is a shame that everybody forever won’t know what a treasure Sesame Street was. TV was just moving past black & white on 14 inch screens, Programming for kids was Captain Kangaroo and Romper Room. Sesame Street, on PBS every day, added production flash, writing, talent, intelligence. And the Muppets did that thing where the grownups could watch and enjoy along with a five year old, including mine. Best TV show for kids, best babysitter, best thing PBS ever did. 

So sleeping on a borrowed couch 3000 miles from home and working at the edge of TV disaster on my show, the Muppets were a distraction and a joy. I jacked a Umatic tape deck into the feed and recorded hours of puppet work, including long arguments, discussions, rewrites, and retakes. Wish I had even one of those tapes now. 

And the Reeves studio? Real life with human people occupied the first maybe six feet. Above that was a paper and cloth made-up world, puppets on human hands held over the humans’ heads, dialogue spoken into microphones attached to them. Down in the world were wires, paper scripts, tables of food, floor directors, monitors showing the magic above. The honest to god men and women who created and were Kermit and Ernie and Ms. Piggy and Cookie Monster, laughing, working. 

I briefly had a job being a magic frog on TV, back at the CBS station in Chicago. I lay on my back watching a monitor that showed my froggy hand up in the frame. I don’t know if the character failed or I did, but the part ended after, I think, three weeks. Three Saturday mornings of some kind of hand puppet fame on live TV.  So, at least there was that.  

But mostly, like the New York show — and virtually all the rest — my work was serious stuff, a long way from fun. Way at the end of things I worked on a show for Jose Andres about Spanish food and culture. Just  Andres having fun in a world he loved, and me having fun doing it.  

If I had it all to do again, and if I possibly could, I’d include a lot more puppets.

— Mariposa

March 2026